If you looking to start freelancing as a side hustle or even considering making it your career, then I am sure you will love my article! If you are ready to learn more about finding freelance jobs for beginners, just keep reading!

What is a Freelancer and Freelancing?

The easy definition of a freelancer is someone who is self-employed and isn’t committed to a particular employer. Basically, you offer a service to a number of different employers for varying amounts of time and they pay you for your freelancing services.

What are the Pros and Cons of Freelancing

Pros of Freelancing

Here are the pros of working as a freelancer:

1. Flexible working hours – Yes, work around your commitments or travel.
2. Good work-life balance – With flexible hours you can take breaks whenever you want.
3. Control over your workload – You can be selective with jobs you choose to do.
4. Clients all over the world – As the majority of freelance work is done online, you can work with people from all over the world. Be prepared that you may need to be up at ungodly hours sometimes.
5. Potential to make a lot of money – This is what it’s all about! The amount of money you can earn is limitless.

Cons of Freelancing

Here are the cons of working as a freelancer:

1. Working ungodly hours – that is if you have clients all over the world who want to zoom you – or are teaching.
2. Keeping up with tax – Complying with and Filling out tax can be confusing – find yourself an accountant – that’s another freelancing job if you have the skills!
3. Unstable income – You might have to deal with late payments, this is why working on a platform such as Fiverr has advantages as they collect the payments for you.
4. Distractions at home – Yes, it can be, particularly if you have kids, are working in a co-working space or being distracted by the TV.
5. Freelance work is competitive – Plenty of people will be applying for the best gigs so you will need to stand out – ensure you have a good profile.
6. Working on your own – As most of your work will be done at home, it can get lonely. Look for freelancing groups on social media sites like Facebook or if you want to travel there are co-working spaces available where you can work with other freelancers and digital nomads..

How Much Money can You Make as a Freelancer

In the freelance world, there are two ways of getting paid – by the hour, or with a fixed fee for each project. This will also be influenced on how you find your jobs and if you use a platform – see following. This is why many start freelancing as a side hustle rather than jumping straight in to being a full-time freelancer. By starting your freelance career as a side hustle will enable you to set everything up and see how much money you can generate. Basically, it can vary how much money you can make as a freelancer. If I could give you the golden rules, I would, unfortunately, it can take a lot of hard work before you start making decent money. Stay positive and keep networking and I am sure it will happen!

How to Become a Freelancer

Becoming a freelancer sounds easy enough. You throw in your full-time job, register yourself as a business, offer services to different employers and they jump at the chance to offer you work. Well, it isn’t always that easy! Don’t be disappointed, everyone has to start somewhere. What I suggest, from my research, start you freelance job as a side hustle, build up clientele and then resign when you are earning enough to cover all your costs and expenses.

What are the Best Freelance Jobs for Beginners

If you don’t have any skills but are keen to become a freelancer there are some great freelance jobs for beginners. Well, these are the ones I feel are the best online freelance jobs for beginners and the platforms to use to find them. Before I give you my list of best freelance jobs ask yourself a few things? Can you write? What about read? Can you type? Have you used spreadsheets such as Excel? Are you good at social media? Well then, you may have thought you don’t have any skills, but if you answered yes to any of these questions, then you just might surprise yourself when becoming a freelancer.

Here is the list of the best freelance jobs for beginners – in my opinion

• Content Writing
• Editing and Proofreading
• Data Entry
• Web Researching
• Teach online
• Social Media Marketing
• Transcription

Content Writing

If you enjoy writing as I do, this is on of the best online freelance jobs for beginners. You can earn money writing content for individuals like other bloggers and for companies. Pay can be low, particularly at first, but once you have proven yourself, you can increase your rates. Types of content you will write are blog posts, content for websites, product reviews and articles ranging from beauty to travel and everything else in between. So if you have an interest such as travel I would suggest you offer content for that topic first. Definitely write about what you know! This was my first freelance gig, writing travel articles and I am making a steady income from it.

Editing and Proofreading

If you like to read and notice mistakes in what you are reading, or are a person who likes correcting other people’s work, this is the best online freelance job for you! Yep, editing and proofreading. There are plenty of individuals and organisations who want to ensure there are no mistakes in their content before it is released. You could find yourself proofreading and editing articles, resumes, books and financial reports to name a few.

There is a different between editing and proofreading. Proofreading is where you read an article looking for incorrect punctuation and misspellings and advise the writer of these. Editing is where you fix the errors and correct issues like sentence construction. Editing should improve the clarity and readability of the text.  Some new freelancers will offer one or both of these services.

Data Entry

Did you say yes to the question – can you type? Well then you probably could do data entry. And bonus points if you can use spreadsheets such as Excel? Doing data entry online or in an office is a great starting point as a freelancer. The pay is not usually high at first and the work can be very monotonous but if you don’t mind it, then this is a great freelance job for beginners. Who knows where it could lead you. New York, London, Paris, etc. etc. Many digital nomads do data entry online as it funds their location independent lifestyle. And it could fund yours too!

Web Researching

If you are like me, always searching for information on Google, then doing web research is a great entry level freelancer job. Clients are usually looking for entry-level people because they can pay you low rates. However, depending on the complexities of the research you can start charging higher rates. One of the first web researching job I was offered was to visit websites to find the contact email and put this email along with other information into a spreadsheet. Boring and laborious work, but hey, it pays the bills for my chosen location independent life.

Teach Online

Teaching online is one of the most popular online freelance jobs nowadays! There are so many possibilities out there! Just look for the perfect one for you! If you’ve never taught before, don’t worry, many on the Internet haven’t. What they do have are skills they can offer. This can be teaching someone SEO, how to put make-up, travel hacks or Teaching English.

Social Media Marketing

If you’re a wiz on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter or even Pinterest, you could offer social media marketing to small businesses. Everyone wants their network to grow to get their name out there and to make sales. If you have the skills why not try this, it is a great freelance job for beginners.

Transcription

Do you remember I asked you whether you could type? Well if you can transcription work might be the freelance job for you. But what is Transcription Work? Transcription work is when you transcribe video and audio files into text. A lot of lawyers and doctors like to record their thoughts or interviews or medical notes or meetings. These then need to be to transcribed into text. You will need a good typing speed and maybe some equipment and the more you type the more you will earn.

Where to Look for Freelance Jobs for Beginners?

So now you know which jobs are good for starting your freelance life. The next step is to choose where to look for a job! The Internet has many platforms for freelancers where you can look for your first online job. I personally started on Fiverr. Each platform is different in how they work. Most let you create a profile to advertise your services while others let you apply for a job. Each have their own fee schedule so ensure you understand what percentage these platforms charge for introducing you to clients. I like Fiverr because they take care of payment which is usually paid by wire transfer or PayPal. So I don’t have to do any invoicing. Here is my list of best freelance platforms.

• Upwork
• Fiverr (read my review on Fiverr – how to make money on Fiverr)
• Freelancer
• Guru
• LinkedIn
• People Per Hour
• FlexJobs
• 99designs
• Indeed
• Hubstaff Talent

Equipment Required to be a Freelancer or Digital Nomad

To start as a freelancer working online you will need equipment that is appropriate to your side gig. You will definitely need a computer or laptop, power bank, power adaptors and ergonomic equipment. You will need extra equipment if you are moving around living the location independent lifestyle as a digital nomad.

So When Do You Start Your Freelance Career?

All of these platforms are very good. I suggest you visit each and decide which one or a number of them suit you. And then go for it. I so hope I have helped to convince you to consider becoming a freelancer. Beginnings can be hard but I hope you start your freelance career and become a full-time freelancer. Which job will you choose? I’d love to hear in the comments. And if you have found another useful platform I’d love to hear about that too.