5 Tips For New Freelancers In 2025

The freelance landscape has changed a lot since I started in 2019.

I started freelance writing on Fiverr, and while it was competitive at the time, that’s a major understatement now.

With the boom in freelancing over the past 5 years combined with the influx of AI tools, what worked then doesn’t necessarily work now.

But don’t worry, I’m not going to talk about “freelancing in the AI landscape,” and I won’t just keep it to freelance writing.

Instead, I’m going to give you 5 actionable tips that’ll help you get your freelancing career off the ground: no matter who you are or what kind of freelancing you plan to do.

Let’s get started.

1. Give Yourself Some Runway

Starting with what I think is arguably the most important practical tip for any career change, never mind starting a freelancing career, you need to give yourself runway in case things don’t work out.

This discussion could be its own article, and it likely will. But for now, it’s just important to understand that no matter why you’re starting freelancing, whether it’s:

• Alongside your studies at uni like me
• You’re quitting your 9-5
• You just want to supplement your current income.

You should make sure you have financial runway for at least a few months, but ideally more. I’m not giving financial advice here and everyone’s situation is different, but freelancing is unlikely to replace your income overnight.

It’s unlikely to replace it within a week or a month. And if you’re starting completely from scratch without any prior experience or work samples to show clients, it could take many months to gain enough traction to either meaningfully supplement or fully replace your current income.

And when you do start making money, it can look a lot like this:

i.e., inconsistent.

Now, runway doesn’t need to be 6-12 months of earnings in a savings account.

It could just mean not quitting your job until your freelancing career looks to be taking off. Or it could be working a part time job alongside your freelancing efforts—this is what I did.

But don’t just jump in blindly and expect it to work.

Have something else on the side to tide you over until it does (hopefully) work. Or go the savings route and build up enough financial runway for (insert time period appropriate to your circumstances here) and be prepared to find a job or other source of income if that starts running low.

2. Think Beyond “Do Something You Love”

People always say you should find something you love and make a career out of it. Or something to that effect.

But I think the opposite can be and often is true. While yes I enjoyed writing and editing, I didn’t really know what I’d enjoy writing about or what kind of content I’d like to edit when I first started.

At the time, I was still at uni. So a lot of my early freelancing gigs focused on educational content and in particular science (my degree was in chemistry).

But fast forward to when I moved off the Fiverr platform, and I started writing and eventually editing for a motorsport website. My dad has always loved Formula 1 and rally and all things racing, but I was never into it.

Until I started writing about it all day long.

I became a massive F1 fan, dedicated to not only watching every race but writing the best content possible about the sport.

I found something I loved through freelancing. Which then meant my freelance work became more enjoyable.

Fast forward again and I’ve been lucky enough to write for sites like Backlinko and edit content on the Semrush blog.

Would I have ever thought I’d be doing that when I first started?

No chance.

But in writing and editing the motorsport content, along with all my other client work, I fell in love with SEO and how I could optimize content for users and Google. This meant that working as a freelancer for Semrush was the perfect opportunity.

An opportunity that 2019 me would never have thought was possible.

I’d have expected to be writing articles about chemistry and working exclusively with science blogs. Not a bad thing of course, but not at all where my freelancing career took me, despite that being “what I loved” back then.

So, don’t just think you need to start freelancing doing something you love. Just pick something you’re good at, that you believe you can sell as a service to someone, and be open minded about the work you take on. You might just find a new passion like I did.

On the topic of being open minded…

3. Say Yes To Every (Good) Opportunity

I don’t just mean every freelancing gig, and I don’t just mean waiting to be asked to do things.

Instead, when you find a client you enjoy working with, think about how else you could help them achieve their goals. This sounds pretty cheesy I know, but when you frame it like this, it’s a lot easier for them to get on board.

What you’re actually doing is finding ways to create a win win situation:

They get closer to their goals

AND

You learn new skills (and maybe even earn some extra money too)

For example:

• If you’re writing content for a client, could you also edit for them? Or create visuals for the posts?
• If you’re a video editor, could you also help them develop scripts for new content?
• If you design logos or other graphics for a brand, could you offer to help with the design of their website?

Let’s go back to the motorsport client I told you about earlier.

I started as a freelance writer, but eventually I was doing a lot more. The journey looked something like this:

1. I wrote the articles, and suggested I could also edit some of the other writers’ posts (to save him time)
2. I edited all the content, and suggested I could also handle the keyword research (to help him scale content production)
3. I did keyword research, and found areas of our old posts we could better optimize (to help him drive more revenue from existing content)

I was eventually doing so much of the content work that I was an integral part of the team. I was helping grow the website AND the business.

This is key: anything “extra” you offer needs to help the client in some way. You need to add value.

But once you do this, you’ll become an indispensable part of their team. You’ll also build new skills and gain experience (and potentially testimonials or referrals) you can use to get more clients.

Bonus: It’s also a way to negotiate a higher rate with them if you can add real value to their operations.

I steadily increased my rate with that client as I took more on. I even moved from getting paid per word as a writer to getting paid an hourly rate to cover the editing, keyword research, and other optimization tasks I was doing, which suited me a lot better at the time.

I still do this with every client I work with, even as I’ve grown as a freelancer. So while this is a tip for beginners, it’s something you can continue applying long into the future for even more gains.

4. Build Some Sort Of Online Presence

Whether you like it or not, you’re going to need an online presence of some sort if you want to find freelancing clients.

They need a way to verify that you’re a real person for one thing. But clients also just want to be able to try before they buy. They want to make sure you have samples of work that are in line with what they need from you.

But it doesn’t have to be a website.

If you’re looking to become a freelance writer, it could be:

• A Medium profile, where you share stories of any kind to show off your skills without needing prior clients

• A Google doc you share with clients that has links to past samples (or even contains samples itself, making use of the tabs feature to keep things organized)
• You could even just share content and posts on LinkedIn
• And there are free platforms like Contently

If you’re a photographer, your Instagram page can be your portfolio. Obviously Instagram’s compression systems can reduce the image quality, but it’s a simple and free way to share samples of your work.

Plus, if you get started on a freelancing platform like Fiverr or Upwork, as you get clients, your profile on these sites can act as your portfolio.

The same goes for creative freelancers, as sites like Dribbble let you effectively use your profile page as your portfolio.

So you don’t need a website to get started as a freelancer. But creating one can serve as an excellent, professional way to make a great impression with potential clients.

It’s unlikely that you’ll start appearing on page one of Google right away. But having a link to a fully customized website can go a long way to show clients that you’re the real deal.

Further reading: Check out our guide to the best website builders for freelancers for info on how you can get started.

5. Choose Your Sources Of Advice Wisely

Yes, that includes me.

I started freelancing in 2019, before Covid and before ChatGPT.

That means my experience as a beginner freelance writer is going to be very different to those starting their journey now.

But the same applies to those that started in 2010, when the internet looked very different. Or who started in 2000, when the internet was still in its infancy.

How can we all provide useful advice for anyone just starting a freelancing career today?

The thing is: we can’t.

We can’t all provide perfectly usable advice for everyone. That’s why you need to expose yourself to freelancers of all kinds from all backgrounds and experience levels.

One of my guiding philosophies in business (and life in general) is that the best person to learn from is the person on the rung above you on the ladder, not the person at the top.

It’s not the multimillionaire that started when they were 16 and now runs 4 businesses at age 46. You can learn a lot from them for sure, but you’re not going to learn:

• The pitching techniques that work for freelance clients today (they probably haven’t pitched a client in years)
• Which freelancing platforms to use and which to avoid (they likely never used one)
• How to actually make your first $10K (it’s been 30 years since they did that)

What you might learn from them:

• How to outsource your work effectively
• How to manage the business side of things as you scale
• How to go from $10K per month to $100K per month

Are these useful when you’re looking to make your first $500 as a freelancer?

Nope.

Are they exciting?

Hell yeah.

That’s why we often look to these people for motivation. But they’re not always the ones we should look to for actionable guidance.

I am very qualified to tell you how to take your freelancing career from a few hundred dollars per month to a few thousand.

Why? Because I have done that myself within the past 5 years.

But from 0-$500? I probably was the right person a few years ago, but the landscape at that level has shifted so dramatically since then.

For example, I’d have told you to go on Fiverr, create 7 gigs, and take on everything you could to grow your skills, connections, and confidence.

But now the platform is flooded with competition and AI, that I doubt it’s the best place to start these days.

I can share guidance for getting started and generally applicable tips and tricks for those at the very beginning of their journey. But platform specifics are probably not my forte anymore.

It goes the other way too. I can provide actionable advice to take you from $500 to $5,000 per month.

But to go from $5,000 to $50,000 per month? I’m not your guy (yet).

Instead, I’d point you to someone who has done that within the past 5-10 years (ideally even more recently).

They’re far more qualified because they’ve not long progressed to that stage of the ladder themselves. So their advice is:

• Fresh in their own minds
• Still relevant to the current freelancing landscape

So instead of watching all the “how to become a 6-figure freelancer videos” focus on the resources that cover exactly what you need to learn at your current stage.

Looking to start on a freelance platform? Try to learn from those that are killing it on there and only got started within the past ~2 years.

Want to know how to pitch clients? Look to learn from someone that’s still actively doing that.

Want More Freelancing Tips?

If you’re just getting started as a freelancer, these tips will hopefully help you land more clients faster and set yourself up for success long into the future.

But if you want even more guidance, check out my guide to getting started with no experience.

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