Day one of producing rock solid content begins.

As a few of you guys know, I started out this whole internet thing article writing – grossly underpaid, not much fun and very few clients… although I don’t care jobs these days as I have other things keeping me busy, I still make a decent bit per month outsourcing. A lot of people do run freelancing services such as writing, designing, coding etc and these tips will help you make more money. The best thing about freelancing is that it doesn’t cost you a cent to get started out; all you need is a computer and you’re set. If you do freelance, these tips will make you money.

What can you, the freelancer do to make more money?

Offer discounts. Creating a sense of urgency is great for driving sales, and if people know that tomorrow your price may be different, they’ll order today. You offering a lower price than you normally do to enter the market can get you your first few clients and you’ll find that some of them stick around even if you raise your prices if they like your work.

Offer bonuses. If you’ve ever been to a grocery store, you’ll have noticed that prices tend to decrease when working in bulk; you should use the same principles to get more business. With article writing, for example – offer an eleventh article free with an order of ten or more; offer a 10% discount if people order in bulk – you get the idea.

Don’t always look for the instant income. People tend to look for instant money and not wait through a spell of little activity or do note promote themselves enough because they think that they’d be better off sticking to their current regime.

A great example of not always looking for instant income is Unique Blog Designs, who contacted a few big bloggers and offered to create Wordpress designs for them free… securing a life long footer link, a huge amount of gratitude and a chunk of business. This may not work so well for writing, but for things like design and code – if you see something you think will be the next big thing, or see something already pretty decent, offer your services free in exchange for some exposure. If any brilliant Wordpress designer wants to design me a theme free for some exposure, let me know. Opportunities continually present themselves, and when you see a good one you should definitely take it.

Have samples. You need samples to show people… would you hire someone offline if you didn’t know who they were? Well, not having samples is akin to the same – if you don’t have proof of what you can do, how do people know you’re good enough?

You don’t have to have exact samples, but general ones would be great; if you’re a writer, write up some articles on various topics (you could always use them for your niche websites!); if you’re a designer, create some mockups. You get the idea.

Be easy to deal with. I hate dealing with freelancers – quite often you’ll fine that they’re a pain to work with (myself included ), don’t follow deadlines, are difficult to contact… you get the idea. If you make yourself easy to contact and constantly update your clients on how things are going, you’ll get a lot more business through word of mouth, referrals etc.

Of course, don’t let clients run your life – you do need free time, and if you are busy make it known.

Take some payment upfront. It is easy to get burned online… make sure you take some form of payment up front (usually 50% is a good number, or less for large projects) to have a guarantee of some sort. Taking the money up front not just makes sure that you’re more safe than before, but also makes sure that you’ll work harder – once you have some kind of money in hand, it’s harder to slack off.

Simple tips, but ones that will hopefully help; the idea for the post came from one of the suggestions over here. Over the month I’ll be covering topics suggested from that post as it is what you guys want to hear about, so if you want to know more about something specific feel free to comment on it. Good luck!