Freelancing is still one of the best ways to make a living online. There are no education requirements, you can work from anywhere, and your earnings are often almost equivalent to the amount of work that you put in.

With all of this in mind, and us being in 2019, it’s important to look at what’s in demand this year and where freelancers should start focusing their efforts. No matter what type of business or service you run on the internet, some form of content creation and marketing is going to be the driver or leads and sales for your brand.

As a business owner who has worked on both sides of the freelancing economy, I understand what it takes to grab the interest of clients, while also knowing how to find new opportunities in revenue generation, branding and growth.

Now let’s take a look at some of the most interesting and exciting ways to make money in writing, ecommerce, and self branding in 2019.

Freelance Writing is Still in High Demand

According to a recent article in Forbes, freelancers who generate six figures per year is on the rise. The majority of these freelancers are likely focusing on writing-related services.

With there now being more than a billion sites on the internet (all of which are releasing new content), there is a great demand for consistent content generation than ever before. At this point, it’s simply become a numbers game. The more competition there is, the more content that brands need to put out there to keep up.

This is great news for freelancers — however, the competition in the freelance writing space is also very tough.

To make the most money with freelance writing, it’s important to not only have standard and be in a position where you can turn away lower paying work, but also that you have some testimonials, feedback, ratings, or whatever it takes to show that you are worth the rate you want to charge.

Even with so much demand for content, and there also being a ton of competition in this space, the best money is made when freelancers give their clients great content on the first run and can then negotiate a long term contract.

Instead of taking on smaller work, chasing payments and looking for new clients — spend more time on bagging the bigger clients and banking on long term writing jobs.

Catering to eCommerce Businesses Can Be a Full-Time Job

With the focus of freelance writing still in mind, one industry that is always in demand for new work is ecommerce.

Throw the simplicity of WordPress into the mix, and freelancers are not only working with a platform they are likely familiar with, they also don’t have to worry about coding or really any other out-of-bounds requirements from clients. In addition to content creation, freelancers that focus on site design, graphic work, and social media marketing or SEO — and you have the perfect opportunity for bundling services into a nice monthly recurring payment from ecommerce clients.

As noted in this WordPress ecommerce guide, nearly one-third of the world’s websites use WordPress. That in itself is a huge market for freelancers to take advantage of. On top of that, the guide also points out the following requirements for ecommerce businesses — which can all be provided or outsourced to freelancers that specialize in these areas.

• You’ll need content – a lot of it.
• Your SEO will need to be top notch.
• Your site will need to load quickly (no lag time, despite the amount of content or images hosted, catalog size, etc.).
• Your data orchestration (depending on business size) will need to be humming along perfectly.

This is the perfect opportunity for freelancers to start working with clients that not only need more than just text content, but will likely keep renewing these services on a monthly basis.

The Power of Self Branding and How to Demand Higher Payouts

Self branding is a powerful thing, and as a freelancer, it’s something you should also be very good at. This can already be seen in the world of personal finance, where anyone that has put in the time and effort to pay off their school loans at an early age is now an online guru. From a branding and expertise perspective, this is usually accomplished through a personal blog and telling their story to the world.

No matter if you are looking for new work on your own, or using platforms like UpWork, TextBroker or other marketplaces, you should have a domain name and a site of your own. This will 100% help with justifying your work, having a portfolio and services page for potential clients to look at, and also a great way for you to rank in Google for your name.

In addition to creating a site, you should also have a blog and a presence on all of the major social platforms. After all, social media is where a ton of brands are looking to promote their own businesses, and get ideas on how to improve their businesses as well.

These are just the basics of how to start branding yourself as a freelancing professional online, but there are many other advanced methods as well. Here are a few more ideas for how you can increase backlinks and exposure to your site, while also looking like an industry professional and maybe even picking up some new work in the process.

• Write an ‘industry report’ on your site about the importance of content marketing
• Find existing expert roundups on other sites and see if you can be included
• Contribute to other websites and blogs, and have an author bio that links to your site
• When and where possible, try to get interviews on sites, blogs, and podcasts

These little bits of exposure everywhere can add up quickly and will only improve your personal branding and exposure. Complete just one of these per week, and you will have more than 50 placements live per year!

Make 2019 Your Most Profitable Freelancing Year Yet

Forget what the naysayers have to say about the saturation and competition in the world of freelancing. Just like any other business in the world today, those who focus on providing a high quality service or product are the ones who will beat out the competition and find success in the long run.

The money and demand for business is there, but it will ultimately come down to the time, work, and effort you are willing to put into it. To help secure yourself as a leading freelancer or provider of an online service, be sure to implement these seven branding tips.

Follow each of the actionable tips mentioned above also take the time to study your competition. There is more than enough work and money to go around, it’s simply a matter of who is willing to put in the time, work, and effort to stand out from the crowd and claim it as their own.

Also don’t forget to try and secure some nice long term work and not jumping from project to project. Freelance-focused businesses and brands are changing the way individual projects and tasks are completed in the world today.

Take advantage of the opportunity before you and don’t miss out!