How to Build Your Online Presence as a Freelancer

Your Online Presence

Having an online presence means being available and accessible online. You may exist online, but your online presence is another matter - there are deeper layers beneath that depict the standing and strength of your business. 

You have to peel through these many layers and strengthen your online presence via building your brand’s awareness and reaching out further to increase your visibility. Your online presence is all about taking the correct measures to strengthen your standing, credibility, reputation, and visibility on the map.  

Why Do You Need an Online Presence?

Everything is a rat race in this highly competitive world (physical and digital). Clients come and go; you have to manage this fact of life. How do you, as a freelancer, stand out in this noisy internet world? You must have a solid online presence to present yourself in a good light in front of the correct people with quality offerings. 

Google says that 97% of people search online for answers. Hence, you must have a solid online presence to not lose out on this chunk of potential buyers. As compared to a brick-and-mortar shop, your online business is available 24/7. Hence, you want to reach out to more at their convenience. Additionally, you want to ride on Google, your perfect sales partner, to help increase your visibility.  

How to Build Your Online Presence

Your success as a freelancer typically depends on how strong your online presence is on the internet. It boils down to your visibility and credibility in the digital space. So, how do you build your online presence as a freelancer? Here’s how:

1. Know Your Focus

Before you jump on the freelancing bandwagon, you first need to know your specialized area. Your goal is to tie yourself with a specific branch in an industry so that you become the go-to person whenever anyone needs something done in your area. So, identify your niche to help focus on boosting your standing in that said market.  

2. Know and Understand Your Targeted Audience

Once you have identified your niche, you need to identify the audience segment you wish to reach (the type of clients you want to undertake). Then, create your client profile by understanding what they need, their pain points, purchasing behavior patterns, and what they hope to achieve in the future. 

Doing so will enable you to serve them better in the present and future; this automatically boosts your online presence.

3. Have Your Website Responsive

While freelancers don't need to have websites, one cannot deny that having a website does a freelancer better than not. Whenever a user researches online and wants to know more about you, the first place that is most visited is your website. Hence, if you are serious about being a successful freelancer, you should have a website. 

What You Need to Do

Your website is a good launching platform that showcases your strengths and brand and presents solutions to resolve your buyers’ pain points. You can connect and relate better with your audience through your website. Many website builders can help you set up your website fast and easily.

Also, make sure your website is responsive so that your audience can access your website via all their smart devices with no problems. Studies confirmed that the number of global smartphone users has surpassed six billion and is to grow; you would not want to lose out on this chunk of potential revenue. 

4. Go on Social Media

Did you know that social media users will increase to around 4.41 billion in 2025? We have surpassed 3.6 billion social media users, so it is not surprising that this figure will continually grow. Social media is a crucial platform to help you gain higher visibility to reach more people. 

Aside from your website, buyers will search for you on social media. They want to know what you are actively doing and what people think of you. Hence, social media is an effective amplification tool to help build your brand reputation, and credibility. 

What You Need to Do

Choose quality and relevant social media platforms for better engagement. Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn are powerful ‘networking’ platforms, but if you wish to use more photos and visuals, have a look at Instagram and Pinterest. 

If you want to gain more followers, you must have a solid online presence. Hence, cultivate a smaller group of quality individuals who can truly appreciate what you offer. They can help with more likes and comments. Just beware of the social media scams no matter if you are using a personal or business account, hackers are able to hack your account and get your information and money in their hands.

5. Practice SEO Wisely

You can have your website done beautifully, but you will not have much traffic if it does not rank high in search engines. One of the most important ways to gain high visibility is to rank high on Google. People rarely go beyond Page One when they search Google. So, you want to rank at the top of Page One in the Search Engine Results Pages (SERPs); this is the hall of fame for a solid online presence.

What You Need to Do

Using SEO wisely is an effective way to earn you a spot in this hall of fame. You have to create quality and relevant content. Include relevant keywords in your content with quality and authoritative links. Make sure you engage a quality web host so that your speed and performance do not suffer. 

6. Be Active

Showing up online is one thing but being active is another. You have to let people know that you are ‘alive,’ so please consistently post on blogs or start your blog on your website. Be active in relevant forums and social media accounts. That said, posting is a one-way street. Your being active has to be two ways. Hence, engage in conversations with your followers and customers. 

Show that you care and are updated with the latest market trends. You will be 'seen' as knowledgeable; this increases your authority level. Start and nurture relationships with other freelancers too. You’d be surprised at how many freelancers landed jobs based on referrals from other fellow freelancers. 

7. Create Quality Email Listing

Email marketing may seem traditional and somewhat conservative but do not underestimate its power and capability. Emails are the perfect mediums to carry your online presence to your leads’ inboxes. Hence, you must build a quality email list, grow it, and continue to update this list. 

What You Need to Do

You can then schedule and send emails to your leads but do not simply send emails; you do not want to irk your potential clients. Draft your email content surrounding what they want. Include Call-to-Action (CTA) buttons in your emails to prompt a favorable action, like getting them to forward and share your emails with their colleagues and friends or even follow you. This, in turn, expands your reach. 

Emails help inform your customers or leads that you are the person they should go to in your industry. So, connect with them well so that they can trust you and they will help you grow online.

8. Proactively Review Where You Stand

Once you get chugging along, you cannot remain complacent. You have to step aside and start analyzing and reviewing your effort results; this is a consistent effort that you must carry out diligently because you need to know what works and what does not. 

What You Need to Do

Identify the key metrics that you will be measuring. Some tools can help you with this. Get your analysis results on the table and start tweaking wherever necessary. You may feel frustrated at the beginning but don’t lose hope. You will get it right in time. 

9. Create High-Quality Relevant Content

Having a website isn’t nearly enough to build your online presence. You need to create compelling content that showcases your expertise to build leads. That means content that is comprehensive and relevant to your target audience.

People's most common mistake when blogging is that they create blogs unrelated to their niche or field. 

What You Need to Do

Creating relevant content is about understanding your target audience and what they want. That means not just making the content but finding out what the market needs. The simplest way of approaching this would be by covering trending topics.

However, that may be transient and lower the long-term potential of your content. It’s better to use a keyword research tool like Ahrefs to see what topics are popular and can best showcase your talents.

10. Build Your Brand

A freelancer's brand can be their most potent tool. Your brand is what makes people think of you when they see your logo or hear your company name. It's how customers know they can trust you with their business.

Every freelancer needs to build their brand because it gives them credibility and authority in their field of expertise. A strong brand helps you stand out from other freelancers and gives clients confidence in your skill set and experience level.

What You Need to Do

Create a comprehensive and cohesive branding strategy. The best brands are also aspirational — they want to be associated with them because they represent qualities they admire or value. The most important thing is to maintain consistency through your branding.

11. Run Webinars or Create Video Presentations

If you want to stand out as an expert in your field, you need to get out there and speak at events and conferences. If that's not possible due to location or other factors, consider running webinars or creating video presentations.

The good thing about these methods is that they allow you to reach a wider audience than traditional speaking engagements. People love watching videos because they're easier than reading long articles; they also tend to remember the videos better.

What You Need to Do

Thanks to videos being all the rage, getting great equipment to record them isn't necessarily expensive. You need a decent webcam, but make sure you pair it with a quality microphone. At the same time, there are many online platforms like Zoom you can use to host webinars.

12. Invest in Visuals

If you aren’t a talented writer, there’s an equally (in fact, more) powerful tool available to the graphically gifted. Infographics are a visual representation of information or data and can be used to explain a concept or simplify a process easily. 

Infographics are becoming an increasingly popular way to communicate online, and they can engage and influence your audience beyond your website.

What You Need to Do

Gather data from various sources and build it into an attractive infographic. Share that on your website and social media channels, and you stand a chance of having that single infographic go viral. You can quickly build quality infographics with online tools like Canva.

Conclusion

In the digital world, things can get complicated as you can be everywhere at once to cater to multiple leads and clients at one go. As a freelancer, your online presence is your currency to earning great success. You must nurture and grow your online presence from the get-go.

You have to start somewhere, so peruse through the above list. At the start, it may be difficult, but once you’ve ironed out the kinks, you will build your reputation and credibility while increasing brand awareness. Ultimately, you will reap greater rewards and higher revenues.

Author Profile

As a digital marketer for WebRevenue, Beh always shares her thoughts and experiences on the Internet. As a digital marketer, she loves to meet and build relationships with different people. Reach out to her on LinkedIn or WebRevenue.