A Comprehensive Guide for Beginner Freelancers: 10 Basic Skills to Kickstart Your Career

Are you interested in becoming a freelancer, but feel like you lack the necessary skills? Don't worry, you're not alone. Many people feel the same way.

Most people believe that in order to work online, you must have specialized knowledge. However, that is not so true. You can use some of the basic skills that you already have to start earning money online.

In this article, we will provide a comprehensive guide for beginner freelancers. We will list down 10 skills to learn to kickstart your career. Even if you don't have any prior experience, you can still apply for many of these entry-level jobs on UpMyChain.

So if you're ready to learn more about how to start your freelancing career, keep reading!

1. General Virtual Assistance

Virtual assistants support clients remotely through the use of administrative, technical, or creative tasks. In the most basic sense, this is like having a personal assistant who you only interact with online. But imagine yourself taking on the role of someone's personal assistant, but you only assist online. That would be pretty cool, right?

The great part is that, even if you don't have any prior experience, you may be able to start working as a virtual assistant.

For example, a client asks for information on the many Aurora, Colorado churches.

The task is easy. You only needed to use a tool to search for churches in a specific region, get information about them, and copy and paste the results into a spreadsheet.

Did that seem like a skill that only a specialist could have? No, it was just as it seemed. You can easily start freelancing with this basic skill.

There are many different types of domains in which you can offer virtual assistance services.

Admin
Social media
Graphics
E-commerce
Real estate
Content

For starters, if you don't have any other skills besides knowing how computers work, then you can be a general or admin virtual assistant. It has the easiest tasks and is mostly about:

Internet research
Email management
Documents and files management

2. Content Writing

Writing is probably one of the oldest jobs in the world.

When people talk about content writing, they are usually referring to the process of producing written web content, usually for marketing purposes. Written content can take many forms, with the most popular ones being:

Articles
Blog posts
Video scripts
Podcasts scripts
Social media content

Companies will always require someone to create their content, even with the advent of new media forms like videos and audio. The danger of AI replacing writers is still present.

You'll always have something to write for and earn online. Even better, most people want you to keep writing for them, so you won't have to find new clients.

The drawback is that you might occasionally have to write about subjects that you don't particularly enjoy. Thus, you should narrow your focus and write about subjects and industries that you find interesting.

3. Editing and Proofreading

It's a simple freelance service that will allow you to edit and proofread your written content before delivering it. All that is left to do is proofread the previously written content for spelling, grammar, and formatting errors, and then deliver it. You may make a very respectable income as a proofreader or editor if you have a deep understanding of English syntax and structure.

Editing: This step often occurs first and aims to fix errors in the grammar and clarity of the language. The editor's job is to make sure that the writer's voice is heard and that the reader can understand what is being said.

After the intensive editing process, there is a step known as proofreading, which is more of a cursory review or the last check of the piece.

Several powerful and easy-to-use tools will enable you to complete your task with a few clicks. Grammarly is a good example because it automatically checks your sentences for errors.

However, they are frequently combined, and it is commonly believed that you must perform both tasks if you have a contract for proofreading or editing. For example, you might be asked to proofread a document and then edit it to make it more accurate. You may always get clarifications from your client.

You may always check out freelance sites while looking for an opportunity. There are frequently editing and proofreading jobs posted there by firms and agencies. However, if you know any experienced content writers, you may also inquire with them to see if they are aware of any such changes.

4. Social Media Management

It is a highly in-demand freelancing skill that requires some basic knowledge that most of us already know. There's a straightforward reason for that: you already understand the ins and outs of the most well-known social media sites, making social media management another task you can start working on immediately. Although the strategies needed for successful social media management are still being learned and honed, there's still plenty of room for improvement.

Social media management is generating, publishing, marketing, and managing content across social media platforms and managing the online presence of a specific profile or page on such networks.

The most common platforms for social media management are the following:

Facebook
Instagram
Twitter
LinkedIn
Pinterest

You are well on your way to success if you have an account on these popular sites and know how to use them effectively.

In contrast to managing your own account, managing someone else's online presence requires you to think about social media management as a way to boost that brand's or company's visibility and reach.

5. Customer Service Agents

You must deliver simple, but crucial, services like responding to emails, chats, messages, or calls. Companies will pay you handsomely for these simple tasks.

By the way, there are different kinds of customer service work that you can do, including:

Customer service representative
Telephone research interviewer
Customer success manager
Customer support engineer
Implementation Specialist
Call center agent
Live chat agent

Although each of these fields requires extensive knowledge, one of the most important things is effective communication skills, and you can handle annoyed customers over the phone while remaining calm and composed.

The major disadvantage of most customer service positions is that you will be required to report to work at a set time, much like an employee. In contrast to other options that are more flexible, you will need to stick to a timetable that corresponds to the hours when your target clients are awake.

6. Transcription

Transcribing an audio or video recording into text is what transcription is all about. In other words, the finished output is a verbatim textual transcription of the audio or video recording. The finished output is a verbatim textual transcription of the audio or video recording, with no editing or other changes.

Prior to the advent of the internet, transcription services existed. Clients would send a disc or tape to the transcriber, who would then mail the finished document back to the client. This often took days or even weeks.

Now that we have the internet, there is still a significant demand for freelance transcription opportunities from different industries, including:

Podcasters
YouTubers
Executives
Coaches/mentors

It's not necessary to have specific expertise to transcribe. In reality, you have to pay close attention to what the audio or video clip is telling you, write it down into a document, check the grammar, and then email it to the customer.

7. Email Writing

If you have subscribed to any newsletters in the past, you are already aware that companies regularly send unsolicited emails to their subscribers. The majority of the time, those emails were written in advance.

That is why there are so many email marketing opportunities available, including:

Email writing
Email marketing
Email automation

If you want to increase your opportunities further, learn how to use email marketing platforms.

Mailchimp
Convertkit
Aweber

Fortunately, besides being able to write, you don't need any further abilities (such as being persuasive). If you are good at selling, you may be able to make some money by emailing businesses. If not, you may have to make do with sending out emails, typically in the form of newsletters.

8. WordPress Management

WordPress is a robust, easy-to-use Content Management System (CMS) used to manage websites. Most websites are on WordPress, but many people do not know how to install it, set up a website, and manage it. Here you can take benefit of this.

WordPress is easy to install and everyone can do it in a few clicks. People are willing to pay $10 to $15 for this task. You can also offer WordPress Management freelancing services, like article publishing, optimization, plugin installation, etc.

9. Image Background Removal

Many e-commerce companies need pictures with transparent backgrounds for their products. Here you can charge them a fair and reasonable amount for removing the experience. Many are earning a good amount by offering this simple and basic freelancing skill, as well as by learning additional skills that are in high demand. You may think that it requires you to master Photoshop or any other photo editing tool, but you can perform this task using free and easy-to-use online tools that are designed with the novice in mind. A list of such tools is given below.

Remove.bg
Picwish.com
Photoscissors.com
Removal.ai

10. User Testing

Without acquiring new skills, you may be able to earn a respectable income by testing out applications and websites. You'll need a smartphone or laptop to complete it, but other than that, all you need to do is turn up, comply with all requests, and collect your payment.

Easy Answer

General Virtual Assistance
Content Writing
Editing and Proofreading
Social Media Management
Customer Service Agents
Transcription
Email Writing
WordPress Management
Image Background Removal
User Testing

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