While many freelancers don’t think much about how easily they can be found by their prospects, all freelancers should consider visibility. Your freelancing ability affects whether or not you attract new clients.

If your prospective clients can’t find you, then they can’t hire you. That’s a fact.

In this post, I’ll discuss why freelancing visibility is important. I’ll also explain how you can make your freelancing business more visible.

Are your prospective clients ...

I have a lot of mom friends who have decided to leave the typical workforce after having children.

With daycare being as expensive as it is these days, many of these moms didn’t make enough money in their jobs (a couple of them were teachers) to make daycare worth it. Working just to put your child (or children) in daycare can be frustrating—but many moms don’t want to quit their careers to stay home with their kids. I hear that!

But sometimes the numbers don’t add up, and many 9-5 working mothers are left feeling as if they are spinning ...

Your reputation as a freelancer is pretty much the only thing you have to go on — your bread and butter.

And your reputation is generally based on two things: the quality of your work, and how well you meet deadlines.

Today, we’ll focus on meeting deadlines, as that’s the area that many freelancers have problems with. Sure, you can do great work, but if you don’t turn your projects in on time, you won’t get many repeat customers.

1. Care about deadlines. This is the first step, as many people are very lax about deadlines. You have to be ...

I make a point of getting on the phone, going out to lunch, even traveling to see other freelancers. It’s a good business habit to get into and it pays off well. There are a lot of reasons why you should spend your time with other freelancers — doing so is making an investment in your freelance career.

Landing projects is probably the best reason for a freelancer to do anything. Your fellow freelancers are a great source of projects, for a variety of reasons:

Communication during the client intake process is critical because it ...

According to Leslie Yerkes, president of Cleveland-based Catalyst Consulting Group and author of “Fun Works: Creating Places Where People Love to Work,” nurturing yourself mentally, socially, physically and spiritually is the key to staying engaged and active. ...

According to Leslie Yerkes, president of Cleveland-based Catalyst Consulting Group and author of “Fun Works: Creating Places Where People Love to Work,” nurturing yourself mentally, socially, physically and spiritually is the key to staying engaged and active. ...

The warm-weather months bring with them many enjoyable things: the smell of freshly cut grass, a dip in a lake on a hot day and the taste of hamburgers fresh off the grill, to name a few.

But the dog days of summer can make work seem decidedly less enticing. Designers in industries with year-end promotions might find July and ...

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Did you know that bad business habits can hurt your freelance design business?

It’s true, bad habits can keep you from earning to your full potential. They can also cost you money if they cause client dissatisfaction.

In this post, we’ll take a look at sloppy business habits you need to break. If you liked this post, you may also like 3 Freelancing “Bad Habits” That Cost You Money.

You finished the project and the client is thrilled. They’ve written you a nice thank-you letter for your work.

You probably ...

Online employment is skyrocketing across the globe, according to a recent study by Elance, an international platform for online employment. Even the most skeptical would be hard-pressed not to notice the change in the numbers from the first quarter of 2012 to the same time last year.

The Elance Global Online Employment Report for Q1 2012 shows lots of upward pointing graphs. From jobs posted to contractor earnings, the numbers go up and up and up. In fact, both earnings and jobs posted have more than doubled in the past two years.

Elance also tracked the top skills in ...

There isn't a lot of research undertaken in the creative world, but every year Creative Business does a survey of business conditions in the North American creative services industry.

Well it's time for this year's survey and Creative Business would like your help gathering information for the fifth annual CB survey.

It only takes about a minute to answer twelve multiple-choice questions. Your responses will be confidential; your name or e-mail address will not be recorded. Survey results will be published in the July/August issue ...

A lot of freelancers get excited about international clients these days. But you can create a niche for yourself as someone local — a freelancer just down the street who is happy to meet in person with clients. For those prospective clients who want to make sure that they get a chance to get to know who they’re working with, working with a local freelancer can be worth a premium over working with someone who is only accessible online.

But if you’re going to promote yourself as the local solution, there are some facts that you need to know about.

The fact that you can learn anything from John Mayer might surprise you, but I learned a lot about how you can ruin your reputation through social media and interviews in this NPR interview with the musician on All Things Considered this afternoon.

I have to admit, I am not a John Mayer fan. He bothers me. I can’t stand to watch him sing. And after a couple of nitty gritty interviews in 2010—one for Rolling Stone and one for Playboy—I didn’t like what I heard, either.

In Mayer’s interview with Playboy, he made racial comments, talked about ...

Do you dream of quitting your job and going it on your own? Not so fast. Building a freelance business while working a full-time job is difficult.

It is possible though with some juggling and creativity. You’ve got creativity in spades though, right? That — and a fierce sense of independence — are the likely culprits that drew you to freelancing.

Before you ditch your day job, use those creative muscles to find ways to build your freelancing business while you continue to earn your full-time paycheck.

Looking to make part-time freelancing a way of life, rather than a temporary ...

I ask this because I recently had an incredibly productive week—but I was only working half days. Since I had work to finish within less time, I was avoiding everything else.

All week, I kept feeling like I was forgetting something.

What was I forgetting? My work was definitely done. Where was this feeling of “missing something” coming from?

Then I realized: I had been ignoring the twitch. Do you know which one I’m talking about?

The twitch that takes you away from work to check Facebook, look for a new eggplant ...

One of the biggest challenges for freelancers just starting out is how to get more press and publicity for their business with few funds. As a one-person shop, you can’t spend a fortune employing your own PR rep or a marketing guru.

There are several D-I-Y strategies you can implement to generate positive publicity. What are PR opportunities for your freelance business? You may think PR is only for big companies, but even small freelance shops can benefit from taking advantage of newsworthy opportunities happening in your business, market, and industry.

Here are five ways to create PR opportunities for ...

I dread those words. Partially because at most airports they seem to want to see your boarding pass more often than a fat kid wants cake, partially because it means I’m leaving somewhere.

I don’t like leaving places. It’s the worst part of doing this non-stop-travelling thing. It’s rare that I feel “done” with a place when the time comes to move on. Just when I’ve settled into a nice new routine, met a bunch of cool new people, and figured out all the local customs… it’s time to go again. It’s an unavoidable hurdle that comes ...

Smaller ships turn quicker, and your capabilities are likely to expand more rapidly than client needs will evolve.  You are a smaller firm than your client, and are likely adding capabilities very quickly. That’s another way of saying that clients may have ...

One example I see frequently goes like this: “We been having some cashflow difficulty.” By definition, cashflow difficulties are rare. If your cashflow difficulties are recurring, what you really are struggling with is profitability, not cashflow. ...

There have been many blog posts here about how you, as a freelancer, can give your clients great customer service and why it’s important. Let’s turn the tables for a minute and focus on how you, as a freelancer, can get better customer service.

When you are a freelancer, you don’t have a boss you can go complain to when something has happened to you. Maybe you were double charged when ordering something online or you had a terrible experience flying business class. As a freelancer, you run your own business, which means dealing with your own vendors.

As someone ...

So, as I was saying yesterday in Part 1 of this post about what exactly I did and continue to do since the Creative Freelancer Conference last year to keep my business growing....

4. Ditch the order-taker hat and wear the PARTNER hat! Ilise Benun lead an insightful Q&A last year with Motto and their client CocoTherapy. The co-owners of Motto said that if you are truly passionate about wanting your client to succeed, your potential client will gravitate to you and want to partner with you. It also works with current clients. I search out ways to help them ...

We live in an environment that seems to worship growth. But growth is foolhardy without first fixing what you have. Unless growth is ...

As a freelancer, you have a lot of issues to juggle – branding yourself being one of the least of your concerns most days. But your brand is a critical piece to your long-term success. You don’t have to engage in a massive marketing overhaul or develop a full-tilt brand management plan to take advantage of the power of branding.

The key is to approach your personal brand from the perspective of your clients and customers. How do you want them to perceive you? This article focuses on techniques and concepts to consider as you develop your own brand that ...

The article in Computer Arts Magazine, Issue 200. Photo by Luisedtr.

There are a number of factors to keep in mind when figuring out what your worth such as what you think your worth, what you can get away with, your experience, the amount of work you currently have on, how badly you want an individual project and the ...

Did you have a favorite Dr. Seuss book growing up? I sure did. It was Green Eggs and Ham. I could read that book over and over and never get tired of it.

But beyond the “Whos” and “Thing-a-ma-Jiggers” is an author with more advice relevant to freelancing than most.

Known by Dr. Seuss for his delightful and whimsical children’s books, Theodor Seuss Geisel was also an advertising ace – spending his early career in the advertising industry.

Urging us to keep moving forward, to learn a lot, and not to worry – here are just a few of the ...

The bottom line: If you’re not ...

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We’re looking for images of your freelance offices to be submitted to our FreelanceSwitch Facebook Group. This is for a post to run on FreelanceSwitch about Real Freelance Offices of FreelanceSwitch Readers in 2012. We’d love to see how your office looks.

Here are a few home office images we’ve received so far:

When submitting your freelance office photos be sure to include your name and what freelance work you do. We’re looking for 550px wide jpg images for the format.

Upload (or tag) your photo to the FreelanceSwitch Facebook group to participate.

Networking events can be nerve-wracking.

You’re in a room with a bunch of people you don’t know and you have to make conversation or risk looking like a wallflower. But just because networking events can make you uncomfortable or nervous doesn’t mean you shouldn’t attend. On the contrary—it can be great practice!

Here are some tips on how to make your next networking event a success:

The worst networkers are those who attend events with their friends and then talk to only their friends all night. It’s one of my pet peeves—you don’t get a second chance to make ...

I had already spent my budget for conferences, so I had to get creative. With a birthday coming up, my reply to the usual suspects for birthday gifts was simple - "I need to get to a conference!" (Isn’t it funny if you just ...

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Over a fourth of all workers are self-employed according to some studies, and now you want to join them. You’ve decided to become a freelance designer or other freelancer.

You’re especially looking forward to:

But, hold on a minute. You can have all that…maybe. However, if you’re thinking about freelancing design there are some things that you really need to know before you start.

In this post, I’ll list some freelancing details that many bloggers and gurus “forget” to mention. By ...

Are you unhappy with the amount of freelance writing income you’re bringing in? The check account is looking bare, and the bills are piling up.

You need more gigs — and you need them now.

Fortunately, there are many basic steps you can take quickly to help you land new assignments at better rates. Here are 10 strategies for growing your writing income fast:

I was shocked how hard it was preparing for Pecha Kucha Night. Even after seven iterations, I was still not done! Despite being a seasoned presenter, Pecha Kucha was a brand new experience and a challenge indeed.

For those that don’t know, Pecha Kucha is a gathering of creative minds to share what they are passionate about. As creatives like to talk, Pecha Kucha runs its presentations in a unique format; 20 slides that stay up for 20 seconds each, no more, no less. Like an emotionless robot, it all runs on automatic leaving many presenters in mid-sentence when the ...

Following are the “ins” and “outs” of the job-hunting scene today:

Once a week, we feature a fantastic freelance-themed comic from the talented N.C. Winters. Why not also take a look at our comic archive?

Looking for a new client? The FreelanceSwitch job board is a great resource of freelance gigs and opportunities. These opportunities are in various fields, from development to writing to design, and come from a wide range of potential clients. The job board is hand-moderated by dedicated staff and volunteers from the freelance community.

Each week, we’ll feature a selection of the best job opportunities posted for the week. This week, we’re featuring jobs in Motion Design, UX/UI Design, Flash Design and more!

To apply for any of these jobs, simply pick up a FreelanceSwitch membership for an affordable $7 a ...

One of the fundamental principles of productivity is that in order to get things done, you gotta focus. And that necessary focus requires that you eliminate as many distractions as possible — not always an easy task with the Internet, coworkers and busy phones calling to you from every direction.

Here’s how to block out the Siren’s call of distractions, in 10 steps.

First, let me say that there should be room in your life for distractions. Work should be fun, and without a few distractions, things can get boring. That being said, when it’s time to do a task, ...

View engaging conference lectures, interesting how to discussions, and high quality freelance advice via video here on FreelanceSwitch.

This week we look at How To Find Good Clients by FreelanceJam. Freelancers not only need to know how to find clients, they need to know how to find good clients. In this episode, the FreelanceJam duo Brian and Dave break down the strategies that have worked for them over their years of freelancing. From working the job boards when you’re starting out, to building a strong referral network, and marketing yourself so that great clients come to you.