However, over the past few months I have switched over to a subcontracting business model, where I play a more editorial role, paying other freelancers to write blog content which I then review for quality and send on to clients.

This situation puts me in the unique situation of seeing both sides of the coin. While I know what it’s like to be a freelance blogger, I also know what it’s like to work with freelance bloggers. Becoming a “client” to freelance bloggers has given me a far better understanding of the key characteristics of successful freelancers. Here are the three key lessons I’ve learned.

1. Being a good writer isn’t enough

Let’s start with the obvious: you need to be a good writer to succeed as a freelancer. Nobody will hire you if you can’t produce great content for their blog. But being a great writer is just the price of entry.

You can think of freelance blogging as a fairground where you have to pay to get in but also pay to ride the attractions. You’ll need more than just your entrance ticket to have fun (i.e. get paid a good rate).

What does this mean for you? Most freelance bloggers need to demonstrate a wide range of skills in order to earn the best rates. It’s simply not enough to just be able to write.

For bloggers specifically, you must demonstrate that you can blog. By far the best way to do this is to run your own relatively successful blog. Doing so will give you valuable experience and serve as a source of samples to woo future clients.

Clients often favor active social media accounts as well, as they like to see you sharing their content and giving it an extra boost. This fact just helps to illustrate the basic truth that you can always do well to think of freelancing in terms of what you can do to benefit the client.

Additionally, copywriting and marketing skills are coveted. If you can write an article and help the client put together an effective promotion strategy, you’ll never be left wanting for work.

2. Little things matter

Clients don’t value your writing in a vacuum; they are paying you for specific services that they believe will increase their bottom line. That makes it an imperative that, as a freelance writer, you present a solution to the client — not a problem.

In my experience, many freelancers don’t appreciate this. While they may offer a solution to some extent, that solution is often riddled with problems that take time to resolve.

The most obvious example of this is a poorly edited post: one that contains typos and grammatical errors. You’d be surprised by how many submissions I have received where the writer simply didn’t bother to proofread.

A client is hiring you so that they don’t have to worry about writing. If they have to go through each article you submit with a fine-tooth comb, it rather defeats the purpose of hiring a writer in the first place. You should always place a premium on quality in your work, because clients don’t want anything less. Taking that extra step to ensure that your article is fully polished may not seem like a big deal, but it makes a huge difference to a client.

Personally speaking, I have only worked with a couple of writers who I simply know I don’t have to check. For the rest, I know that I have to make sure that typos, strangely-worded sentences and grammatical oddities haven’t slipped through the net.

What I would give to receive a piece and know that I could just send it straight onto the client! I would happily pay more for that, but such qualities are extremely rare.

The moral of the story should be obvious: if you focus on providing well-polished posts, you will be in high demand.

I’m not saying that you need to be perfect; everybody has an occasional typo here and there, but you can certainly strive for perfection. If you work to make each blog post you pen as perfect as possible, your clients will be pleased and you will be paid.

3. Poor professional skills can sink you

Here’s the hard truth: how you conduct yourself is absolutely vital to your success. And here’s the sad reality: many freelance writers don’t fully appreciate that fact.

As I’ve said, good writing can only take you so far, after which your momentum will peter out. So let’s put aside the whole writing thing for a moment and just focus on your “professional skills,” by which I mean things like your reliability, organization and communication.

Remember that you should always aim to provide a solution, not a problem. If we consider this fact, it becomes readily apparent that being late on deadlines or failing to respond promptly to emails makes you a problem.

Of course you can’t always be at your client’s beck and call. But you should be responsive to them and you should always deliver on what you promise (acts of God and the like excepted). One of many ways to effectively do this is to learn how to manage your time.

If you can’t get organized, communicate well and remain a reliable writer, clients will become wary. Nobody wants to work with someone who constantly makes excuses and turns in assignments late. Don’t use an existing lack of organizational skills as an excuse — sort it out.

Conclusion

You may read through the above tips and consider them simple. Well, they are — I won’t apologize for that. Nobody ever said that success had to be complicated.

At the end of the day, it’s about doing the simple things right.

If you communicate efficiently, create quality pieces on time and bring more to the table than just a written article, you will be coveted by your existing clients and sought out by prospective clients. When that happens, you’ll know that you stand out.

How have you endeared yourself to your clients?

And yet that is what has happened: in less than two short years, I have built a successful freelance blogging business that affords me all of the autonomy and flexibility I have craved in the past. I landed my first job in September 2011 and haven’t looked back since; in that time my equivalent hourly rate has increased from $15 to $150.

What I find most surprising about my journey to date is that I haven’t done anything particularly special. I wouldn’t consider myself anything more than a “good” writer and I have no professional writing qualifications, nor did I have any freelancing experience prior to landing my first client.

As I look back over the past two short years, I can spot key elements that acted as enablers and catalysts for my success, and those are the things I want to discuss today.

Lesson No. 1: freelance blogging is lucrative

The first job I landed was a blogging role for WPMU.org. Although the rate wasn’t great from a freelancer’s perspective, it was as much as I earned per hour in my job. That in itself was reason enough to encourage me to quit–I figured if I worked six to eight hours per day at this rate, I could remain afloat.

That point of view was colored by my understanding that freelance blogging just wasn’t that lucrative. I was subscribed to a few freelance writing blogs at the time and all I read was that in order to make real money I would have to move into writing for trade publications, “real” businesses and so on.

I am thankful for remaining ignorant of that advice. I once looked up in awe at these writers earning in excess of $100 per hour, all the time being told that it just wouldn’t be possible as a freelance writer. But as my rate steadily crept up, I began to realize that blogging offers as much as many other forms of writing. (Click to tweet this idea.) In March 2013 I broke through the $100 per hour barrier and I haven’t looked back since.

Here’s the reality: you can earn a lot more per word through other mediums of freelance writing when compared to blogging. But how much you earn per word does not necessarily dictate how much you earn per hour (which is the real measure of your earning potential). What would you rather do: get paid 15 cents per word to write on a topic you know everything about and have no need to research, or get paid $1 per word writing a complex technical document involving interviews and case studies? You may find that the first option actually makes you more money.

So when it comes to freelance blogging, keep an open mind. You can make good money.

Lesson No. 2: you must have a blog

My foray into the world of freelance blogging was an act of desperation.

I had been failing consistently in my efforts to make money online for about six months and I was willing to try anything. I submitted a handful of pitches via the Pro Blogger Job Board with little hope of achieve anything. I didn’t even have any samples — I supplied links to my own blog posts in lieu of a “true” demonstration of my blogging abilities.

And yet that did the trick. If I had to guess as to why, my assumption would be that my first client could see that I was a capable writer running a small yet moderately successful blog. The logical conclusion from those two factors is that I might be a worthwhile freelance blogger.

Let’s be honest — I wasn’t applying for a position at The Times. It was modest pay for modest work; the client wasn’t expecting to land someone with journalistic qualifications and masses of experience. My point is this: the mere act of me having a blog was enough for me to land the job. That may be all you need to get you on your way.

Furthermore, as your freelance business develops, having a blog becomes no less important. It will act as the hub from which prospective clients will arrive (either organically or from your bylines across the web). The quality of your blog and the makeup of your Hire Me / Services page will go a long way in determining whether prospective clients take that next step of reaching out to you.

If you want to become a successful freelance blogger then you should create a successful blog. It doesn’t have to be the next Mashable (when I landed my first job my blog was attracting just forty visitors per day), but a successful blog is practical evidence of your abilities.

Lesson No. 3: successful pitching comes down to just two things

Ultimately, if you want to land a role, you need to do two things right:

1. Your pitch

2. Your samples

If you nail your pitch and supply awesome samples, you’ll get the job. If you don’t get the job then you got one of those elements wrong. That’s the simple equation.

Of course, it is not quite that simple. For example, the effectiveness of your pitch can be limited by a lack of experience and you may not have the kind of samples that best showcase your abilities yet.

Having said that, there is nothing truly complicated about landing freelance blogging work. If you are willing to assess your pitches and samples objectively then you will probably be able to spot where you went wrong. Your job then is to figure out how to rectify that issue for next time.

If you’d like to learn more about developing great pitches then check this post from my blog: Get Paid to Write (in 3 Steps).

Lesson No. 4: you must offer the complete package

I believe that my success as a freelance blogger is as much down to my “professional skills” as it is due to my ability as a writer. By “professional skills,” I mean everything else that accounts for your value to a client:

1. Complementary skills such as social media marketing, SEO, etc.

2. The ability to think creatively

3. Organizational skills such as working to deadlines and replying to emails promptly

4. The ability to negotiate effectively with clients

5. General professionalism

These days I hire freelance writers myself, and I would much rather have a good writer with excellent professional skills than a great writer with good professional skills. A great writer who doesn’t submit their work on deadline or takes three days to reply to an email is going to a pain in my backside.

So if you feel that your writing skills are not yet up to scratch, ensure that you make up for your perceived shortcomings by offering much more than just your writing chops. Offer the complete package.

What lessons have you learned?

Above are the most important lessons I have learned in nearly two years of freelance blogging. It’s been quite a journey so far and I have no doubt that there will be plenty more bumps and surprises in the future.

With that in mind, if you have been freelancing for a while then I’d love to know what lessons you have learned from your experiences to date. Alternatively, if you have any questions about the lessons I have covered, please do not hesitate to share them with us.

Leave your thoughts in the comments section below!

There is, however, one popularly perceived downside of working with long-term clients: difficulty raising rates. If you have high client turnover, you can simply increase rates as the new clients come along, but when you have an established relationship with a long-term client, asking them to pay you more can seem like a rather daunting prospect.

But it shouldn’t be. Here’s how you can increase your overall hourly rate for long-term clients with minimum risk.

Key assumptions and understandings

This article is written on the assumption that you have several long-term clients (say four or more). Put simply, the fewer clients you have, the more risk you are exposed to with this strategy. You can certainly still carry out this strategy with only one or two clients, but it would be remiss of me not to point out that the risk is relatively high.

And that leads me to a more general point that is vital to understand when it comes to rates negotiation: the entire process is a question of risk and nothing else. It should not be subject to emotional thinking or subjective analysis. As much as possible, you should view your approach to rates negotiations as mathematical or scientific — i.e. how can you quantify a positive outcome, and what is the likelihood of that outcome being achieved?

Step 1: Get to know your clients

To negotiate rates, you need to carefully analyze the worth of each of your clients. (Click to tweet this idea!) I am not only talking about how much they pay you, but also how easy they are to work with, whether they refer additional clients to you, and if there are any other benefits (direct or indirect) of working with them. Before you even begin to think about negotiations, you should be able to “rank” your clients in terms of their worth to you.

There are many ways in which you can do this, but it ultimately comes down to money — that is typically the most important factor. So let’s start there.

For each of your clients, you need to know how much you earn in terms of an equivalent hourly rate. If you charge per hour (which I do not recommend as it limits your earning potential) then your hourly rate should already be apparent. But if you charge per job, you need to calculate exactly how much time you spend on each client’s work and calculate your equivalent hourly rate from that. If you do not currently track your time then this is a good reason to start — it’s really a necessity.

Once you have created a “ranking table” of sorts, listing your clients by how much you earn from them per hour, it is time to add all of those less quantifiable considerations to your list (as mentioned above). When you are finished, you should have a well-formed opinion of each of your clients in terms of their worth to you.

Step 2: Calculate rate increases

Take into account these three things when it comes to calculating an increased rate for an existing client:

1. How much you want to be paid

2. How much you should be paid

3. How much you think the client will pay

How much you want to be paid will be the easiest question to answer, but the other two are more complicated.

The question of how much you should be paid can be answered by (a) comparing your existing rate for that client against other clients and (b) comparing your existing rate against what you consider to be a fair market rate. This is not a particularly scientific process; I wouldn’t beat yourself up too much about it. However, I will say this: in my experience, most freelance writers undervalue themselves.

The question of how much you think the client will pay is down to nothing more than your intuition. But consider this: as far as I am concerned, there are two broad “types” of clients:

1. Those who want a job doing and are not going to bicker about an extra few bucks per article

2. Those who do not value quality written content highley and may argue over the slightest increase

Let me be frank: in the long run, you do not want to work with that second type of client. Furthermore, there are plenty of the first type around. So, if your intuition tells you that a client is likely to argue over any kind of increase, that may be a sign for you to move on anyway.

If you are happy with the rate paid by your most “generous” client then this process is relatively straightforward — that is the benchmark by which all other clients should be measured. If on the other hand you feel that all of your clients are underpaying you, that requires a little more thought.

Once you are finished with the decision-making process you should have a new rate for each client (where appropriate) that you intend to propose. That rate will be a result of the calculation you made based upon the want, should and will considerations.

Step 3: Propose your rate increases

The key to this process in terms of reducing risk is diversification. It is quite simple: the more clients you have and the more proposals you make, the greater chance you have of increasing your rate overall.

Let me give you an example. Say you have five clients with a relatively diverse range of rates and hours worked per week:

You propose new rates to each of these clients. Clients 1 and 3 agree to the new rate ($60), Clients 2 and 4 negotiate with you, and Client 5 considers your rate too high and moves on. With the new rates in place and one less client, how do your earnings look now?

Although you’ve lost one client, you are now earning $5 more per week and are working ten less hours! That’s the power of spreading your risk by proposing multiple rate increases at the same time.

In terms of actually making the proposal, experience is the best teacher and you will soon find that each client is ideally approached in a personalized way, one that best suits their attitude and behavior. If you’re interested in learning more about client negotiation, check out this great article from Copyblogger.

Don’t fret too much about the particulars — it is not as frightening a process as you may think. Just stick to the basics: you have reevaluated your business and are proposing new rates accordingly. You appreciate their business and look forward to taking your working relationship forward.

Act in a professional and courteous manner then let the client do the rest. It’s only business.

Assessing the risk

There is, of course, a risk inherent in any kind of rate increase, but in reality the risk is probably far smaller than you think. For starters, if a client is happy with your work then they are unlikely to walk away just because you propose a rate increase. They will typically do one of three things:

1. Accept it

2. Negotiate with you

3. State that they are not willing to pay you more

Any of those outcomes puts you in a better (or no worse) situation than before. As for those clients who do walk away — they were likely to walk away before long anyway. They certainly weren’t going to grow with you, that’s for sure. So although you may incur a short-term financial loss in losing them, it will be better for your business in the long run.

Earn more, work less

You may think this a dream scenario, but I can tell you from personal experience that it works. I employed this strategy at the end of last year and lost one client but ended up making more money in fewer hours. I would recommend that any freelancer working with more than a handful of long-term clients pursue this strategy and reap the rewards.

Have you ever tried to raise your client rates? If not, what’s stopping you?