The Best Ways To Find Freelance Clients in 2021

The freelance landscape is a constantly shifting one. This is a wonderful thing for adaptable, entrepreneurial people — and freelancers are nothing if not adaptable and entrepreneurial.

Still, some dangers lurk in the mists of this landscape. For instance, it is not beyond imagination that you might find yourself looking for freelance work in an ecosystem that clients have migrated away from.

That’s why it’s important to hedge your bets and diversify your job-seeking channels. Here are the best ways to find freelance clients in 2021, along with some words of wisdom (if I do say so myself) based on a decade of freelance experience.

Upwork

When I was starting out as a freelancer in 2011, oDesk was the biggest player on the market. When they merged with Elance to form Upwork soon after, they solidified their position and they remain the industry leader to this day.

My own experience with Upwork has been overwhelmingly positive.

These days, it’s more difficult to get accepted into the platform, and special care should be given to putting an impressive profile together. If you’re a beginner, building some side projects for your portfolio beforehand can’t hurt your chances.

Before applying, make sure all the sections of your profile are complete, spelled correctly, and as impressive as they can be without being deceitful.

Once you’re in, you will find a wealth of freelance projects ranging from 10 minutes of work to open-ended full-time contracts.

Fiverr

Fiverr is an excellent option for small, repeatable types of freelance work. This is because it’s focused on selling packaged services. Landing pages, SEO tune-ups, WordPress installations, voiceover, video editing, ghostwriting — you name it, it’s on Fiverr.

Take some time to browse the successful freelancers and their packages, see what sells, and think about how you can bring your own unique twist to it.

Exclusive and specialized freelance platforms

Then there are the platforms that are not for everyone (by design). For example, there are platforms such as Toptal that are for senior software developers only, and there are three rounds of interviews before you can offer your services there.

Some platforms are only for very specific vocations. For example, when I was looking for an editor for my upcoming freelancing book, I found one on Reedsy — a platform dedicated entirely to freelance editors and proofreaders.

These are particularly interesting to you if you are already proficient in your field of work, don’t mind competing with other professionals, and command higher rates.

Outsourcing agencies

While not a great long-term strategy, getting freelance work from outsourcing agencies can be a reliable short-term solution.

When I say it’s not a great long-term strategy, I don’t mean that you can’t find work this way — you can, and if you do it well the agencies will keep feeding you jobs. The problems lie elsewhere:

It is difficult to increase your earnings sustainably because the agencies are cutting into your profits. Furthermore, they often have long-term contracts with clients that lock in the hourly rates.
You either don’t get access to clients or you have to sign a contract pledging never to cut out the middleman and work for the client directly. This severely restricts your options in terms of upselling and expanding your business.

In short, this is a step forward from a 9-to-5 job, but it has some of the same major downsides.

Twitter

Twitter is the closest that social media comes to real life because one sentence written by someone you’ve never met can ruin your investment portfolio, and more.

Counter-intuitively, this is a good reason to be on Twitter. The fact that single-sentence tweets written in 20 seconds can reach a huge audience makes this the best social platform for busy people. And if you’re not a busy person, you should get busy finding freelance work and honing your skills.

Twitter is more of a long-term play than a way to find a quick project or two. Following startups that post job openings and freelancers who post free tips can create a stream of opportunities given enough time.

If you have the mental stamina to sift through the onslaught of generic introductory messages and fake heart-wrenching motivational stories, there are some genuine opportunities to be found on LinkedIn.

Interacting with people from your industry and joining relevant groups can yield good results. You will be approached by recruiters constantly, but that will usually not yield any results. Like most things, you have to do LinkedIn job-seeking yourself if you want it done right.

Jobs to your inbox

I’m primarily a web developer. As a web developer, I primarily use the Laravel framework in the back-end. Wouldn’t it be nice if there was somebody who can send remote Laravel jobs straight to my inbox almost daily?

There is! I subscribe to a service called Larajobs. It is very likely that there are similar services for your industry and your skillset. A good place to find them is social media; an even better place to find them are communities built around your skillset. And speaking of communities…

Slack

This is the century of peer-to-peer file sharing, peer-to-peer learning, peer-to-peer gaming, and peer-to-peer…hiring?!

That’s exactly right. I am part of several Slack groups where freelancers regularly post jobs on behalf of their clients. Often, you have to convince your future colleague that you’re a great person to work with — and then the client interview is a breeze.

For this to work, it is a good idea to be active in these communities and help people out when you can.

Personal website

Being discoverable is just as important as being a discoverer. That’s why having a personal website is essential. When people Google you, what do you want them to find? An Instagram story of you lounging in a hammock or your professional portfolio, blog, and biography?

If writing a blog is not on your agenda, then even the simplest landing page with a short bio and contact link can work wonders. The required investment of time and effort is so small that there is no excuse not to do it.

All of the above

The name of the game in 2021 is diversification. Recent events have highlighted the dangers of over-reliance on a single platform. Opening every channel you can for clients to find you is imperative for long-term survival as a freelancer.

Try out the options above and see what works for you. If you find more than one thing that works, you’re already at an advantage compared to nearly everyone in the world!