If you work as a developer, writer, or designer, you’ve dreamed about the freelance lifestyle–or lived it–at some point. Every time you’re on vacation or traveling, you think couldn’t I do this full time and work freelance? But it’s not easy to just jump into that life. We’ve come up with a product, and some ideas, that can help you break into a new lifestyle by offering professional website services.

We All Idolize the Freelance Lifestyle

With your standard 9-5 jobs, it’s easy to daydream about working from the beach with your laptop. Or traveling around the world while you set your own work schedule.

But many of us face this problem: we’re professionals working 9-5 and we haven’t had the time to build the clientele to support that.

And even when you land a gig, it’s hard to manage expectations, set reasonable timelines, and collect your pay when you need it. That’s why many freelancers have turned to sites like Fiverr and Upwork. However, these sites have grown tremendously, and in our opinion have diluted the creative freelance market.

That’s why we saw fit to come up with our own professional website services platform on MOJO Marketplace. We want to enable people to create websites that accomplish their goals, whatever they may be, and provide a way for developers and service providers to earn a consistent income on our platform.

Introducing Professional Website Services on MOJO Marketplace

Our services platform is different from Fiverr or Upwork in three big ways.

1. We’re focused on websites.

Our services offering is niche-focused for our customer base of DIY website builders and small businesses. Your professional help will be available to our 5 million + users and will be integrated across our 10+ leading technology brand partnerships. Your work will be exposed to an audience that actually needs your help and is ready to pay for it.

2. You set the prices, packages, and terms.

You won’t be pressured to complete work for less than fair prices, and you will set the timelines and expectations.

3. Because this is a new platform, you have an opportunity to establish yourself as a service provider and rise to the top.

Just as with some of our top theme sellers, getting in early with a high-quality product can take you far.

You can begin offering services now in the following areas:

• Design
• Development
• Writing
• Video
• Marketing

Within each of these areas there is a multitude of services you can offer, from logo design to custom site development to blog posts to marketing analysis. Anything that helps people build or enhance their websites and businesses is fair game here.

The only caveat is that you can’t list services already offered by MOJO Marketplace.

The Challenges of Building Freelance Authority

Now that we’ve introduced you to our services marketplace, let’s talk about the gig itself: freelancing.

Building your rolodex of clients is tough to do, and even harder to manage later on. It requires not only developing the skills to do project work, but also the skills to market yourself. This takes a lot of time and energy that people with full-time jobs can’t afford.

In a recent article, freelancer Paul Jarvis characterizes starting a freelance business like this:

This traditional approach points out two things. First, it takes a lot of work to generate leads simply by creating an online portfolio and sharing it on social media. Second, with this method you are waiting for clients to come to you while others are taking action.

Jarvis goes on to suggest that “getting into the head of the people you want to get hired by” is the better route. This is an interesting strategy.

What he’s suggesting is going to the source. Instead of waiting for people to find your site or social media, go after clients who are the right fit for you.

While freelancer platforms like Fiverr and Upwork allow you to get your work in front of a network of general people looking for freelancers, MOJO Marketplace’s services marketplace puts you in front of people who are actively building websites and businesses.

If your work is relevant to building websites or digital marketing, offering services on our platform will get you into the heads of your ideal clients. Starting your freelance career on a network like ours poses three significant advantages to the traditional methods.

1. You leverage our 5 million+ user base across our marketplace and integrated hosting brands.
2. Our customers are the ideal fit for pro website services.
3. You don’t have to spend time establishing a marketing platform to generate leads–the leads are already browsing your services.

Creating a Portfolio of Professional Web Services

• Document Your Projects
• Find the Right Platform to Market Your Services
• Create Services Your Audience Needs
• Get Testimonials from Satisfied Customers
• Optimize Your Services

Getting established as a freelancer also requires building a portfolio. Without a demonstration of what you’re capable of, or a list of services you can provide, it’s hard to connect your skills to a paying gig.

And when you’re in the thick of work, it’s hard to think about documenting it to show off later. On top of that, the work you offer up has to be specific enough that clients know what you’re capable of. For example, if your client needs some UX copy written, they typically want to see an example of what you can do.

Here are some tips for building up that portfolio.

1. Document Your Projects

As you complete freelance projects, or even projects from your 9-5 job, keep track of them. Document your process and save assets as you go. This will pay off in the long run, and pose some advantages.

You’ll have everything you need to show your work:

• A rough idea of how long your project should take (and how to price it).
• Examples of a job well done (and your style).
• And how to package your service professionally.

2. Find the Right Platform to Market Your Services

You may want to create a website that demonstrates your work. This is a good idea especially if you’re looking for jobs. But if you want that more flexible freelance lifestyle, you need to change your strategy a bit.

If you’re not already an established agency or freelancer, it takes a lot of work to get eyes on your website. So keep it there, but definitely focus your reach on the right platform.

For website professionals like us, we’d look to something like MOJO Marketplace, where our customers are already shopping and trying to find help. This will give you a leg up, more work to show, and build authority faster.

3. Create Services Your Audience Needs

As you complete jobs, be sure to get feedback and take note of what your clients really need. Often times your clients won’t know exactly what they need until they see it, or someone like you comes in and gives them advice.

One way to handle this better is with a marketplace platform like MOJO’s. We allow you to create your service, set the price, and devise packages to offer a broad range of services for different budgets.

Here’s a video about the process of creating a service with MOJO’s new tool.

4. Get Testimonials from Satisfied Customers

Once you’ve had a little success, you can really stand out by providing customer testimonials along with your work. Testimonials can be hard to source, format, and display–it adds another layer of work and design to your portfolio.

But the nice thing about using a freelance platform is reviews are usually built in functionality. We have reviews and commenting features built into our new services product to make sure you and your clients are happy with the work, and can share the love.

This way, it’s super easy to ask your clients for feedback, and it will be displayed on your MOJO Marketplace service page. The more great work you do, the more you’ll build reviews and authority without having to manually add it to your own website.

5. Optimize Your Services

Also, as you work through issues and figure out what works with your design, writing, or development, you can refine your services and update them. For example, you may find that many of your clients end up coming back for a few more blog posts or graphics after you’ve created one.

With our platform, you could create a package of blog posts or graphics that will provide exactly that. This way, you can schedule a higher volume of work right off the bat and add value to your services. The sky is the limit, and all it takes is getting started.

Become a Bestselling Service Provider on MOJO

Interested in trying out the freelance gig on MOJO Marketplace? We have some tips to help you design a great service that our customers will find value in.

Read our follow up post about how to create a bestselling service on MOJO.

Tell us what your freelance experience has been in the comments below! We’d love to hear different perspectives and see how we can help you thrive.