Ask five freelancers how they find new clients and you’ll get five different answers.  Ask five marketers how a freelancer can get new clients and they’ll have only one answer: marketing.

Like it or not, no matter what business you’re in, marketing is going to be a part of it.  The problem is that there are so many different types of marketing out there that it’s impossible for anyone to do all of them, let alone do them well.  Depending on your business, your marketing approach will decide how effective you are at finding new clients (or getting them to find you).

Ask yourself these questions and it will get you started.

“Where do your potential clients spend their time?”  If they spend their time on Facebook, then that’s where you need to be.  If they are reading Vanity Fair Magazine, then that’s where you need to be.  If your market is local and these clients spend their time in specific places, then that’s where you need to be.  Your marketing needs to be where the people you are marketing to are.  Otherwise, you’re just wasting time and money.

“What do my potential clients want to hear?”  Note that the question isn’t “what do you THINK they want to hear,” but rather it’s “what do they want to hear?”  That’s important because a lot of freelancers go about their marketing thinking in terms of a freelancer wanting to get a client.  You need to aim your marketing at your client, so it needs to appeal to them, not appeal to you appealing to them.

“What marketing am I doing now that is working well?”  You’ve likely done some kind of marketing up to this point and some of it has probably paid off.  What was it?  Why did it pay off?  Can you repeat it?  Once you find what works, stick with it.  Feel free to explore new things, but do that exploration after you’ve maintained the fundamentals that are proven to be working.

In fact, that last one is the most commonly overlooked aspect of freelancer marketing.  Once you’ve found a way to find some freelance clients, stick with that plan and keep it working for you.

If you have the knack for writing, then we here at Newest on the Net know that you probably are interested in becoming a freelance writer, making your living (or partial living) freelancing.  Freelance writing can be a fun, rewarding career choice, but it requires work and diligence.

To make money freelance writing, you’ll first need to be sure you have the skills to prosper.  Can you write coherently, edit yourself well, and produce quality, ready-to-print material?  If not, you should spend the time now, before your professional reputation is at stake, perfecting these skills.  It takes time, effort, and know-how to be a good writer.

Next, you should begin looking for work.  Often, in the beginning, you’ll have to “pay your dues” with low-paying jobs that require a lot of work for little financial reward.  This is the world of freelancing, no matter what your profession, and is required in order to build both a reputation and a portfolio to increase your appeal to prospective employers.

Finding jobs can take place locally, nationally, or internationally.  Usually a combination of all three.  Locally, you likely have newspapers and other publications that are always looking for more input from quality talent.  These are often the foot-in-the-door jobs for freelance writing and journalism.  Gather up your best work so far and just walk in the door to talk to them.  Smaller papers usually have a small staff and the editor is often readily available.

Nationally, look for work on national directories and website freelancing pages to find work.  This goes for international work as well.  To make money freelance writing, you’ll need to know what is people are asking for before you can bid, so be sure you know exactly what it is they’re after before you bid on a job.

As your reputation grows, so will your income.  It’s not easy to make money freelance writing, but it is very rewarding and, with time, freelance writing can really pay off.

One of the coolest websites I have seen is the Footnote World War II Collection.  Footnote has worked with the National Archives to compile a great resource of World War II information.

This World War II collection includes tons of photos taken during WWII.  These photos are priceless.  What a great way to see what our soldiers did during this war.

Footnote World War II Collection

In addition to this awesome WWII photo gallery, Footnote has collected over 8.8 million pages that they title “Hero Pages.”  Each of these pages describes a soldier and shows what they did during the war using a really cool interactive timeline.

You can also create your own Hero Page of someone you know who served in World War II.  You can easily upload your own photos, create a timeline and a biography for your hero.

This is truly an awesome way to preserve this history.  I think that it is going to be a great tool for teachers and students.  So go check out the Footnote World War II Collection.

Click here to view more details

In Day 10 of the Thirty Day Challenge, Ed Dale and Dan Raine launched their free RSS feed submission service.   In my article on 35 Ways to Increase RSS Subscribers, tip number 32 suggested that you add you RSS feed to RSS feed directories.  Having a free RSS feed submission service is a great tool to help you promote your blog.

The TDC Submission tool can really save you a lot of time.  If you have ever done this manually for your blog, you know how long this can take.  But, the Thirty Day Challenge RSS Submission tool will do it automatically for you.  This should save you a lot of time.

So, how can submitting your blog to RSS feed directories help you promote your blog?  Each of these directories will register a link to your latest blog posts.  This will help you to get your new articles indexed by Google quickly.  The more links you have on the Internet the faster Google will find one and follow it to your site to index your article.  Additionally, if you have a catchy title and a good opening paragraph, people will see you article on the directory and come to your site directly.