Do you have a valuable skill or area of expertise that you can offer as a service? If so, you may be able to start an online business selling your services and earn some serious money from the comfort of your home.
The internet has opened up a world of opportunities for freelancers and service providers to connect with potential clients and customers from all around the globe. No longer are you limited to working with businesses and people in your local area—your target market is literally the entire online world.
In this post, we’ll cover what you need to know to get started selling your services online—from choosing your services, building an online presence, finding clients, pricing your services, getting paid, and more.
Choosing Your Services
The first step is deciding exactly what services you plan to offer online. Maybe you already have a clear idea based on your existing skills and background. But if not, spend some time brainstorming potential services you could provide based on:
• Your professional expertise and experience
• Technical skills like programming, web design, graphics, etc.
• Creative talents like writing, editing, photography, voiceovers, etc.
• Education, training, and certifications you’ve completed
• Personal interests, hobbies, and passions
It’s generally best to choose a niche and specialize in a specific type of service, at least when you’re first starting out. Not only will this make it easier for you to market yourself, but clients often prefer to hire experts rather than generalists.
Some examples of popular services people sell online include:
• Web design and development
• Search engine optimization (SEO)
• Graphic design
• Copywriting and content creation
• Social media management
• Virtual assistant services
• Online tutoring and lessons
• Consulting in various industries
• Accounting and bookkeeping
• Legal services
• App development
• Video editing
• Voiceovers and audio production
• Online coaching and training
Don’t feel limited by this list! With a bit of creativity, there are countless services you could package up and sell online using the skills you already have.
Building an Online Presence
Once you’ve nailed down your service offerings, it’s time to work on establishing a strong online presence. At a minimum, you’ll want:
A professional website
This will be your virtual headquarters for selling services online. At the very least, your website should clearly explain what services you offer, showcase your skills and past work, tell visitors about your background and experience, include client testimonials (once you start getting clients), and have a way for prospects to contact you.
If you plan to book clients for hourly or project-based work online, you may also want to look into using a scheduling app that allows clients to book time on your calendar.
There are many website builders and tools that make it super easy to build a professional-looking website yourself without coding, like Squarespace, Wix, Weebly, or WordPress.
Social media profiles
At minimum, you’ll want to have a presence on relevant social networks for your industry and use them to network, connect with potential clients, and share your expertise.
Some good networks for service providers to be on include LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram. Use relevant hashtags and get involved in conversations happening in your niche.
Freelance marketplace profiles
While you’ll eventually want clients coming directly to your own website and digital presence, freelance marketplaces like Upwork, Fiverr, Freelancer.com, and others can be helpful in the early stages when you’re trying to land your first clients.
Create optimized profiles that include your services, skills, portfolio, experience, and testimonials to start competing for projects and jobs.
See Also: Top 5 Online Business Ideas You Can Start Right Now and Make Money from It
Content creation
Consider starting a blog, YouTube channel, podcast or some other platform where you can consistently share valuable expertise and insights related to the services you offer and your industry. Over time, this content can be a powerful way to drive traffic to your website, build your authority, and convert visitors into paying clients.
Finding Clients and Getting Hired
With a professional website, social media presence and some content under your belt, you can start prospecting and pitching for clients. There are several ways to go about finding work:
Responding to job postings
On your own website, include a way for potential clients to submit service inquiries and job details. You can also browse sites like the freelance marketplaces mentioned earlier, as well as other job boards like LinkedIn Jobs, RemoteOK, WeWorkRemotely, and more.
Cold outreach
It can be extremely effective to identify your ideal clients and directly reach out to pitch your services. This could involve sending cold emails and LinkedIn messages, joining relevant communities and groups, attending events (virtual or in-person), and more.
Making use of your network: Don’t underestimate the power of your existing network of contacts—friends, family, former colleagues, college alumni, social connections, etc. Let everyone know you’re taking on new service clients and ask for any referrals.
Partner and affiliate programs
Look into service partnership opportunities, where you team up with companies or individuals who offer complementary services and can refer clients to each other. Also consider joining relevant affiliate programs to earn commissions for referring business.
Offering free consultations
An easy way to land clients is to offer free consultations or strategy sessions. You can use these calls to better understand prospects’ needs, offer value, and pitch how you can help.
No matter what, be prepared with an incredible pitch and proposal that communicates the results and outcomes you can deliver to clients. Studies show service providers who focus on outcomes rather than just tasks and activities tend to earn much higher rates.
See Also: How To Start A Profitable Online Business In Nigeria
Getting Paid
Once you start landing clients, you’ll need to have an online payment system in place for collecting payments securely and reliably.
Popular payment services to look into for accepting online payments include PayPal, Square, Stripe, and Authorize.net. Many processors integrate with popular invoicing apps like FreshBooks, Wave, and QuickBooks Online to streamline the billing and payment process.
If you want to make it easy for clients to pay ongoing subscriptions and retainers, consider using a recurring billing platform like Chargebee, Recurly, or Chargify. These can automatically handle charging clients on a monthly (or other recurring schedule) basis.
For larger projects, it’s common for service providers to collect a percentage of the total project fee upfront as a deposit. This helps cover any work you do for a client upfront before they’ve paid you in full.
Protect Yourself
Along with setting up payment systems, it’s also extremely important to protect yourself and your business with proper client agreements, contracts, and other legal documentation.
Before starting any work for a client, have them agree to formal terms that outline the services you’ll provide, associated rates/fees/scheduling, ownership of work products, confidentiality terms, payment schedules, and any other relevant policies and procedures.
You may also want to look into professional liability insurance, which can help cover the costs if a client takes legal action against you over a dispute with your services.
See Also: How To Make Money Online As A Student In Nigeria
Conclusion
While we’ve covered some of the key steps to selling your services online and getting started, there’s a lot more that goes into building and growing a successful service business.
As with any business, you’ll need to stay on top of marketing and promotion, delivering excellent work to keep clients happy, continuing your education and skills development, hiring and scaling up as needed, and adjusting your offerings and business model as you go.
But the internet has truly opened up incredible earning opportunities for skilled service providers and freelancers. If you’ve got in-demand skills and are willing to put in the work, there’s serious money
