From Side Hustle to Serious: Setting Up Your Freelance Writing Business
In the first article in this series on kickstarting your freelance writing career, I talked about a bunch of things you need to think about BEFORE you actually start to formally set up your business.
In this article, I’m going to cover things you need to think about WHEN you’re ready to get started.
Setting Up Your Writing Business
So, here are a couple of key decisions to make once you’ve decided you’re going to go from ad hoc on-again-off-again paid writing to formally setting up your freelance writing business.
The first thing you need to decide is whether you’re going to register your business or just keep it as a sideline “thing” you do for now.
The second thing is choosing a name and a URL or web address for your business. And they aren’t necessarily the same thing.
Registered Business Versus Side Hustle
Only you can decide whether you want to register your business or not.
Often the deciding factor will have to do with how the extra money coming affects your taxes.
Registering your business gives you a bit of space between your company’s finances and your own, because it will become a stand-alone entity in the eyes of the tax department. But you may prefer to keep things simple and just declare the income you receive through your own personal taxes.
The laws in each country are different, so do your homework and take care to understand the longer term financial implications for you and your family.
Naming Your Business
Naming your business can be a bit tricky. Should you use your own name, like many other writers do? Or should you come up with something that’s not your actual name, but is reflective of the type of writing you do.
And there are other things to consider, as well, before setting your business name in stone.
What’s Your Web Address?
What do you want to have as the URL or web address for your website? Be sure to check to see that that specific URL is available before locking yourself in or creating any marketing material around it.
And you also need to decide whether you should buy some or all of the different extensions that go with your URL. For example your-url.com or your-url.net or you-rurl.org, and more.
And then what about adding on a country extension if you’re setting up your business outside of the US? The .com extension is still seen as the most desirable extension because most people automatically think of .com if they are trying to remember (or guess) a website’s address.
But you might want to include your country extension. For example in Australia, you might want to have your-url.com.au or in New Zealand your-url.co.nz or for the United Kingdom your-url.co.uk.
Business Name Versus URL
If you’ve registered your business, you need to decide whether to have the URL the same as your business name or not. For example, my registered business name is West Island Digital and I use that as the URL for my Fractional Chief Digital Officer agency (westislanddigital.com).
But I also have other web addresses/URLS for the portfolio of websites that I own and manage. So your business name and your web address/URL don’t have to be the same.
Give Your SEO a Boost
Before purchasing your URL, you need to check to see whether your proposed URL is SEO frIendly. Because if you CAN come up with a web address that contains a key SEO phrase about what you do, that’s a bonus. Not only will people feel more like they are in the right place, but it can give your SEO a bit of a boost as well.
Make It Memorable
Next, when choosing your URL, make sure that it’s something that’s easy for people to remember. A URL that is catchy will stick in people’s mind better than something bland.
For example, redhotmama.com is a great tongue-in-check URL for a website that talks about hot flashes/flushes and menopause. I never have to look that URL up, because it’s branded into my brain.
Spelling and URL Length
Here’s something that not many people think about until it’s too late. And that’s asking yourself, how easy would that URL be to spell and to type. Believe it or not, the longer or less common the words in the URL, the more likely it is to be misspelled.
And trust me on this next tip because I learned it the hard way … YOU are going to get sick of typing that URL again and again and again, especially if it’s long and complicated.
Registering Your Business
Next it’s time to take action and actually register your business (if that’s what you decided to do).
The rules for registering a business are different from country to country. So the best thing to do is to either ask your accountant (if you have one) for help or check out the relevant government organization below who is responsible for business registrations in your country.
Take the time to read up on what’s needed and understand it. I do recommend that you get the help of a lawyer and/or an accountant if you aren’t 100 percent sure of what to do.
Setting Up Professional Email and Social Media Profiles
It’s good to think about what email addresses you’ll have for your business before you get started. And you’ll definitely need to think about how you’re going to market your new freelance writing services.
The whole marketing thing (strategy + planning + actually doing) will be covered more thoroughly in a future article, but for now you need to focus on sorting out your email address(s) and social media channels.
Email Addresses
One important thing that you must NOT skip, is to get an email address that matches your URL/web address.
There is nothing that screams “newbie” (beginner) more than an email address that looks like your-url@gmail.com. And yes, I know lots of people do it, but if you want to look professional, pick an email address that has your URL after the @ symbol.
You might have:
- firstname@your-url
- firstnamelastname@your-url or
- firstinitiallastname@your-url
Whichever works best for you.
Also, you may find it helpful to have a second email address that you can use when you don’t want to use your main email address. For example, you could have:
- hello@your-url
- support@your-url
- theteam@your-url
- Or whatever works for you.
The one combination you SHOULDN’T use is admin@your-url.
This is because spammers and hackers know that admin@your-url is one of the most commonly used emails for managing business tools and technology. So it makes it easier for them to guess and even easier to get into your accounts and create havoc.
Social Media Accounts
Finally you need to decide which social media accounts you want to use to connect with potential clients and colleagues.
You should definitely have a LinkedIn account. Check out our blog post series on setting your LinkedIn freelance writer’s profile up for success.
- How To Set Up Your LinkedIn Profile As A Writer
- Your LinkedIn About and Experience Sections
- Be Sure To Use The Featured and Services Sections
- Highlighting Your Skills On LinkedIn
Once you’ve got your LinkedIn profile in place (or updated), then think about where your potential clients hang out online and go there to set up any other social media accounts you’ll be using.
One often overlooked channel is Pinterest, but it can be really helpful in (a) driving people to your website or blog and (b) showcasing writing work you’ve done for your clients. Check out our article on how to use Pinterest to promote your freelance writing business.
Ready For Action
And there you have it. Take action on everything I’ve talked about above and you’ll be ready to get out there and start hunting for clients.
This article on how to break into freelance writing without a portfolio will help you if you don’t have much (or any) writing samples you can show prospective clients yet.
And this article will give you five proven strategies to land your first freelance writing client.
Now get out there and take action.
Wishing you all the best for your freelance writing success.
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