One of the biggest issues at the core of freelancing is the need of a more or less steady flow of clients and assignments. Freelancing often means swinging between too much and too little work but, in crowded sectors such as web design freelancing, many have more problems on the “too little work” side, and find it hard to acquire new clients.
A sometimes overlooked possibility is to use the jobs section of a classified site. Many people rightfully suggest to start a blog or learn some basics of SEO when organizing a freelance business. However it can take months, if not years, to be able to get some visibility with a blog.
The advantage of inserting a job ad in a free ads site is not only the obvious one of being reached by the visitors of site. There is another way in which classified sites can be useful for freelancers: getting visits from a search engine requires “proving” to the search engine itself that your site is worthy. When you open a blog you are literally starting from scratch. You will have to get the trust of search engines day by day.
Inserting a well written ad on a free classifieds site allows you to use the power of that site. The chances of appearing in the search results for some interesting keywords increase drastically: most free ads site are well placed, SEO-wise. In the end, it’s a matter of efforts vs. potential rewards. And inserting a job ad is not much work, right? [ad#ad-1]
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That’s a pretty interesting idea. I never thought about marketing a site or blog through classified ads. Especially a good idea if you are a freelancer who also likes to blog!
I think you make a good point that classified ads can bring you immediate income, where building an online presence takes time. I still think everyone should have a website for credibility but getting business from it is a long term goal.