12 Ways to Find Freelance Work Online (No Experience Needed)

How do you find freelance work online?

When I started out in 2014, I just used freelance job boards, and boom! I found clients, but now?

A decade later is it that easy?

Yes and no.

There are more opportunities to find work online as a freelance writer, which works better in some ways than others.

But, what if you don’t have a portfolio filled with your online work?

Or, what if you have absolutely no experience writing online or writing for freelance clients?

How the heck are you suppose to find online freelance work?

Well, I’m going to share twelve easy ways to gain freelance writing jobs even if you have no experience.

If I could get a writing gig without experience, I know you can, too.

12 Ways to Find Freelance Work Online as a Beginner

Make sure to watch the video and subscribe to my Youtube channel for more freelance writing advice and help!

Even if you don’t have a body of work online to show prospective clients that you can write for them, you need to know HOW to write to gain freelance work.

I mean, if you don’t enjoy writing, got C’s in English at school, and struggled to write more than 1,000 words, then online writing isn’t for you.

But if writing comes easily to you and you want to stay home and make money writing, check out these easy ways to land freelance writing jobs.

With each of these ways to find freelance work, I will also tell you the top soft and writing skills you need to make this gig work for you.

1. Go Local

Top Soft Skill: Interpersonal skills (maintaining positive relationships, actively listening)
Top Writing Skill: Short copy for social media

You can get your foot in the door and gain experience with freelance work by finding work in your town or city.

For this to work, you need to focus on business writing. This means writing about:

A company’s product or service
Information about any deals going on
Relating seasonal holidays to the business product

Of course, some businesses may need educational content to attract new customers (this is the type of writing I do).

To find online freelance work, focus on the Facebook pages of local businesses, such as pet stores, bakeries, dance studios, gyms, veterinarians, or flower shops.

Most likely these are smaller businesses that are trying to grow their customer base and using Facebook as either a marketing strategy or their online home (i.e. no website).

For example, my local pet store doesn’t have a website, but it has a Facebook page where it shares logistical information (days and times for pet grooming) and educational posts to help people have healthy pets.

As a new freelance writer, you can take some time reading their Facebook posts, and once you learn their tone of voice, how frequently they post, and the length of copy, you can pitch to them that you can write the Facebook posts that will help gain more views and garner more business.

How?

By sharing that you’re a qualified copywriter….even if you have never done copywriting before.

You can research other pet companies to see how they are writing their posts to get ideas.

Then you can give them a sample of a mockup Facebook post.

You can easily do this with Canva.

Canva is a free editing tool with thousands of free templates to use.

You can even mention in your pitch that you can manage their Facebook page, which can generate recurring income.

Demonstrate to these local businesses that the posts you can create for their Facebook and other social media profiles will help them rank in Google and gain more traffic.

It might be difficult for a beginner freelancer to tell a business all of that, but you can take small steps and try it out!

2. Use the Small Business District

Top Soft Skill: Confidence in showing businesses what they need
Top Writing Skill: Web copy

But, if you don’t want to go out canvassing to different businesses in your town or city OR if you live in a rural area, try finding the next city to you and spend the day on your day off to go around to the small business district.

This is a small area within a city with groups of office buildings.

Talk to the people at these business offices (if they are open) and see if there’s a potential writing job for their company.

Of course you can also look online for your small business district directory.

When approaching local and small businesses, most likely they won’t need a lot of proof that you’re a legit writer.

If they ask, you can use your current or recent job as proof.

For example, maybe at your job you wrote emails or had to write detailed reports.

This can act as proof of your writing.

This isn’t “faking it until you make it.”

But doing this will give you more confidence to be a writer.

For more help, though, you can present these small businesses with:

copy for a webpage on their website
social media post
email

Let the business owner know you worked on this the other day and thought it would be a good upgrade to what they have.

They may hire you to do the rest of their website or to write their weekly news campaigns.

Doing this type of work upfront can help you find freelance work online down the road.

Work for these local companies online and then you can venture out to working for companies all over the world like I do.

3. Find Local Newspapers

Top Soft Skill: Patience (to get stories)
Top Writing Skill: Journalistic writing

Do you see a pattern here?

The first part of these ways to find online freelance work is local.

So, naturally newspapers and publications will come up. And you want to know the good thing about this? They aren’t too strict on experience!

Go ahead and find your local newspaper and see if they need some freelance work.

Lately, there have been stories globally about media companies laying off journalists, and this may trickle down to your town or city.

I would visit your smaller local newspapers or magazine publications and see the ‘climate’ there.

Be confident, tell them you are a freelance writer, and let them know how you can help them on a freelance basis.

Some of these newspapers or magazines may hit you up to do a few local stories.

This is exactly what I did when I started freelance writing. I went to my local newspaper company, told them about my freelance services, and asked if they needed any freelance journalist work.

Well, they did!

They wanted me to drive around town for stories.

4. Use Printing and Media Companies

Top Soft Skill: Negotiation skills
Top Writing Skill: Copywriting

Another way I found work as a new freelancer was to contact printing and media companies in my city.

These companies often create logos for other businesses, restaurant menus, brochures, calendars, etc.

It’s a good idea to meet with a few of these media companies to let them know you’re a freelancer.

Come into the meeting with a service sheet detailing your services and prices so they can see what you offer (and if they need your services) and for them to have a copy for reference.

You can use a Canva template for freelance services. Just make it black and white for easy printing.

There will be times throughout the year when media companies will be swamped with big projects and look to hire freelancers for digital work.

5. Find Dead Blogs

Top Soft Skill: Creativity (thinking of new ideas, think outside the box)
Top Writing Skill: Content writing + Writeto1k course

We are moving on to the next group of ways to find online freelance work when you have absolutely no experience!

So, where do we go now? To the dead blogs out there.

Before I discuss this new freelance work opportunity with you, I want to state that I don’t promote free work as a way to land a writing job.

I’m all for free guest posting, as this builds your brand, but many businesses that want free work are usually ghostwritten and will do nothing to propel you further in your freelance journey.

But let’s be real here –

You have no experience with online writing
You just have an email address and perhaps a college degree
You have no experience with client work
And you don’t have a robust portfolio filled with years of online freelance work

So, in a way you HAVE to do things for “free” as a way to land some writing jobs.

These are free opportunities with businesses that have a blog, but the CEO neglected their blog, and there are only a few blog posts.

Finding dead blogs might be difficult but I find that small businesses usually have stale blogs. Think dentists, home exterminators, lawyers, camps, hair salons, etc..

Find these small businesses online and see if they even have a blog.

For example, I was researching summer camps and rVing and found a country rVing dealership.

They had a blog on this site. I checked the blog and although there are no dates, there aren’t that many posts for the entire blog.

It will take some sleuthing but I would take the time to find this brand on social and ask the social media team who to contact for a blog writing gig.

As I mentioned, new freelance writers have more success finding freelance work when they scope local businesses and find out if they have a blog.

Note, don’t fall for the trap of telling them they need a blog because they may hire you to set it up and if you don’t know, don’t suggest it!

6. Redo Website Copy

Top Soft Skill: Goal-setting (make a target of businesses you want to approach)
Top Writing Skill: Short web copy

Another ‘free’ thing you can do is take a business’s website copy and redo it.

You can also do this for social media and email copy.

If you feel you have a better version of their website or email copy, create a mockup with spruced-up copy and send it to them with a pitch saying you’re a freelance copywriter and that you do website copy or email copy.

Be confident now, and over time, you’ll get a bite!

This is a very popular thing many freelance coaches tell others.

A few weeks ago, I received an email from a video editor. They viewed my YouTube channel and ended up taking a 30-second snippet of one of my videos. They then used their new editing skills to re-edit this portion.

They gave me a sample to view.

I was intrigued, checked it out, and it was done nicely!

However, ultimately, the things they showed me were things I could already do, so it wasn’t for me. However, I can bet this video editor didn’t stop at me and probably has a full list of clients!

If you’re thinking, “But Elna, where do I find their email address to send my updated copy?”

Most businesses, small businesses and solopreneurs have a contact page you can use to contact them.

You can also DM them on LinkedIn, X/Twitter, or Instagram.

Another thing you might be thinking, “But Elna, where do I create the mockup version?”

Such good questions!

What I would use is Canva!

You can check out competitor website copy to get a feel for writing compelling website or landing page headlines.

7. Transcribe Youtube Videos

Top Soft Skill: Presentation skills (approach your pitch as presenting a new thing for a person’s business)
Top Writing Skill: Writing fast

An easy way to land freelance writing gigs without experience is to transcribe YouTube videos.

You can go to the big (or semi-big) creators you know and check to see if they have a blog. You can find this information by clicking on their bio under their YouTube title and handle.

For example, if I were a finance writer, I could look at the Create with Pennies YouTube channel to see if Mary has a website or blog.

It looks like she does.

Upon looking at her blog, Mary is creating blog posts from her YouTube videos, which is good for you.

You can come in there and tell her that hiring you to do the transcription or turning her YouTube videos into actionable blog posts will get done quicker.

Find a way to show these Youtubers that you can help:

Turn a Youtube video into a blog post
Add keywords to the blog post
Add supporting information to make the blog post more valuable

And things like that to “woo” a Youtuber into hiring you!

Now, you might be thinking, “But, Elna, how do I write a blog post?”

If you need help I have some resources:

Go ahead and check out my blog to see how I structure my content
Sign up for Fast Track to SEO Writing
Enroll in Freelance Blogging in a Weekend

You can use Google Docs to paste the transcription when you transcribe the video.

I use a Google Doc Extension called Text Cleaner.

This helps turn the transcription from big blocks of text to something you can read.

You can edit in Google Docs and send the copy to the Youtuber’s email address.

8. Create Social Media Posts

Top Soft Skill: Persuasion (you want to upsell these clients)
Top Writing Skill: Social media writing

A lot of business owners love sharing their thoughts on LinkedIn.

From wins to challenges to big news and revelations.

But, this takes time and you have to be consistent to see any growth on LinkedIn.

This is where you can come in!

So, how do you find online freelance work this way?

You can find the YouTube creators on LinkedIn and see if they want you to create some thought leadership content on top of the blog posts you are creating.

Since you are approaching them for transcription work, it’s an easy jump to ask them to do some social media writing.

And this is easy to do.

Let them know you checked them out on LinkedIn and see little traction with their LinkedIn posts and that you can be their writer.

You can mention that with the YouTube video you are transcribing, you can take some of the information – especially if it’s personal – and turn that into a LinkedIn post for them.

You don’t have to claim to be a LinkedIn expert, either. This is something a beginner can do.

If it’s not LinkedIn, pitch to other social media platforms like X/Twitter, Instagram, or TikTok.

The point is to get your foot in the door with a creator.

Take the time to research this creator and see how your writing service could benefit them.

Remember that you are upselling this service, too. So, you come in as a transcriptionist and also add social media writing and maybe email newsletter writing too.

Those are extra services you can add. So, instead of making $200 per blog post you are now banking $400 a week with one client.

9. Ask Friends and Family

Top Soft Skill: Active listening (pay attention to non-verbal cues and get the story from these clients)
Top Writing Skill: content writing

The last batch of ways to find work online as a freelancer is to ask friends and family.

Now, don’t knock this method or don’t think, “Elna I can’t ask my friends and family. They don’t have writing jobs for me!”

Well, if it’s not friends and family, think friends of friends instead. For example, my son’s hockey team and their parents are in real estate, dentistry, health, and more.

I can approach one of the moms, who is a realtor, and ask her if she has a website for her business. If she does or if she’s working on getting one up, you can offer your website copy or blog writing service.

You don’t have to be an expert in real estate, either. There’s Google for that, and the person hiring you will give you unique perspectives, too.

So, take a good look at your friends and family and see:

Do they own a small business?
Do they have a personal brand online?
Do they want to write a book (my friend who is an editor told me that the local grocer hired her to edit a book he wrote)?

10. Focus on Newsletters

Top Soft Skill: Critical thinking (bringing this skill to the table when writing your emails)
Top Writing Skill: Email writing

Along with asking friends and family, go ahead and approach the people you know who have a business and see if they need help with their newsletters.

This could be email-focussed or more like a brochure that gets handed out or mailed out.

For example, my husband’s uncle owns a sporting good store in our city. They run radio ads and manage a website and email.

If I’m in need of finding freelance work quickly, I can approach him and ask him about his email marketing and what’s happening there.

He may tell me he doesn’t know and it’s been “dead” for a while or that their copyeditor quit last week or something like that.

I can then let him know I can pick up where that copyeditor left off and write the newsletters and promotional emails he needs for the store.

11. Help Write Cover Letters & Resumes

Top Soft Skill: Attention to detail
Top Writing Skill: Business writing

This type of freelance work for writers isn’t the best gig since you really aren’t writing, but you don’t need experience helping people spruce up their cover letters and resumes.

Check to see if any of your family’s children looking for their first job need help with the CV’s.

This can pay you $100 or more per client!

12. Upsell Editing

Top Soft Skill: Initiative
Top Writing Skill: flexible writing (being able to add more depth, synonyms, and insights to an article)

One skill that needs no experience is editing. Why not upsell – or only offer – editing?

This is an easier way to get your foot in the door, and it can turn into recurring work.

From editing a piece of copy to adding a blurb here to writing an email there and so on.

So, as an upsell, you can agree to blog writing and then quickly add, “Oh, by the way, I can totally edit all your other blog posts and emails if you want.” If they agree, you can add an additional $100 to your project.