In the last two parts of this series, I discussed publicising yourself and networking, both of which are great ways to advertise your wares. There are, however, more traditional routes to advertising and finding work.

Advertise Your Business

Once you’ve built up a portfolio of work and contacts, it’ll become increasingly easier to advertise yourself. But intially, finding work is a case of advertising yourself. This can be achieved in a number of ways.

You can create adverts on search engines such as Google via their Adwords service, or on Yahoo! Small Business via their equivalent search marketing service.

You could also go down the slightly more traditional route and add free or paid listings to online business directories such as Yell.com and Thomson Local.

I see little value in using the paper-based business directories, since you’re likely to be operating in the digital arena, however, niche publications or magazines may be a credible option to consider.

Find Work

You’ve got the skill and experience, you’ve built an online brand and you have advertised yourself. But still you need to find paid-for work.

Essentially there are two ways to do this, via your network or via the bane-of-everyones-life, agencies. Always prefer your network over agencies; you won’t be locked into rigid contracts and you could potentially earn more money for yourself as there won’t be a cut for the agent.

Of course, if you go through an agency, you don’t necessarily need to set up a company or do any of the complicated accounting and they have a ready-built network of contacts.

I tend to mix-and-match based upon demand. There is also the point that the agency can introduce you to a client and after a period of time has lapsed, you can go to that client directly, assuming you have maintained a good relationship.

You could also do your own research into companies carrying out work in your field and cold-call or email them. If they don’t have work available immediately, you have alerted them to your presence. They are also more likely to contact you directly at a later date, as this will save them money, rather than sourcing contractors through an agency.

There is a final area of consideration; joining networks and services such as the Lemon Foundation and 99Designs. These services effectively connect designers and developers to clients needing work to be carried out. This work could be anything from logo designs and business cards to branding and websites.

Lemon Foundation is more like an umbrella company that bids for and farms out work; they do all the client facing work — winning bids, project plans and scoping etc — whilst you do the ‘actual’ work. 99Designs on the other hand is a marketplace where you have to compete on price and reputation. It is in effect an eBay or Amazon of the designer-developer world and is brought to you buy the guys who created SitePoint (a great web development resource).

Final Thoughts

Someone cheesy wrote…

Twenty first century people aren’t afraid of challenges, of stepping outside their comfort zones, of swapping lives. No more forty years with the same organisation, here’s my gold watch to prove my loyalty – it’s all about building up a portfolio of skills, identifying strengths, capitalising on opportunities and transferring the package to the next best place. Sometimes that place is you.

Creating a brand and blogging are two important steps to getting yourself known, but are of little use if you do not actively build relationships through networking.

A good friend of mine, Rob, has some great advice: Get to the pub. When a project comes up and someone wants a Flex developer, you want to be front-of-mind.

Of course networking is more than simply going to the pub, it’s talking to friends and colleagues online, it’s attending conferences and groups. In essence it’s about ‘getting out there’.

Build Online Relationships

Many of my contacts are not from the London area, but include locations such as Brighton, Edinburgh and Birmingham. Added to this, I have international contacts in countries such as Australia, Belgium, New Zealand and the United States.

Clearly it isn’t easy to call up these people and say ‘do you want to go to the pub’. Therefore, building online relationships is a must. There are a whole host of services that essentially let people understand me as a person, not just a work colleague.

I use, to varying degrees, services such as FriendFeed, SocialThing, BrightKite, Jaiku, Meebo, Bebo, MySpace, LinkedIn, Facebook, LibraryThing, Cork’d and Dopplr. Indeed, you can find links to my most-used services in the footer of my site.

Take a look at the links in the footer and get to know me. You may notice that all the services are registered under my brand name. Again, this allows people to draw association with the profile they are looking at and me. It also means that if you want to follow me on one or many services, it won’t be hard to find me.

Attend Local Meetings and User Groups

Attending local ‘geek’ meets is a great way to meet like-minded people, exchange thoughts and quite possibly find work. These meetings can be found on the Yahoo! service Upcoming.org and on Meetup.com.

On the odd occassion, I may be found at meetings such as the Web Standards Meetup, the ColdFusion User Group, London Geeks, the London Flash Platform User Group, the Flex London User Group etc. (I do have a life outside my work, honestly!)

Attend Conferences Related to Your Industry

Conferences are really an extension of local user groups and meetings, but they allow you to network with a wider, often international, audience. It is quite possible to spend a few days a month attending conferences, so chosing ones relevant to you are key.

In the past I have attended, Adobe MAX, Scotch-on-the-Rocks and CFDevCon, but there are a tranche of other conferences that could be equally relevant such as CFUnited Europe, 360Flex and Flash on the Beach.

Conferences provide a varying degree of networking and job opportunities, but if anything they provide a great sneak-peek into what other people are working on and in what direction the industry is heading.

What’s Next

In the final part of this series I will introduce methods by which you can advertise your business.

In the dim and distant past, the job of publicising yourself was extremely difficult. Can you imagine life without the Internet, mobile telephones and email? How did people ever do business? With the advent of the World Wide Web and in particular search engines and blogging, this all changed and a wealth of opportunity has become available, especially to the freelancer.

But where do you start?

Create a Brand

Creating a brand is a great way to market yourself. This does not have to be the same as your company, and through time you may set up different brands for different sectors or ideas you may have. Brands serve to create associations and therefore, expectations of products you create, so a good brand name is a great way to get recognised in your community.

You can register the brand in the UK, Europe and the US, although the latter requires a US address. It is also not a given that your brand registration will be successful, making it a costly exercise. Careful consideration is what is needed here.

Create an Avatar

Avatars are images or icons that represent you in the online world. They are an extension of your brand. For example, the header of my website is also my favicon and avatar on various online services. It is a great way for people to draw an association between your online presence and you.

Create a Blog

Blogs are a great way to get yourself known and therefore heard amongst your peer group. Your blog should really be an extension of your brand and is a great avenue to showcase your skills, demo example applications, code and designs, or simply give your opinion on a subject.

I use the excellent WordPress blogging application, in a self-hosted environment. You don’t need to do this since there is a hosted version at WordPress.com, or you could use Blogger, another popular blogging platform, provided by Google.

The key to blogging is talk about what you enjoy, don’t just keep it technical. Blogs should be an extension of you, not an avenue for pretentious comment; you’ll soon be found out!

If you go the self-hosted route, you’ll need a domain name, hosting provider and obviously a blog application. I have listed a few below that can get you started.

Domain Names:

• Nominet
• Easily
• EuroDNS

Hosting Providers:

• HostMySite
• Titan Internet
• Flint Hosts
• UKHost4U
• 1and1

Blog Applications:

• WordPress (free)
• Moveable Type (free)
• ExpressionEngine (free)
• TypePad

If going the self-hosted is all too complicated for you or you simply don’t want the hassle that is associated with self-hosting, all is not lost. WordPress.com and Blogger are for you.

Blog Hosting Providers:

• WordPress.com
• Blogger

Both services take the onus away from the user when it comes to management (backups, plugins etc). At the simplest level, all you need to do is create and publish the content.

Join feed aggregators

To get noticed in the blogosphere, you can’t simply rely on the Google, Yahoo! and Microsoft search engines ranking your site. You will need to alert your peers to the fact that you’ve created some content that is worth reading. You can achieve this with feed aggregators.

Below I list a few that I use:

• Adobe
• Full-as-a-Goog
• ColdFusionBloggers
• Feed Squirrel
• London Bloggers

If you use WordPress, then you’re in luck. WordPress has a service called Ping-o-matic, which updates different search engines when your blog has been updated. You can also add your own services to ping and therefore notify the service of new content.

Comment on Blogs

Commenting on blogs is another great way of getting yourself known as well as offering an opinion. Since comments allow you to include a link back to your website, try and comment as your brand.

One tip, try not to be defamatory towards the blog owner, or others unless you have a strong justification for doing so. It’s all about the karma!

Join Micro-Blogging Services

If blogging is not your thing or you don’t have time to write articles, there are a number of blogging and, more importantly, micro-blogging services available to you that allow you to get your thoughts out into the wide-world.

Such services include the not-always-venerable Twitter, the feature rich Pownce, the new kid on the block Plurk and the blogging service, Tumblr.

Building a following will allow you to announce to your followers important events and ask questions of them.

What’s Next

In the next part of this series, I’ll talk about networking, a natural extension to publicising yourself on the web.

Most creative people are unable to make a living from the sale of their work alone and therefore becoming self-employed as a freelancer enables you to manage your finances more effectively by earning additional money from short- or medium-term opportunities.

Graphic design, illustration, photography, journalism, writing, web design and development, training and copywriting are some of the sectors that use freelancers on a regular basis. Infact, many freelancers I know don’t simply work in one area. For example, my working month is a mixture of web development, writing and training and this is not uncommon among my peers as well.

There are numerous other considerations. Freelancers can, when the market is buoyant, choose their contract location and duration. They can also decide the length of their holidays (although this isn’t always the case). This greater freedom brings a major responsibility; you have to find work. This can be easy when many projects are underway, but can be difficult at other times. Furthermore, you will have to manage your own finances, which may perhaps involve dealing with an accountant, filling in payroll, tax and VAT forms etcetera.

In this four-part series, I share some thoughts on what you may want to consider when setting up and ‘going it alone’. The detail is UK-centric, but much of what I say is transferable to other regions.

The first in the series is setting up a business.

Register a Company

To be a serious freelancer, you can’t simply do work ‘cash-in-hand’. Instead you will need to set up a company through which you will work. This is not a complicated task and there are a number of companies out there who will do all the hard work for you, albeit for a small fee.

You can check Companies House for the availability of your company name and submit the company formation directly through them if you wish.

Get an Accountant

If you’re like me and can’t be bothered (or indeed don’t have the time) to sit down every month to compile accounts, process payroll and submit VAT returns, it is a good idea to get yourself a trustworthy accountant who specialises in freelancing matters. Ask friends for recommendations, since it can be daunting task finding someone who will work for you.

The Inland Revenue in the UK and the Internal Revenue Service in the US will always want their money and on time, so it is important that you manage submissions correctly.

Join the PCG

The Professional Contractors Group (PCG) is an organisation set up to support contractors and freelancers. For a small fee per year, you can gain access to a huge knowledge base of articles on your chosen topic and they also provide support if the Inland Revenue come calling.

Get Insurance

Many companies oblige their freelancers to get Professional Indemnity (PI) insurance, which may, in some instances, also include equipment, Public Liability and Employer’s Liability insurance.

You can get away without having this insurance, especially if the company you work for has a dedicated QA team, which will soon catch any shoddy work before it is released live. However, it is always best to cover your back.

If you’re a member of the PCG, they can offer advice and discounts on PI insurance. This is quite good since the insurance can be relatively pricey!

What’s Next

The next post in the series will focus on publicising you and your company. This involves creating a brand, blogging and using 3rd-party services.