Blogging is an Advantage for Freelance Designers

There are various reasons why people blog. Some would use it as a means to convey their feelings and express their opinions to the public, while others would use blogging as a way to advertise their business and expand their target market. For freelance designers however, blogging is used for several different purposes. In fact, blogging is actually a huge advantage for them.

We are going to take a look at the 10 reasons why blogging is an advantage for freelance designers, especially to those who are new in this field of industry. Some of these may not be applicable for you, but you might find others beneficial.

1. Networking

Blogging through some networking sites, such as Facebook, is a great way to meet and connect with other people that have creative minds as yours. This allows you to share and discuss ideas which could help you to gain more knowledge that you can use in your future designing projects. You can even tie-up with these designers to work on big projects in the future and some of them might also refer you to their clients. Professional web designers might also stumble into your blog and they could pitch-in ideas that are beneficial for you.

2. Advertise

Blogging is also a great avenue for you to advertise your design works and gather potential clients to earn a possible long term contract. There are some clients who would make use of Facebook and other blogging sites to look for a freelance designer that they could hire with. In fact, some business owners would make use of twitter, another famous networking site, to look for designers who could come up with a company logo or someone that could develop their website. Therefore, aside from blogging, make use of other social networking sites as well, like Twitter, LinkedIn, Tumblr and many more.

3. Communication Skills

Blogging helps to improve your communication skills. Communication is an important aspect to freelancing, because as a freelance designer, you are expected to communicate well with your clients on a regular basis. This also helps to improve your ability to answer interview questions during job interviews, which would give you an edge among other freelance designers that are trying to apply for that particular job you are applying for. With proper communication skills, you would be able to effectively communicate your portfolio projects to the client and share to them your design proposals. In fact, some freelance designers, regardless of how experienced they are on their field, are having difficulty with getting freelancing jobs because of their inability to communicate well with potential clients.

4. Gather Information

Blogging is also a great way for you to gather resources that can be useful to your future designing projects. As earlier mentioned, blogging gives you the opportunity to communicate with other freelance designers who are willing to share their expertise on this field. This also gives you access to some informational blogs that talks about freelance designing jobs, announcement on some upcoming design conferences in your area, product news and updates, step by step design tutorials and many more. With blogging, you get to discover a lot of things that could definitely help to expand your horizon.

5. Opportunities

Blogging helps you to build a strong professional network, which is a great help in your career as a freelance designer. The best way to gather potential clients and close a deal is by building a strong network connection. Your blog could help to gather fellow web designers which could be part of your professional network connection. These people could help to refer you to their clients just in case there are available opportunities for you. With blogging, you get to meet and connect with other freelance designers from all over the world. All of these international connections are a big help to you, because you will not only be limited to opportunities that are available in your country, but you will also have the chance to work with some of the biggest companies from all over the world.

6. Relieve Loneliness

Blogging definitely helps to relieve loneliness and keeps you from getting bored with your freelance jobs. There are really times where we get tired with working, and the best way to relieve you from such exhaustion is by means of blogging. If you ask some of the best bloggers in the world the reasons why they blog, one of their answers would be because they find blogging an enjoyable thing to do. For them, this is a good way to alleviate stress, which is necessary for them to be able to function well in their work. This is especially helpful for freelance designers who work from home, because working alone can be quite lonely at times. So if you feel like you are drained because of too much work, then blog away in order to ease your exhaustion and boredom.

7. Recognition

Blogging helps your name to be recognized in the Internet, which is a great way to advertise your work. Some of the world famous designers are recognized just by their name, and in fact, if you search online for some web designers, their name would stand out from among the search results. If you want your name and your work to be recognized worldwide, then the best way is to blog your work, so that when people like your designs, they could refer your blog to some of their friends and to some other people they know. This will then earn you several clicks on your site, and the next time someone would search for a freelance designer in the Internet, your blog will surely stand out from among the search results. If you are really good at blogging, you will eventually have plenty of readers and soon enough, your blog will become famous worldwide.

8. Feedback

Blogging helps to gather feedback about your work, which could help you to improve in the future. One of the downfalls of blogging is that your readers will have the freedom to criticize your work or designs. But do not take these comments in a negative way. Instead, consider it as an avenue for you to improve your work in the future. Encourage your readers to give feedbacks or provide comments about your designs, and also ask them to give suggestions on how you can improve in your craft. The problem with working on your own at home is that you will not have someone that could give you feedback, so you will not have an idea on whether you are doing your job well or not. If you are not sure about the project you are working, you can do a screenshot of your work and ask your blog readers to comment on it. You will surely be surprised on the feedbacks of others, because there are some mistakes that we cannot see by looking at our own work.

9. Productive

Blogging helps you to become more productive even during those times where you do not have any projects to work on. There are really times wherein the clients won’t be able to give you that much projects, but instead of doing nothing, you can make use of your idle time to blog. Aside from making use of your precious time, you will also have the chance to enjoy and learn at the same time. So instead of wasting your time in between work, build a blog instead and reach out to your fellow freelance designers so you could gather insights and ideas from them. Who knows, a potential client might stumble into your blog and this might lead you to more projects which you can work on while waiting for your other client to provide you with work. In the end, you will continue to earn even if your other client does not have anything for you to work yet.

10. Monitor Your Work

Blogging is also a good way to monitor your projects, and your blog can serve as your work diary that contains all your previous works and designs which you might need in your future projects. There are times wherein you need to back track your work either because you are working on a project that is similar to your past project or maybe just something that will serve as a reference to help you materialize the project that you are currently working on. WordPress is a good example of a blog site that you can use for building your own blog. It is a great site that could help to monitor your previous design projects and comes with a comment section for each blog that you post. WordPress saves all the blogs you have written even from a long time ago, and it still allows you to see what others are saying about each blog post. The search feature of WordPress is so easy to use, and allows you as well as your readers to search for past blogs. The categories and tags help you to organize your blogs, so it would be easier for you to search for previous blogs you’ve posted. You can go through each blogs during your free time and review the comments written on by your readers so you would be able to improve on your craft, which will surely make your current and future clients happy and satisfied with your work.