What’s Your Jobby?
I work full time for a successful Internet-based software compay as the Ecommerce Marketing Manager and resident Search Marketing guru. Okay, nobody actually calls me a guru but the rest is absolutely true. When I get home at night I spend some quality time with my beautiful, insightful and amazing wife. Eat something delicious, watch something interesting, then I’m off to my night job. Thank God I don’t have to leave the house.
As a freelance Search Marketing Consultant I have the ability to do as much or as little work as I want for a client. I can be selective in deciding which projects I take, and I can name my price. It’s a great way to build my resume of experience and with special regard to Search Marketing, it gives me a unique opportunity to work in a number of different niche’s, and get that client relationship experience that agencies love so much.
Did I mention the money? My full time job is definitely a livable salary and I’m not exactly hurting for money, but in these interesting economic times it never hurts to be able to put a little extra away, just in case. Even a semi-active freelance programmer, search marketer or anything else should make what amounts to a nice little nest egg within a year. At the very least the money is a good compensation to help bridge those gaps you may have in the budget your full time gig allows you to have.
Oh, and here’s the best part. I actually love Search Marketing. I can’t get enough of the stuff. I love reading about Paid Search, exploring new link building strategies, finding better ways to fine-tune my search engine optimization techniques, everything. So, even if I wasn’t managing a series of paid search campaigns for a client or creating new content for a plastic surgeon’s website, I would be doing this stuff for myself. The only thing better about this freelance thing is the fact that I really am getting paid to do what I love.
It’s not hard to get into freelance work. Just sign up to a freelance site like oDesk, Elance or crowdSPRING, complete your profile, take the appropriate tests and put yourself on the market. Most of my offers came the fastest from oDesk but I found the projects on Elance to pay more. Of course, you can always go it alone if you want, finding work through word-of-mouth or advertising through a blog. Hell, I just got a part-time ongoing freelance gig for a company on the other side of the country, just by sending them an email and asking.
