Competition is everywhere you look, in sports, in life, in business, in blogging, in search engine ranking, and yes even in freelance work.
Freelancing can be downright cruel competition when more and more freelancers continue to coming onto the scene.
It does not matter what type of freelancer you are. It could be a freelance writer, freelance app developer, freelance designer, and the list goes one.
With freelance hot spots such as Odesk, Freelance, and Guru it continues to drive the competition and the battle even more furious competition.
I am here to share with you the truth about the competition of freelance work.
Where to find your competition
Just look around and you should be able to find some type of competition. Though, let me get into some more specific details of how to find your serious competitors. I personal start off in the search engines by simply searching “freelance _____ of your local city”. This is a great way to find who is out there and doing what.
You could that same search with other larger cities to see what those freelancers are doing. Dig keep into your search and see what services they are offering, what they are currently charging, and possibly even see some of previous or present clients.
Several other resources for researching your competitors:
- Forums
- Alexa
- SEOrush
- Local Meeting
Know Your Competition
This is the first rule of thumb, if you don’t know your competition than your going to be left behind in the dusk real quick. A few things that I always check out when looking at my competition:
- The going rates of services
- Different industry or niches that freelances are working in
- Possible approaches your competition is using to gain more clients
- What things can I take away to make myself a better freelance that saw
These are some simple tips on how to check out your competition and make sure your staying on top of the freelance workload chain. We all know what’s at the bottom of dog eat dog competition.
Grow From Your Competition
Let me be very clear with this one. I clearly stated grow from and NOT steal from your competition. Here are the freelance ethical do’s and don’t:
Ethical competition research
- Do check their site out
- Do read their bio
- Do see who they are or have worked for
- Do read there sample or past work
- Do check their prices
- Do search them for more information
- Do learn and appreciate their work
Unethical competition research
- Do not steal, copy, plagiarize, or anything else
- Do not try to lowball your competition
- Do not try to take away current clients from your competition
- Do not go around and bad mouth your competition
- Do not think your better than others
- Do not disrespect your competition
- Do not give any reason for others to NOT trust you
Crafting the Competition
As I have shared there is clearly a right way to be able to check out your competitors and still gain a lot of knowledge, and there is a wrong way to try to take advantage and corrupt the freelance market.
Let me share with you if you are not checking up on your competition I guarantee they are checking up on you. So get into the game and start marketing yourself better by learning from your competition.
One last note to remember is that not all competition turns out to be a true competitor within your freelance market. I have actually contacted several different competitors in either offering my service to help or asking if I get to busy would they be interested in some additional work.
Being able to create a new network based off your competitor is just another creative way to build up a successful freelancing career.