Building a Successful Freelancing Business Online

Julie Starr • September 3, 2020



While some people enjoy working in a 9-5 role, others crave the excitement and responsibility that comes with being your own boss. Freelancing gives you the opportunity to carve out your own niche and do something you love. What’s more – you can combine freelancing with your current role as an employee and boost your income, if you choose too.

Of course, building your own freelance business isn’t always straightforward. Creating any enterprise from scratch can be challenging, so it’s important to be prepared for what’s ahead. With these handy tips, you can begin planning for a successful career as a freelance business owner now…

Choose your business focus

Before you can begin working, you’ll need to decide exactly what it is you want to do. Perhaps you’ve always had a burning ambition to develop a product or maybe you’ve got a great idea for a service business ? Alternatively, you might decide to use your professional experience to your advantage and use it as the basis for your freelance career.

When you’re choosing what type of business you want to launch, take the time to really think about the type of role you want. If you’re eager to work from home, you won’t want a business that involves traveling to client sites on a regular basis, for example. Being a freelancer gives you the chance to create your ideal working environment, so make the most of the opportunity.

Research your market

Just because you think your business idea is fantastic, it doesn’t necessarily mean that other people will agree with you! Before you get too far into the planning stage, be sure to research your market and make sure there is a demand for your products or services.

Fortunately, the internet makes it easier than ever to carry out market research activities. Instead of hosting your own focus groups, you can access databases of willing participants within your target demographic. This means you can carry out your research quickly and cost-effectively while building your freelance business.

Locate potential clients

Acquiring new customers is arguably the biggest challenge for any business, so start to think about how you’ll attract clients or customers early on. When you’re running your business online, you can rely on the internet to connect you with your target audience, providing you know where to look.

There are many sites that are dedicated to matching clients with freelancers, for example. You’ll even find niche marketplace sites that post short-term audio visual jobs , copywriting projects or website development roles. Although you’ll typically need to pay a fee or commission to the site, this can be an easy way to pick up clients, particularly while you’re establishing your new business.

Formally set up your business

When you’re working as a freelancer , you have the option to register as self-employed. Many people enjoy the flexibility this offers but it does mean that your personal finances and assets are tied into your business.

If you want to create distance between your personal assets and your business, you might prefer to register as a limited company. Some people decide to form a company because they believe that it creates a better impression, but this depends on your industry and the type of clients you’re aiming to attract.

Whether you decide to operate on a self-employed basis, register a limited company or form a partnership, make sure you’ve completed the necessary paperwork, and submitted the appropriate documentation. This will give you peace of mind that your tax, legal and financial obligations have been met.

Learn about SEO

When you’re running a business online, search engine optimization (SEO) is essential for success. Even if your business will be trading offline as well, having online visibility helps to create brand awareness and increases your reach within your target demographic.

SEO is an entire industry in itself, so don’t expect to learn everything you need to know in an instant. In many cases, it can be more effective to outsource your SEO and online advertising to a third-party company or another freelancer who specializes in this area.

However, learning the basics and understanding why SEO is so important for your business will stand you in good stead for the future.

In order for your website to be effective, it needs to be designed well in order to attract and convert visitors into customers. If you’ve never built a site before, then it’s worth consulting Squarespace web designers to help you get up and running fast with your website.

Set up social media profiles

If you want to establish yourself as a successful freelancer, you’ll need to have an active presence on social media. Take a look at the platforms that are most popular with your target audience and set up profiles on each one.

When you post and share content on social media, you get the opportunity to showcase your talents, establish your specialties, and create awareness of your services. While self-promotion is expected, make sure your social media posts offer more than just that. Engaging with people on topical issues and sharing industry news is a great way to gain fans and followers on social media.

Build a professional network

Working as a freelancer can be somewhat lonely, particularly if it’s your full-time role. Connecting with other freelancers gives you the opportunity to build your network and learn from other people.

Furthermore, liaising with other freelancers may give you the chance to gain new clients or customers. Informal partnerships with subcontractors who offer similar but not competing services ensure you can recommend one another’s services. Personal endorsements carry a lot of weight, so this can be an excellent way to get free promotion and expand your customer base.

When to Launch a Freelance Business

Once you’ve decided what your business will entail, it’s tempting to jump ahead and start advertising your services straight away. However, you run the risk of trying to do too much at once if you throw yourself into the deep end too quickly.

Take the time to research your market, create a professional website, and establish your SEO and social media strategies before you even think about trading. Once you’ve got the essentials covered, you’ll be well-placed to launch your business and start your career as a fully-fledged freelancer.

Build Sustainability into your business 

As a reminder, every business can be a sustainable business.  The first step is to ensure that sustainability is at the core of your business and build from there.

With these tips, you’ll be able to launch your freelance business online in no time!

Smart Sensors, Smarter Supply Chains: Enhancing Traceability in Food & Beverage

By Julie Starr • June 20, 2025
In today’s competitive food and beverage (F&B) landscape, traceability is no longer a compliance checkbox—it’s a differentiator. The ability to track every step of a product’s journey, from origin to shelf, is vital for regulatory accuracy and to ensure brand integrity, supply chain agility, and consumer trust. Add smart sensors to the mix: the quiet, tireless observers revolutionizing supply chain intelligence. Traceability Has a Data Problem Despite digitization across many F&B operations, most traceability systems still rely on fragmented or manual data inputs. Batch numbers, barcodes, and handwritten logs often stand between a supplier and clarity when things go wrong. This approach struggles with latency and scale. When contamination or delays occur, root cause analysis is slow, costly, and damaging. Smart sensors shift this paradigm by embedding real-time, contextual intelligence into every stage of the supply chain . Whether monitoring humidity in transit or recording fill-level precision in bottling plants, they remove the guesswork by turning physical conditions into structured, time-stamped data. From Passive Monitoring to Active Optimization Sensors used to be reactive tools, alerting operators to anomalies. But smart sensors now play a proactive role in process control. They measure, and they interpret. For example, temperature sensors embedded in cold chain logistics can dynamically adjust cooling systems or flag threshold breaches before spoilage occurs. These advancements reduce waste and loss at a systemic level. In a production facility, smart sensors integrated with PLCs can enforce recipe compliance, verify clean-in-place processes, and detect micro-stoppages in real-time. This enables operations to pivot faster and isolate inefficiencies before they cascade downstream. Trust is Built on Transparency Consumers are paying more attention to what they eat and drink. They’re looking beyond labels, expecting visibility into how ingredients are sourced, processed, and handled. Smart sensors make this level of transparency achievable —without burdening manufacturers with excessive manual oversight. By capturing metadata throughout production and distribution, these sensors create a digital footprint that’s tamper-resistant and instantly accessible. When this data is integrated with a central platform, brands can respond confidently to audits, recalls, and quality assurance challenges with a level of precision that would be impossible through legacy systems. Intelligence Without Infrastructure Overhaul One common misconception is that adding smart sensors requires a top-down reinvention of supply chain infrastructure. In reality, companies can deploy edge sensors in a modular, scalable way. Many modern solutions offer plug-and-play functionality, allowing for fast integration with existing machinery and MES systems. This is where suppliers like alps-machine.com are reshaping expectations. Rather than pushing proprietary ecosystems, they design sensor-ready equipment with interoperability in mind. This future-proofs investment and keeps businesses nimble in the face of regulatory or market shifts. Designing for Data Longevity Sensors are only as powerful as the context they capture. A smart implementation ensures the data collected can be standardized, stored securely, and accessed meaningfully across departments. This means moving beyond local dashboards toward centralized, queryable datasets that inform everything from supplier contracts to marketing claims. As AI and predictive analytics become more accessible, these data-rich environments will unlock new capabilities—such as predicting demand spikes based on real-time freshness indicators or adjusting production schedules dynamically based on in-transit sensor feedback. Final Thoughts: Smarter Isn’t Optional Traceability isn’t solved by more paperwork—it’s solved by embedded intelligence. Smart sensors don’t just help businesses know what happened; they help prevent the wrong things from happening at all. For companies in the food and beverage sector, adopting smart sensors is less about chasing innovation and more about enabling resilience, speed, and confidence in every decision.

Eco-Friendly Garden Prep: Summer Tips for a Greener Business Space

By Julie Starr • June 5, 2025
If you're lucky enough to have a garden as part of your business, taking some time to set it up for summer is a great investment of your energy. Not only will it be ready for your customers to spend time in, but you can also incorporate some eco-friendly elements into it. Many people just think about the property and what eco-friendly updates they can make , but there are plenty that you can implement in your garden. This gives you the best of both worlds. You own a sacred and beautiful place for your customers to spend their summer, and at the same time, you can do your part for a better planet. If this is the route you want to take, then you also need to consider how to do this with the different seasons. To help you on your journey, here are some top tips for preparing your garden for summer. Plant trees and flowers Planting trees and flowers in your garden is a must. It will make a beautiful scene of nature for everyone to enjoy. Trees will provide people and animals with shade, as well as provide a habitat for wildlife. More trees are needed in the world because they purify the air that we breathe. Flowers, especially if you plant with pollinators in mind, can be an excellent way to attract bees and butterflies, which contribute largely to the earth. Use natural pest control When preparing your garden for summer, you can do this more sustainably and kindly by using natural pest control. Simply by planting trees and flowers, you are likely to attract lots of different wildlife, some of which may destroy your efforts. While all wildlife should be considered, you may need to take measures. Some better and more eco-friendly ways you can do this, as opposed to spraying toxic chemicals onto your plants and into the air, you can implement companion planting, using protective nets over your crops, choosing resilient plants, using natural repellents, and encouraging natural predators so nature can do its thing. Maintain your garden Maintaining your garden in itself can make it more eco-friendly. Composting your garden waste regularly, and kitchen waste can help you to reduce overall waste and create nutrient-rich soil. This is a great cycle of sustainability. You can also keep on top of things that need cleaning and replacing, so you can recycle the materials for other garden structures and projects, and repurpose things around your garden before they become waste. If you have features in your garden like a swimming pool, then a regular pool maintenance service is going to be vital in keeping your water consumption to a minimum, as when it is cleaned and maintained, it will need to be drained and refilled less as well as using less energy. You could also consider how you can use natural purification methods to reduce chemical usage and support biodiversity right in your backyard. Your garden is just an eco-friendly project waiting to be built. Use these top tips to help you get started.