Tools to help your freelancing career

Every freelancer has heard the old adage “you get what you pay for”. 

We all know the cost of doing freelance is time, work, and sometimes money. 

And while cheaper may be better in many cases, 

there are things you should consider when looking for a service or tool to help your freelance career. 

To help you find the best freelancing tools out there, we’ve put together this article on some of our own top picks!

 Take a look and see if they add up to create your perfect freelancing experience.

Freelancing Tools: Formatting and converting text, images and video.

When you’re out and about on the internet, you never know what you’re going to encounter. 

You might find a great article but it may be on a blog that’s got formatting issues. 

Or perhaps you’ve got an older client who needs some content converted from PDF to Word. 

There is a tool out there that can help you do this and it’s called Copyscape. With this, you’ll be able to find and fix such issues fast and it’s free!

‘You know what they say: ‘If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it!” For those of us who work from home that saying can’t be more true! 

Where we live we’re always surrounded by distractions like the TV, the computer and family, and this can play havoc with our productivity.

 However there is a great solution for this problem which is called Pomodoro. 

This is a timer that measures 25 minutes in length whenever you set one up for yourself. 

Once the timer is up, it signals for a break. This can help you increase your productivity and get more work done!

‘As a freelancer, whether you’re an expert

 with accounting skills or an expert at video editing there’s nothing worse than trying to find a decent (and free!) accounting package.

 And if you’re not that confident with numbers, then it’s even worse!

 Fear not because there is a tool that will help you manage your finances and keep track of everything: Mint. 

This handy tool will allow you to track everything and anything and save and export

 all of this information so it fits neatly into your accounts. Simply put, this is great for freelancers!

‘Due to the nature of our jobs, we often get sent work that requires image editing. 

With so many images, sizes and colors of them all thrown at you it can be hard to pick one. 

However with Photoshop on your computer you can find your images where you need them, 

crop them and resize them exactly how you want them! 

When working with graphics on the internet there are also lots of websites

 that will be able to help but ideal for finding images on the web that will fit your needs is TinEye. 

This search engine has built in image recognition which can save precious time when searching for text or images across the web.

Freelancing Tools: Tracking time.

Here’s a huge feature that most freelancers don’t have! 

The great thing about being a freelancer is that you get to set your own work hours and get paid when you get the job done.

 But sometimes, despite having made a big decision

 to go freelance you get lazy and end up spending time on activities other than work. 

If you’re not sure how much time you’re spending doing this, there’s a solution called HoursTracker. 

With this free tool, you can track how much time you’ve spent on an activity (and get paid for it too!)

Freelancing Tools: Software Development.

If you’re employing people to work on your client’s websites then you’ll need to take the time to teach them the basics of coding. 

There are many tools out there that teach programmers how to code like Codea (over 30 different languages) and Codecademy (which has over 100 courses).

 If you’ve got more experienced programmers or web designers, 

then there’s also CodePen which offers a fantastic tool for creating web content online. 

This can be very helpful if you need to develop a website quickly and easily.

Freelancing Tools: Domain name and hosting services.

When you’re out on the internet, having your own domain is absolutely essential for promoting your freelance career! 

The Internet is a crowded place and it’s crucial that you’re in control of your online identity. 

This means having your own .com or .co.uk domain name (or both!).

 You can get one done for yourself or, if you want to save some money, 

there are thousands of domains available for hire on sites like Godaddy and Namecheap. 

Of course when you’ve got your domain name, you’ll need to pay for web hosting which is one expense many freelancers have to contend with.