Top 10 highlights of 2021

It’s been a fantastic year for Freelancing.eu — the first complete one after our inception in May 2020. We have never looked back since, so here are the highlights:

1. Traffic from Google and other search engines soared by 375% year-on-year and continues to grow rapidly. We are already coming up in the 1st position on many relevant queries such as freelance europe, freelance eu, europe freelance jobs, etc.
2. The number of members in our open directory of European freelancers has increased from 26 to the current 100 year-on-year, with a membership renewal rate of 99%. Categories have been added and tags will be added over time.
3. Our website is visited by people from all over the world. The top 20 countries include the USA, the UK, Germany, Italy, Spain, France, China, India, Ireland and Portugal.
4. We have new members from all over Europe. Hardly a week goes by when we don't have a longer conversation with someone who has heard of us for the first time and is interested in joining. Building a community takes time; but the response to our work has already been great.
5. The number of subscribers to our newsletter has jumped 500% year-on-year. We are also reaching over 200,000 European freelancers each month on social media.
6. Our list of European platforms and resources for freelancers has grown to 371 entries. Most of the suggestions are sent to us by the founders or local freelancers.
7. As media partners, we have once again supported two of the biggest events for freelancers in Europe — European Freelancers Week and Freelance Business Month. We also hosted our first two Freelance Friends online events, and began releasing the edited talks on YouTube.
8. We closely monitor and analyse the development of the European freelance economy and new trends. You can find an up-to-date summary in Robert’s talk European Freelancers & Where to Find Them which has also been covered by NextConomy in Belgium and ZiPconomy (in Dutch). Across all channels, the 41-minute talk has gained over 100,000 views and counting.
9. Biggest aha-moment: Thanks to the response to our news and events, we realized that Freelancing.eu and the business of European freelancers is quite interesting for the rest of the world. One third of our newsletter subscribers are not from Europe and we had 333 freelancers from 37 countries (50 from the USA, 11 from Canada, 7 from Australia, etc.) signed up for our last Freelance Friends online event. Most people have an idea of how US freelancers do business, and content from the US turns up everywhere, right? European freelancers, on the other hand, are way harder to pin down and find due to language barriers. At the same time, however, they have an outstanding reputation globally as educated, top-notch experts with a very professional approach to their work. This makes them interesting for other freelancers, as well as for companies from all over the world, looking for partners for their European or global activities.
10. To sum up, we have moved from the idea of a community oriented solely to Europeans to building a European freelance community with a global reach. This is already reflected, for example, in the way we think about setting up member profiles, timing events, selecting news items or writing this newsletter. In short, we are exporting the European approach to freelancing, and presenting European freelancers to the whole world. Thank you for sharing the journey with us!

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