Ask HN: How to actually start freelancing?

Basically, start a blog and talk about what you know. Give free advice. Provide a platform that people can refer others to. Use this to market yourself and eventually it'll become its own lead generator.

I don't know much else but among the things I've heard here and there, contact people to do free or low paid work to start. If you do good work you'll find these to be refferals down the line. Provide case studies on your blog - use it as a portfolio.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12744624

As for what to offer I think CRO is a pretty good option. I don't know the rates for that kind of service but it seems much more specific than "I can build websites.". Everyone and their dog builds websites these days so you'd probably have a hard time finding a competitive advantage in the website building space.

Ideally, find the most specific, valuable niche you can think of. CRO for a specific industry for example.

Basic idea: maximize value for customers. Don't get paid by the hour, get paid by resulting value.

How much money would a customer make if you did A/B testing? You want to take to get paid for the resulting value, rather than saying "oh that was two hours work so I'll get paid for two hours".

Which of the skills you have would maximize value for customers?