I often see this question asked and I often see the same answers; go to meet ups, partner with other local devs/designers, network etc. etc. Those are all good

I often see this question asked and I often see the same answers; go to meet ups, partner with other local devs/designers, network etc. etc. Those are all good suggestions but I feel like most answers that come from this type of question are directed to those who live in a pretty heavily populated area. For example, if someone lives in a smaller town than there most likely will not be " tech related meet ups" or coworking spaces. For those people who live in a smaller area, finding freelance work will be quite a bit harder at the start. Because of this, I would suggest going directly to small/medium sized businesses and offering your services to them directly. Do your homework first. Get online and find out what businesses don't have a website or have an old outdated website. Then put together a few pages of information that explains how a website can directly impact their business and how you are the person to get that done. You could also include additional services such as setting up social media accounts or getting Google Analytics set up etc. etc. Those wouldn't take too much time for you to do but they would add an increase in the value to what you can offer a business. Be sure to present your services as something that can help them sell more of their product. After you finish a site ask the client to fill out a short customer satisfaction survey and ask if it's ok to use quotes from it on your personal website/portfolio. Also, ask your clients to refer you to other businesses if they think you did a good job. When you have several sites done and several clients taken care of then word of mouth will start helping you get some more clients.