Guide & Advice
Here you’ll find several tips and advice, which can make your start in freelancing easier and - for those already working as a freelancer - can show new possibilities and suggest proven tactics and solutions. Some of them apply to the subscription-free services, but the major part can be helpful for freelancing in general.
- Selection of the freelance market sites
- Registering and passwords
- Projects
- Communication with a client
- Language
- Reviews
- Competition
- Mockup
- Deadlines
- Prices and payments
- Money transfer and withdrawal
- Admins and Rules
- Risks
Selection of the freelance market sites
When starting your career on freelancing sites, you have to decide which of them are worthy and which would be only be the waste of time. You don’t want to find yourself in a situation when are unable to withdraw your earned money. There are hundreds of freelance markets on the web, but only some percent of them all are trustworthy and reliable.
From my personal experience I’d recommend 3 “free” ones (without any subscription, they’re only charging the percentage based fee when a project is awarded - it is usually 3% to 15%):
These services are the established ones, trustworthy and reliable.
GetACoder trying to join to the “Big Three” - there are more and more projects posted there and it is becoming a really interesting site.
A few words of explanation here – don’t get the wrong impression looking at the service names with a “script” or “coder” in the name – they offer the work not for the programmers exclusively, but the full variety of the projects categories.
More experienced freelancers may register on “paid” sites (with a monthly, quarterly or yearly subscription):
You can earn better money there, but there is a serious investment required, as the subscription may range up to $1200 yearly, depending on the category in which you register in.
WARNING! Paid freelance sites are not recommended for beginners, just starting their freelancing career. You’d better try your strength on the “free” sites and find out if it’s a way you’d wish to work.
There are hundreds of freelance sites, but it is the number of projects which decides about their popularity. There were multiple such sites launched and they died very quickly because of the lack of the projects.
Some of the newly started markets can develop into nicely working services, but it will be 1-2% out of the hundreds that are launched. They are often owned by the freelancers, attracted by the vision of the earnings such a site can generate.
The decision about starting the work on one of the fresh sites doesn’t have to be a mistake. Early in 2004, GetAFreelancer was launched and then it was one of many newly launched freelance market sites. Now it has over 85,000 projects, which is a really impressive number.
There are the advantages of the new markets, it’s the much higher chance of smooth start – winning even 1-2 projects puts you on the list of the Top Ten freelancers, which has it’s direct impact on much higher interest from the clients and your reliability as a provider.
But there is a always a risk, that such a fresh site will just disappear after a few months. In this case you can loose your time invested in the work made using this site (you’re loosing the feedback earned there) or even – the money, which can happen too.
I’d avoid too serious engaging into the site where there are 1-2 projects posted weekly – such a site will most likely soon stop working. The reasonable minimum is a few projects posted daily.
The list of the less popular services you can find on the “Links” page.
When browsing through the freelance sites, you can find the “reseller” ones – they are “re-distributing” the projects originally posted on the original site (GAF or SL usually) using the partnership program offered by these sites. It’s easy to recognize such a reseller site, because after clicking on the project, you’ll be taken to the project page on the original site (that’s how the FreelanceDaddy’s “Projects” page works). This method doesn’t involve any risk, danger or additional cost for a freelancer – you will always work on the original site, not on the partner one.
Some of the tips and advice apply to the “free” sites (mainly GAF, SL and RAC) because of the fact that the “paid” ones require some knowledge about freelancing. A person deciding to work there should have at least basic experience in this market.
Of course the vast part of this guide can be applied to the “paid” sites (with a subscription).
Registering and passwords
Technical aspect, but very important. When registering on the freelance site, you enter your password (sometimes it is automatically generated). You should never use the same password, especially when registering on the new, freshly launched sites. Many of them are owned by the freelancers, who can get the access to your account on the other market! And of course withdraw the money you have earned. It’s not a secret that some freelancers earn really good money (which I wish you too) and there are other willing to grab them as well.
When signing up, there is usually the option of registering as a “service buyer” (”webmaster”) or “service provider” (”freelancer”, “seller”, “programmer”, “coder”). The term “webmaster” may be slightly misleading – it can suggest providing the services, not buying them. So a quick explanation:
Webmaster, service buyer, client – you are registering as a client, service buyer
Freelancer, seller, programmer, coder – you are registering as a freelancer, service provider
Only GetAFreelancer allows using your account both as a buyer and seller; other sites require registering two accounts, though they also sometimes allow free money transfer between these two (ScriptLance and RentACoder).
Projects
On freelance markets there are hundreds of projects posted daily in various categories. These are for example projects related to programming, graphic design (2D and 3D) and web design, writing and translation, marketing and promotion, administration, data entry, search engine optimization (SEO), multimedia, etc. See Job Categories page for more detailed list.
There are also more complex projects which involve several categories.
The category, to which a project belongs, is selected when a buyer posts a project – if he doesn’t know what he expects or has very limited knowledge in this area, he may place his project in a wrong category. You should always read very carefully both the project description and the requirements such as: programming language, database or required file formats.
When you find the interesting project, you place your offer by entering the price you are ready to work on this project for, the deadline and the comment attached to your bid.
Buyer receives usually a few or even up to a hundred (or over!) offers and has to select one of them – the most promising and attractive for him.
Depending on the service, all the offers may be visible or hidden from the competitors. Some sites offer this feature (GAF, SL) and some make it by default, which is meant to prevent estimating the price on competitors’ offers (RAC).
For a freelancer who is just making his first steps, winning the project is a great success, especially when competing with over 50 or even 100 other providers. OK, congratulations, everything is fine, but you have to remember that winning the auction isn’t the final result you should aim for. It is the efficient realization of this project which really matters and should be achieved.
I don’t recommend “catching” as many projects as possible, it’s good to start with single ones, and once you gain experience and learn your abilities, you can think of working on several projects at the same time.
I’d like to warn you against the “first win, then think” attitude. This is not a good approach in a long run. Sure, it can be fine a few times, but finally you can involve into a project far beyond your capabilities.
Bid on the projects, you are 100% sure you can manage with. If you have any questions, doubts – ask the client. If he treats his project seriously, he’ll be glad to talk with you.
So we got to the next point…
Communication with a client
This is very important thing – usually as important as your experience and abilities, but it’s far too often underestimated and ignored.
Put yourself in the client’s boots. You have a work to be done and you’re seeking for a provider. There are over 100 offering their services – whom would you choose?
The basic and still very common mistake is “auto-bidding” (or “blind-bidding”) – placing the same bid comment every time, usually the list of the sites you’ve worked on or even plain “Can be done”. Whenever a more experienced client sees such bids, he simply ignores them.
Always read the project description very carefully. Sometimes client asks for adding a sort of password to your bid to be able to select serious offers. Usually it is a simple word you attach to your bid comment. In this way, client can filter the offers made by freelancers who don’t read the project descriptions and bid on almost every project they see.
It’s supposed that some of such “auto-bidders” use the scripts which automatically place their bids always according to the same template. Some are just copying and pasting their offers, but the result is the same.
Buyer sees odd, unnaturally looking offer with usually exaggerated information about the “company” and a long list of the sites to visit. Additionally, there’s nothing mentioned about that particular project – about suggested approach, methods of realization (for example – programming language to use).
You have to show to the client, that you approach to his project with understanding of the subject and treat it individually, even if it’s the tenth project you bid on within just a few hours. Describe, how you are going to realize his request, show him your previous works similar to this particular project.
A very good idea is using a Project/Private Message Board (PMB). You can bid with a very vague introductory comment and post the main part on PMB – communicating directly with a client. The additional advantage of this is that the competitors don’t see your offer, which can be your winning card, the details of which don’t have to be seen by others.
Take some time to write a short but convincing comment attached to your offer. This can be simple, kind offer of cooperation (but of course add the details posted in private). You can make similar “templates” of the offers for different kind of projects – prepare them really well, expose the fact giving you the advantage over your competitors. You’ll be able to copy and paste these offers later, but always update them with project-specific details or even modify it to fit the particular project.
Be sure not to make a mistake in this offer – always check what you have written, if it really relates to the project you’re bidding on. This short message presents you and your services, so it has to be a perfect one.
Do not form your offer like this: “My portfolio: www.example.com. Contact me.” – you can be almost certain that a client won’t take the initiative to contact you, since your competitors post their direct offers. Having multiple offers with prices and examples, he won’t bother to get another one, which requires additional effort of asking a freelancer to place his bid or present a portfolio. This is a simple way of losing the project.
When a client responds using a Private Messaging – it’s a good sign, that you have gained his attention.
You should be as quick as possible with replying him – there are other freelancers eager to win the project and if they are faster with communicating and they offer is reasonable – the client will simply select someone else instead. What response time can be considered as reasonable? It depends on the project’s urgency. Sometimes there are minutes that matter, but usually responding after a few hours can be acceptable. The sooner, the better - buyer can see that he can count on quick and efficient communication, which is a very valuable feature for most of the clients.
When a client selects your offer – don’t wait for his e-mail. Write to him, thank him for selecting you and you can also inform him about the preparations for the work, anyway – let him know that you remember about him and you are working on his project. There’s nothing more irritating for a client than the necessity of sending the e-mail (or several e-mails!) asking “Any news?”.
Some sites (RAC for example) have the feature of recording the communication online – I strongly recommend using this possibility. All the decisions made between you and the client will be archived on the 3rd party site, so all the misunderstandings can be sorted out much more easily.
In case when there’s no online communication feature, you should keep all the e-mails both sent to and received from your client. When it come to more tense situation (for example delaying the payment), use PMB – your request will be recorded and may be used as an evidence in arbitration process.
And the crucial thing - never post your e-mail or any other form of contact before your offer is selected and the project is awarded. This is forbidden by all the freelance markets – this is the ways they defend themselves against loosing the project award fee. The attempt to break this rule may result in suspending your account or even canceling it for good.
Language
That’s obvious – English. Most sites even forbid communication in other language, because they have no possibility of controlling what’s been written. And you have to know that moderators read almost everything what’s posted on the site – so remember about it and don’t break the rules of the service you are using.
And of course you should keep your language clean and tidy. Using too many abbreviations and the language like “Hi, ready 2 help u, plz c pmb 4 examples rgds” may only result in discouraging the buyer from selecting your offer.
If you are not sure if you understand the client well – it’s always better to ask, maybe even illustrate your question with an example (links to a page or a sketch), than waste time for the unnecessary work invested in a project that can be rejected because of the misunderstanding of the client’s expectations.
Communication with a client is one of the key factors for making your offer attractive for a buyer and rising the chances of being selected as a provider. The remaining ones are: price, your professional abilities and your feedback on the site.
Reviews
They are one of the most important things in freelancing. A new, just registered provider without any feedback, can fight for fist first project for a few months and still with no success – the competition is really hard.
If you have many positive reviews, you are better exposed – sometimes with the default display settings, freelancers’ offers are sorted by their feedback and these with many reviews are listed first (GAF, GAC).
The more experienced and rated the provider, the more willingly clients are selecting him, he’s invited for their projects and treated with noticeable more respect. The brutal truth is that without any opinion you usually can’t expect reasonable money for a project, but fortunately there are exceptions of course.
The best tactics seem to be making a few small projects for a very small price (with very low income) – just for the reviews. Of course, it’s hard to understand and accept this, but that’s how the things are. Why a client should select someone new and with no feedback, when he can choose between more than ten providers with tens of reviews? And this is how it usually looks. The advantage of a new provider can be the price… but not only. The second one (and it works best when they are combined) is a mockup – the initial concept, a sketch done for attracting a client. It’ll be explained a bit later.
If you decide to work on the project just for a review – let it be something really small; it’s better to loose 10-30 minutes working for the feedback, than take the bigger project (a few days one for example) and lower its price to irrational level.
And the last thing regarding the reviews – rate the buyer when the project is finished in 100%. Do it when a client pays for it and writes your review – that’s the commonly practiced order. And never write a review before you get the payment, even despite all the promises.
Competition
One of the advantages and at the same time disadvantages of the working “on the web” is a competition. It can work both for us, but on the other hand – against us. How is it possible?
If you are living in a country on the lower “development level”, you can be competitive with providers from the countries on the highest development level like USA or UK for example. Lot of work offers are posted by buyers from these countries – they are looking for providers more competitive than their local ones.
On the other hand, you can be the more expensive alternative when compared to people from developing countries (especially from the south-eastern Asia). Their economical conditions allow the freelancers from these countries offer much lower prices for the same services
How to compete? How to win the projects?
You should present your abilities very well, expose your supremacy in other aspects of cooperation with potential client. Not all the clients are making their selection looking on the price factor only. There are many who are willing to pay more, if they get the professional results in return.
What can you use to win? These are the key factors:
- quality of the work
- doing the work on time
- communication
Freelancers from developing countries make the common mistake of relaying on the financial aspect of their offer exclusively. This is a very common mistake. Sometimes the quality offered is on the low level, also the timing fails – and for many webmasters working on the “web market” it is time that matters most.
But the real problem can be the communication – poor knowledge of English language, ignoring the grammar or even too informal attitude can make potential client decide to discard your offer. Sometimes the misunderstanding can go further and the project description may be understood improperly, which results (if a client is a very strict one) in a negative rating given to a provider.
All these mistakes made by other freelancers you have to use for your advantage – then, even despite the significant difference in price, you have a good chance of winning the auction, leaving the competitors behind.
The strongest weapon in a fight for a client can be the mockup.
Mockup
This is the “ultimate weapon” – it lets you win most of the projects even if your competitors have more reviews and experience.
So, if it’s working so well, why not to use it all the time?
It requires a lot of time, effort and determination. It’s just impossible to prepare a mockup for each project you bid on – it’s economically inefficient.
So how to use it?
First situation - when you don’t have any feedback – you have nothing to loose and a lot of to win. That’s not easy, but you have to sacrifice some of your time and prepare a sketch for a design project or a part of the program for the programming one. Of course, there’s a risk you won’t win the project even with a mockup made.
Second situation – you find a particular project to be very interesting for you (either because of its budget or the subject) and it might be a good idea to make the mockup to raise the chances of winning it.
And the third situation – for people just starting in freelancing, making the mockups can be the opportunity of building the portfolio – there’s always something to begin with.
After some time you’ll get enough experience what to show when preparing the mockup – it can be a general vision of the whole project, for example web page (it can be a scanned sketch!) and one element finished with more details; or – in case of more complex projects – a fraction of the work done (for example retouching one of 50 photos).
And the important thing – never show the full and final product, not protected in any way! You can add a watermark on your design or upload the part of the script only. Many clients can be not fair and just take you unprotected work without paying for it.
Some of the sites forbid starting the work (even sketching phase) before the project is awarded (for example GetACoder) and some clearly state that providing fully functional, unprotected final solution (code, design) can result in suspending the freelancer’s account (RentACoder).
Deadlines
Always try to give the real deadline for completing the whole project and it’s good to add a small safety margin to it.
You can’t miss the deadline – it is especially important on RentACoder, where missing it means receiving negative rating and loosing the money for project completion.
If such a situation might have place – talk to a client before the deadline passes. You can support your request for postponing the deadline with additional functions added (if there were any) added after the project has been awarded. Usually the scope of work is growing during the development phase, so it’s also good to have it in mind when placing your offer.
Client can lengthen the deadline (I’m still talking about RAC) and accept your request, which will let you avoid unnecessary and stressing arbitration process.
Prices and payments
Hot subject. The main difference between the “free” sites and the subscription ones is the money you can earn there. The “paid” sites are more financially attractive.
On the “free” markets, there are many providers from developing countries and they can offer prices much lower than the prices you can offer. But on these pages you can do very well too – there are many clients looking for quality, not only the lowest price.
On the other hand – average pricing on the “paid” sites is much higher – clients are prepared to pay more, but they also require professional services and final product of the highest quality.
I’d recommend setting your pricing on the reasonable level. Treating your client like a “milking cow” isn’t a good idea – demanding too high prices for the simple works is a bad tactics leading to being kicked out of the potential providers worth considering during awarding the project.
There’s a great feature offered by freelance sites – Escrow. In case of RentACoder it is obligatory.
Escrow is a sort of a deposit – a client transfers the payment to the neutral account, where it waits for the project to be accomplished by a provider. Then he releases the deposit and money is transferred into freelancer’s account. The deposit feature is a safe solution for both sides, and using it is highly recommended.
In case of large projects, I’d recommend setting the milestone payments – for example 25% of the final price is paid after each milestone is achieved.
Almost all the markets use US dollar as the only valid currency. There are some sites with different currency – for example euro or Hong-Kong dollar – but they are not too popular.
Money transfer and withdrawal
This can be sometimes costly. Usually there is PayPal available, cheque and wire transfer (the fee for it can be quite high), sometimes Western Union (their fees are very high), Moneybookers or e-gold.
E-gold withdrawals are available on GetAFreelancer and ScriptLance. Moneybookers - only on GAF.
The final fee subtracted from your withdrawn money depends on the method you choose – with PayPal, Moneybookers and e-gold they are very low, and in case of the bank wire transfers – it depends on the inter-bank agreement. If your bank and the site you are withdrawing the money from have one, the fee can be very low, in case they don’t have any kind of such the agreement made – the fees can by surprisingly high (ranging up to $70 in worst cases).
With the clients you have been working for a longer time, you can negotiate different ways of payment. This can be direct wire transfer into your bank account, Western Union (if other methods are not available), Moneybookers or iKobo.
And a small advice – always leave at least $10 in your account (on GAF, SL and similar sites). In case you win a project or two and you have a balance below zero for over 30 days – your account can be suspended and you’ll have to ask for unblocking it (which is an unnecessary waste of time).
Admins and rules
All freelance sites have their own rules and you should always read them; there are several rules common for all of them (like the rule forbidding giving the contact data before the project is awarded), but they also have their own, site-specific ones.
For example - GetACoder doesn’t allow starting the work before the provider is selected, so you can’t make a mockup there. Breaking this rule can result in suspending or even canceling your account.
RentACoder requires that your mockup is protected somehow – by not doing so you are breaking the rules and put your account under the risk of being suspended.
To communicate with site Admins, you can use the site’s helpdesk system – you post a support ticket with your question, report or request and wait for the response. Usually it takes from a few up to ten hours, depending on the time of the day and the service you are trying to contact with.
You have to remember that there are thousands of freelancers using each of the most popular sites and sometimes receiving the reply to your question/request requires some patience.
In 2005 ScriptLance have added a forum to their site. You can discuss various subjects there (not only freelancing related ones, but of course they are in majority), suggest improvements – SL staff watches the forum and listens to the suggestions and sometimes implement the features requested by freelancers or webmasters. You can also meet the webmasters there, but the rule of no direct contact is still valid, so no posting of contact data is allowed – such a post will be edited by a Moderator.
Risks
What to watch out for? The mistakes you shouldn’t do and threats you can avoid.
Here’s a list of the most common mistakes made by freelancers and several client-side possible threats:
-
Posting contact information
The common rule for almost every freelance site is banning the direct contact between the buyer and the seller, as it could lead to avoiding the service fee’s taken when the project is awarded. Admins and Moderators are very strict about it. Posting the @ sign in your message sends the warning alert to them, this can of course be replaced with “encrypted” form like “(at)”, but it won’t get unnoticed either. So just don’t try to do it.
Breaking the service terms may result in suspending your account until the problem is solved or for a certain period of time; but in some cases the account can be even cancelled and the money deposited on it will be lost.
A freelancer with cancelled account may try to re-register using different ID (unfortunately many of the “1″ rated providers do so), but if such a re-registered account is discovered by the staff, it will be also cancelled and the money will be lost. Conclusion? Do not break the rules – it’s not worth it.
-
Long lasting below zero account balance
When you win the project, there is a fee taken from your account (site’s commission); in case that your account balance falls below zero and it lasts for a month, the account can be suspended – this is a way the service defends against unfair freelancers.
This can happen to anyone, as it depends on the relation between fees and payments within a certain period of time. In case you see that such a situation may happen – it’s always better to contact the helpdesk before one month passes and your account is locked.
-
Missing the deadline
Of course you should avoid it if possible, but if this situation is going to happen, talk with your client as soon as you can, don’t wait until the deadline. Sometimes he can agree for pushing the deadline for a later date, especially if you can back up your request with true reasons – for example widening to the scope of works, new elements added to the agreed list of features, etc. Fake “school” excuses aren’t recommended (virus, disc failure, no internet access, illness, wedding, funeral and so on) – they really sound very poor.
The worst you can do is letting the client know about it (that his project will be delayed) right on the deadline date – his attitude will be much worse in this case and you can’t expect him to be willing to negotiate.
-
No payment
This is very discouraging and sometimes happens. The best protected against lack of payment is RentACoder, thanks to its obligatory Escrow deposit and arbitration process held by a staff member.
How to protect yourself against it? There is no 100% working solution for it, but there are some methods that will let you minimize the risk or limit the loss suffered in this situation.
You can ask the client to deposit the payment on Escrow and many serious clients agree for this.
Also bigger projects can be divided into the stages, each paid after finishing it.And the last thing – final product should be delivered after the money is paid. If your client wants to check it before he pays – present it in the protected version, so he can be sure that he will receive a quality product.
-
Not serious client
There can be some – you have to remember that because of the web anonymousity, the person you are talking with, can be a 12 year old kid playing a serious businessman, while in fact he can only be looking to make some fun or find a cheap labour source.
You should always check the reviews (if a buyer has any) and in case of no feedback (or a negative one) be very cautious with him.
If you have questions not covered by the guide above, feel free to contact us.
