Freelancing e.g. working as a freelancer means working something you want to do, using your skills and expertize. If you have skills in writing, programming, graphic and web design, data entry jobs, consulting, tech support, marketing and promoting etc. freelancing is the right opportunity for you to make an extra income online.
What do you need? Almost nothing - just your skills (a computer and internet if needed) and after a registration (which is free) you'll be able to apply for jobs and projects and get paid for it.
Some of the best places to start as a freelancer are:
Freelancer.com (previously known as GetAFreelancer) is one of the largest sites of its kind and growing. Its very easy and intuitive to use, so I recommend you to start on this one. Several hundred new projects in many categories are posted every day and possibilities are many. Registration is free and you can use it to bid (apply) on projects. In the start you are limited in the number of bids you can placed but that number will grow with every month and with every project you'll win and successfully completed or you can upgrade to Gold member and avoid this limit. For every successful job you'll finish you get a review from a buyer and a payment thru the site's escrow system which money can be transfered from your account at Freelancer.com to your PayPal, Moneybookers, or a debit card issued thru the site which can be very handy because its accepted online and on every ATM worldwide.
Scriptlance.com is another great site for a freelancer's start. Very simmilar to previous and with almost same functionality and even easier to use. You're not limited in bidding quota.
oDesk is another great freelance site, a bit different from the previous two. Beside the weekly quota of 20 bids the site offers its custom software for communication between freelancer and the buyer and provides the buyer abbility to monitor the freelancer's work. This is so, because on oDesk the jobs are classified as fixed (with a fixed price per project) and hourly (buyer is billed hourly, depending of the lenght of the work freelancer is payed by hour). Payment is thru escrow and a freelancer have several options to withdraw his money just as on Freelancer and Scriptlance
vWorker (formerly Rent A Coder) is one of the oldest sites of its kind. Have simmillar functionality but a litle bit old look. Althou its very easy to search for projects and bid on it, providing samples if necessary. All conversation between buyer and the freelancer including files is thru the site' s interface.
Other sites worth to be mentioned but some additional rules may apply:
Get a Coder - simmilar to above
Guru - is a great place to find computer related jobs (20 bids quota)
EU Freelance - a division of Freelancer
iFreelance - good place to search for jobs but think it requires paid membership
eLance - offers many different job categories but requires monthly membership fee
TIPS for a good start as FREELANCER:
- Bid only in categories you have good skills and you can finish the project as required, getting the customer satisfied so you might be hired from the same person again in future
- Provide mock ups and examples if you can. This will help you winning the project and build a portfolio
- Build a portfolio website promoting your skills as freelancer and examples of your work (if the buyer agree to allow you to use it for your portfolio only. You'll have to ask before do this, but a refference only and a link to it will do the job also)
- After you earn some money and a reputation its wise to upgrade your membership to be able to bid on more projects and in different categories
- Some of the sites offer a prepaid MasterCard which is very useful to have as its accepted online and on the ATMs worldwide
ColeN aka colenikol
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