After having a look at sites such as elance.com and getafreelancer.com, i must say that I was severely disturbed by the low payouts that clients are offering, especially as the sites take a cut of the profit themselves. So, I just wanted to know what are the best sites to find regular freelance work with a decent payout? Thanks.
I'd say local. Try craigslist. I've found that an employer is willing to pay much more if they can call you during the day and ask you to come sit in on meetings.
Thanks for the advice =), I have used craigslist before but it hasnt seemed to yield much business as of late.
Well, I see you live in the UK, so, why not go to local businesses and ask them if they need work doing? If you're a designer/coder then you can make loads of money by simply going out to small local businesses and building them a website. Tell them the importance of going online and they're bound to take your services into consideration. If you'd like to keep it online, then you need to build up a reputation for yourself first before charging large amounts, as if it's a newbie charging a lot against a newbie charging hardly anything, I think we both know what they're going to pick Not that I'm saying you are a newbie, but until you build up a reputation, that's the way it's going to look.
unfortunately, places like craigslist are often overcrowded by freelance writers. However, there are many other places, now, in most of them, you have to pay a inscription fee. Now, in getafreelancer there are often bars and agencies that reclute freelancers, they pay low on the first articles and then they will escalate to a bigger and better pay. One of teh best places where I have been able to land several jobs is through an email list, it has a $5 inscription, but it is a one time payment, check it for size: financialfreelancewriting.com Hope it helps. remember to pay it forward
This is very true. I have a local client that frequently asks me to come to online advertising meetings and seminars. This gives them the feeling of security because they often feel overwhelmed with all the technical information and just having someone who can explain it in plan English is worth the money to them.
Agreed, and you hit a good point. If you have the ability to turn "tech jargon" into plain english, some people will pay you just for that!
I depends on the thing you doing, if you write articles you don't earn much at those sites but if you can script or design a nice site than you can earn your money ! But the most of the freelance sites suck because of the Indians, they work very cheap and they deliver great jobs so greets Ruben
not a website but you could send out postcards to local businesses. i would also make sure they don't have a web presence before sending out the postcards.
I've actually found some good clients from elance.com. Constant Content is another great freelance site for those who want to earn decent money. You can set your own prices there, and if your articles or pictures are good enough, they will sell in no time at all.
That life,if you want to get rid of middle man fee in this case the middle man is guru.com Then you can setup your personal site,by doing this you can keep 100% of the profit.And there is many pros of it coz you can put your portfolio to impress your potential client.
You don't have to go through freelance sites if you disagree with their fees - set up a blog with a few samples of your writing and spread the word that you're available for business. You'll soon find your own clients outside of these sites, and you might find many of these clients are willing to use your services on a recurring basis.
So are you a programmer or writer? At any rate; currently is not a good time to compete with low-wage countries (India, Bangladesh and such) as people are not looking for quality but more for paying nothing and getting a lot. I cold-called 50 companies the other day and got 2 projects over $20k. In 1 day of calling. It's simple.