Any of you PHP programmers use a freelance website to find work? I'd like to find a good one that will actually result in work (so far I have tried www.php-freelancers.com where you always get outbid by people willing to work for peanuts). I'm very good at what I do, so I usually stay quite busy with other php jobs, but when I do hit a slow period (like now) it'd be nice to find some quick work. It'd also be nice if the work paid $20+ per hour. Anyone have any suggestions? Places where you actually find work???
I use scriptlance.com very nice site and I am h aving more than 70 reviews there so its easy to find work there and I have few fix clients too.
Is that for North American based coders? Even $20 an hour seems quite low. maybe I'm just asking too much for the freelance world.
You're not asking too much, unless you think you're worth less. A freelancer with no portfolio that would be too much, but it sounds like you have some experience. I used to lowball myself all the time and it just isn't worth it unless you're starved for clients. Don't work for peanuts! Unfortunately that's what you encounter on auction sites, but hold your ground and show your worth and there are people willing to pay for that value out there. I've never used those sites personally, I did all my business projects locally. It's not huge (but it's growing) at about 3-4k uniques per month, however I would suggest joining eLanceTalk and putting up a post in the services forum, at the least you can put an URL and contact info and you'll get some backlink action! Obviously the many other Webmaster forums which don't need to be mentioned, however I would highly suggest exploring the local route. Start visiting user groups and getting involved, get your rep out there and the work will come in. Best of luck.
i guess where ever you go .. you will be outbid for some really cheap developers. Even i gone through the same phase ... unfortunately i was one of them to outbid others .. but very soon i realize you can't sell a world in $200 ... so i stopped and started developing my own products ... for keeping things rolling i do find some freelance work though but with personal reference and good forums like DP . I will suggest to utilize the low phase to develop more skills than killing the market and outbidding the quality developers just for the sake of few nuts .. Note: don't take it personal but its my Openion for all of freelancers. all the best for finding good work
You always can get outbid, really, but some buyers are not looking to the cheapest bids, but the most realistic bids. $5 for a youtube site by example won't be realistic Myself I use getafreelancer.com - very good site in my point of view
sharpweb, I personally prefer Scriptlance.com, I have used a couple and this one always seems to have a steady flow of new projects to bid on. If you are brand new to any particular freelancer site, then it would be a good idea to lower your rates and pick up a few small projects (Don't bid on large projects for small rates, as it just ain't worth it.) look for the ones where the buyer needs a quick fix, few hours programming and go in with a low bid. Do a good job on these and get some feedback from the buyers so that you start to build up a decent rating on the site, after you have around 10 ratings you can start charging your normal rates and go after larger projects. Yes there are a lot of programmers who will continuously out bid you on every project, but there are a lot of webmasters who are not interested in working with these types of programmers. I once spent about 5 hours discussing a project with a webmaster, we were on and off the message boards for ages discussing every little detail. Then an Indian programmer came along and completely out bid me for the work, within an hour the guy had won the project. I was gutted after spending so much time and effort thinking I had basically won it myself. 2 Days later the webmaster came back begging me to take the project, complaining that he couldn't work with the other programmer because of the language barriers. I laughed and told him to get stuffed, I doubt he will choose a cheap bid again but I wasn't prepared to waste any more time on him. I come from the UK and initially found it hard to compete, so I tried the above and it worked, I now have 35+ feedback reviews which were gained in around 6 months and now when I need work, a few hours bidding is all it takes to pick up a decent project. HTH
Thanks for the great tips, scriptlance is way better. I found two small jobs tonight that don;t pay much, but like you suggested SilkySmooth they should lead to more. Already got one great review And thanks Tekime for the forum link. I will check that out as well.
http://getafreelancer.com/ Their alright but generally it's hard to actually win bids on those sites and when you do, usually the job isn't worth it. Overall I wouldn't try that route of freelancing. Id recommend just spreading your name and business around instead.
Of course, but you can do so via freelance sites I won several projects on getafreelancer, and a few buyers already contacted me again with the question if I could do a script for them again ..