The Problem With Fiverr

I have been a seller on Firverr for some time now and have a made some money offering website review services, Photoshop services, and SEO help. Here's the problem/conclusion that I have noticed with Fiverr. Gigs do well for the first 2-3 weeks when their fresh, but as the gig matures it slowly moves back in the search results even though the gig is receiving positive reviews. Soon my gig is not being viewed by anyone.

My possible solution: I am going to delete a gig and put up the exact same one again. I hate to lose all the positive feedback on the gig but if it moves my gig back into the first results than it worth it.

Please I would like to hear your feedback, ideas, and thoughts

 

try to edit the gig first ans see results also you can promote it in fiverr groups in facebook or purchase some tweets for twitter.
good luck

 

Not too long ago I created 4 gigs on it and got total of 5 views in 2 weeks. Oh, joy. I just think fiverr is saturated with the same/similar gigs way to much and only original and/or sought after gigs will get hits.

 

TBH, Fiverr is probably too saturated. It's still hard to believe that people nowadays are still making decent money with 10-20+ competitors on the same site selling the same thing. However, the idea of recreating your gig isn't bad. I think all you have to do is send some more traffic, if you can.

 

The fundamental problem with Fiverr is it's a race to the bottom. Why sell anything for just $5 when you can build your own website and sale it for more than $5 easily?

Or why not get creative and charge people zero ($0) and run ads on your website like POF.com? He makes millions from AdSense running on his website, read his blog here http://plentyoffish.wordpress.com/.

I also suggest that you read Seth Godin's book Idea Virus and you'll get concrete ideas on how to do far better than making a Fiverr.

 

you can generate traffic via social media (twitter, facebook) or solo ads. post and comment on blogs and link to your gigs too! It's still a good way to earn extra

 

Lol. If it's a good gig that not 1000 others can do and have listed, it will always be in a good position, especially in search results.

 

I think there was a point where Fiverr was worth it for some services that required little or no time, such as selling ebooks. If you could spend a few minutes to throw up a gig and you didn't have to spend any more than a few additional minutes to deliver the gig it was worth it for $5. If you could sell 3-5 gigs in a day and had a few of those it was good seed money for other projects. That was back when Fiverr was new and not as many internet marketers were using it. As others have said, it's become too much of a struggle to get a gig sold.

Some people recommend promoting your gig through other channels but I agree with ArchAxis that if you're going to use any energy promoting anything make it one of your own websites. You can easily sell the same services you would sell on Fiverr for many times more on your site. It only takes 1 sale from your website to equal 5 sales on Fiverr.

 

Why don't you give seoclerks.com a try? Like you Fiverr was just not working for me, I saw seoclerks and gave it a chance. Now I make a lot of my online income through them.

 

I haven't had problems with that, usually the more customers I get, the higher it ranks. Try get returning customers.

 

Well after a few days it seems that editing the gig tags had no effect on how much traffic my gig received. I added, deleted, reworded, and changed the order of my tags, nothing.

I am now taking the advice of many members and am developing a nice single page website to offer my services on. We will see how this will work out.

 

Nice bmxer193 I commend you! Now that you're going to have a nice new website read this article from Seth Godin titled "The secret of the web (hint it's a virtue)" and you'll be well on your way.

 

Thank you ArchAxis, that article is absolutely correct.

Also you said

What makes you say selling off your own website is easier? I feel like getting the traffic to my website will be the toughest part, where as Fiverr supplies the traffic for you.

 

No problem bmxer193, I'm happy you're making the jump.

You don't necessarily need Fiver to bring you clients, you can use Craigslist and respond to the Gigs section, or you can sign up with Freelancer.com or any other website that provides you with access to customers who want services.

Your website would simply serve as a home base for your portfolio, your blog, your contact information etc. Once you have it up for some time and you're closing deals from Freelancer, Craigslist etc you can then create a product or service to sell from your website.

This is what I did with web design. I started out by getting freelance gigs from Craigslist Gigs and didn't charge clients all that much to get my foot in the door. I also told them I was a rookie so that they knew I might mess up and take a long time to figure it out but I promised that I would get whatever issue I had fixed. Once I did that and built up my portfolio I moved on to charging more and more.

Now I have a choice of many different products and services that I can sell from my website but I'm still in the choosing mode right now. I've also been freelancing since 2004 and like Seth's article says it takes 10 years to be an overnight success!

 

I am slapping myself in the face, I should have thought of craigslist and freelancer. Again thank you very much for the reply, I wish I could like your post.

This will take a lot of work and time but I do believe you are correct, fiverr is not the way to go (at least for me).

 

No problem, I'm glad I could help. The only caveats I'll give you for working on as a freelancer on any of these sites is.

• Don't lie about anything, if you don't have any experiences providing a service but can prove yourself they'll choose you.
• Don't outsource your work, do everything yourself 100% even it it takes longer
• Send your clients a daily status report email letting them know what's going on and the challenges you're facing (even on the weekends)
• Don't take any money up front and you'll win a lot more business since folks are paranoid about being ripped off. If you can deliver and you send them their files you can get paid as long as you get their PayPal address before starting the project. (simply file a dispute and PayPal will arbitrate for you and you'll be paid.).
• Never ever automate your replies, I know this might take some extra time but believe me customers know if you're just copying and pasting.
• Be willing to talk on the phone, Skype, Chat, or whatever they feel comfortable with (obviously you'll be remote so let them know that when they ask where you are).
• Don't tell the customer all of the above the first time you contact them since they only want to know you can do the job and how much it costs.
• Never include up-selling in your reply to their job, if you have questions ask them but make sure they are only about the words they have put in the job. I treat the clients words as the law and never tell them I can do xy and z too! If they want extra stuff they'll give it to you but if you ask they won't respond.
• Read watch and listen to anything from Seth Godin a good start is here http://www.squidoo.com/seth
• And finally like Jimmy V said "Don't give up, don't ever give up!"

 

I thought of adding some points to what ArchAxis said; but he has covered everything. Great Post.

 

A little ninja strategy I have heard used with fiverr if you getting less exposure to your gigs, is to try and get more exposure naturally through fiverr from the gigs you do sell. There are a couple of ways you can do this:

1. When they purchase a gig from you, send them a PDF, with an incentive for them to try and sign up to your list. Now that you have them off fiverr and on a mailing list, you will then be able to offer gigs to them in the future at a lot more than 5 dollars. As far as I am aware, this does not breach any of fiverrs rules.
2. Also in the PDF you can offer them a free gig, by getting them to tweet or post a link on facebook to your gig. Yes, you will be giving away a gig for free but you will get much more exposure to your gigs.

I think if you think outside the box a little with fiverr, there are ways that you can maximize your profit potential.

 

I offer services for a billing system on fiverr which lots of people need help with. I get lots of questions but have now became a level 1 seller and barely any interest

 

I have a 'fiverr like' service on my webmaster forum,but it's mainly for webmaster jobs (forum posting, blog article writing etc.). My editors can earn a bit of a revenue and the commission is smaller than Fivver's (way smaller). The thing is that such microjobs sites should not be used to base your business on them. Yep, I'm saying this, even if I would probably wish to convince people to stay as much on my job marketplace as possible. But it's not a feasible solution. Use such sites to get some attention towards your PORTFOLIO and services and then get some bigger clients. I might use Fiverr for instance to do some small graphic work, but you can guess I'd starve if my business was based on $4 jobs (after paying the commission).

So ... get yourself a nice little domain name, but something up there and start promoting that. Use microjobs sites to get some attention, don't base your entire work on them.