If you are unfamiliar with this process, it can be difficult to find and hire good freelancers. While most people are honest and hardworking, there are a few who will accept any job regardless of their skill level or major. These freelancers may provide low-quality work or none at all. If you sign a contract with such a person, it will be difficult to get your money back.
Here are some tips to keep in mind when hiring freelancers so that you can find qualified skilled workers who will deliver quality jobs before the deadline.
Beware of Spammers – Spam is a big problem on freelance websites like Odesk and Freelancer. Some freelancers use robots to apply to any vacancy posted, regardless of the norms or standards required. This means it’s important to be clear about your expectations and requirements, and you should also include keywords or phrases that interested parties should use in their bids. This way, you can ignore bids that don’t contain the phrase and find a legitimate bid more easily.
Always ask for samples – When looking for freelancers, portfolios or samples should always be mandatory whether you search privately or through a website. For design work or other similar matters, you should ask for verifiable reference material, and for writing, you can ask to see any work published in a reputable article directory or from a former client.
Test Examples-For some projects, previous work may not tell you whether a freelancer is right for your project. Cover letters can be stolen and copied, so it’s best to request a short test copy so you can accurately gauge their skill level. Some freelancers are uncomfortable with this because some notorious buyers take advantage of this request and use the test without payment. A custom example of 75 to 100 words should be enough to do this, and freelancers don’t have to worry about stealing their work, and you can turn down less serious bidders.
Pay Attention to Comments – Comments from employers are an important way to measure freelancers’ skills and professional ethics. Needless to say, if freelancers have a lot of negative reviews, you should stay away, but you should also be wary of those who don’t. If you are willing to give a novice a good chance, but understand that you are gambling, and make sure you know exactly what you need. Remember that if freelancers have a lot of positive reviews and one or two negative reviews, the negative reviewers may not be completely honest. Sometimes buyers leave negative reviews in retaliation for misunderstandings.
Write it down – once you’ve found a competent freelancer and agreed on rates, delivery dates and specifications, you should write everything down via the contract. This is especially important if you are working outside of a freelancer website, as there is no protection for either party.
Freelance Writers: 3 Easy Ways to Make More Money From Your Blog
I have been a freelance copywriter since 1993. My website has been online since 1999. However, I only started taking blogs seriously in 2005. The reason I bring this up is that blogging has always been one of them. As a freelance writer, I’ve found the easiest way to make more money. The reason is simple: it’s a home on the web and you can turn it into any type of profitable business you want.
3 ways to earn more income as a freelance writer
To explain in more detail, if you are a freelance writer, you run a business. With only so many hours in a day, if you want to make more money from your writing skills, you have three options. You can:
(i) Increase your free writing speed (post them on your blog of course); or
(ii) Get more customers (post on your blog about the type of work you do and how you can help customers achieve their content marketing goals); or
(iii) Create other revenue streams (and promote them through blogs; see more below).
While the first two options are simple and easy to implement, they are not without drawbacks. For example, if you increase your free writing speed, you could lose customers. When you lose customers, you will most likely need to replace at least some of them to keep your income consistent.
If you receive more clients (option ii), your free time will be reduced and you risk being exhausted. I’ve been there and done it – let me tell you, it’s no fun!
This is why I like the third option the most – I try to show freelance writers its benefits – because it can pay dividends (literally and figuratively) for years to come.
Freelance Writer: Some Sources of Income You Can Create and Promote by Starting a Blog
The following three things I’ve done as a freelance writer not only increase my income but also make it easier for me to pick and choose the types of writing clients I work with because my earning potential is diversified.
Self-publishing: As a freelance writer, you can write and sell your own eBooks. With platforms like Amazon, Smashwords, Barnes and Noble, having a mainstream publisher is no longer a necessary condition for making money selling books online, especially e-books.
Affiliate Marketing: As a freelance writer, you can use various tools that can be easily used as affiliate marketing, such as your web hosting company, newsletter provider, WordPress themes that you use for your website/blog, etc.
For example, I passively promote my web hosting business and make hundreds of dollars a month. This is because I had a bad experience with a host, so when I switched, I wrote a blog post about it, signed up for my new web hosting company’s affiliate program, and put it on my website A link. That was a few years ago and to this day it makes me money.
Publish a Mini Site: If you’re passionate about a topic, it’s easy to create a niche blog about it. Then, to monetize it, place some AdSense ads and/or affiliate products on it that match your theme.
This is something else that I do, and I can make hundreds of dollars a month. And since I only update my niche blog a few times a month, it’s a bit like making money on autopilot.
Conclusion: make money by setting up a blog
Most importantly, if you are a freelance writer, you already have the talent to convert words into dollars. Therefore, instead of doing it “just” for customers, it’s better to do it for yourself. As a freelancer, this gives you more peace of mind because you have multiple sources of income, so you don’t put all the known eggs in one basket.
Article source: http://EzineArticles.com/7667720
