How to Excel at Freelancing Web Portals.
Elance, GetAFreelancer, LimeExchange, Guru etc these are a few a few of the renowned portals which are acting as the meeting ground for Service Providers and Buyers. Elance and GetAFreelancer are equally good but don’t expect work of very high standards as the charges are pretty low. Anyone who is looking for Service Providers for their work from these two sites should expect only normal type of stuff from Service Providers.
At these portals the only thing which matter is money. Lower you bid, more are your chances of grabbing the work. The rates quoted are very very low. So in case you are willing to work for very low rates initially to bring up a decent reference list, you may take assignments as these portals. But You may have to find other avenues also for your services as here you wont be able to get a decent earning.
I have been using GetAFreelancer and Elance for more than a year now. And my experience says that whenever I have tried to bid high (only a little bit), I have lost projects. So I am not much relying on these two portals for my earnings but off and on I do keep taking up projects through these portals.
So if you are a start up, use these very good portals to build up your reference lists and contacts. But definitely keep looking elsewhere also for your promotions. And for Buyers, rate your service providers from these portals and award them work based on their quality, commitment and sincerity.
These portals are just a meeting ground and they can become as good their users want them to be.
May also like to read: Orkut is the leader amongst social networking portals in India
Try oDesk once. It’s really unique in its hourly model. However, Elance has made a lot of changes recently(http://www.freelancelens.com/marketplaces/updates/elance-brings-major-improvements-in-its-hourly-model) to bring in more buyers into Elance network.
Yes! I have seen that.
Interesting article – I must admit however that I am a bit towards Elance. In the past 10 years, I have completed over 800+ Elance projects and I believe that qualified professionals can succeed at Elance if they learn to effectively market themselves.
Like you indicated, it can be hard to win projects where you consistently submit high proposals but if you learn how to scrutinize buyers, most of them won’t mind if you’re the highest bidder IF you can prove that you are indeed the best person for the project. I’ve done this many times and this strategy works for me. The key is to demonstrate what makes you unique by using the PMB board and your custom and benefit laden proposal!