Holidays and freelancing

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Holidays and freelancing

Thanksgiving seems to have vanished before our eyes and Christmas is breathing down our backs.  Now, we’ll be busy with friends, family and shopping. The holiday season often makes it difficult to focus on our work and stay on track. However, there are some things that you can do to make sure that your holiday’s don’t spell disaster for your freelancing work.  Here are some simple ideas that are easily implemented and can help you survive the holiday season. Don’t accept too much work – This may sounds simple but it’s not really as cut and dried as you might...

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SEO for Freelancers: Panda changed things

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SEO for Freelancers: Panda changed things

For many freelance writers, SEO work was fairly simple to do, you used a specific set of keywords a certain number of times in an article. The irony of this is that sometimes SEO phrases that didn’t make a lot of sense wound up in articles, making them search engine friendly (hence the name search engine optimization) while nearly ignoring the reader. The goal was simple: Provide fair to middle of the road content on a regular basis that would attract the attention of the search engine bots that spider your site. Today, this is no longer a good...

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Make the most of oDesk: Part 3 Interviews

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Make the most of oDesk: Part 3 Interviews

Hopefully some of the applications you file on oDesk will turn into requests for interviews. Keep in mind, these can be somewhat tricky! Remember that you are going to be interviewing via email, chat or perhaps (if you are lucky) Skype voice.  Either way, it is simply not the same as sitting across the desk from someone. Be prepared – as with any other type of interview, you are going to want to be as prepared as possible. Before the interview, go back and review the posting. Take careful note of the amount you bid, what the scope of the...

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Scams look like this

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Scams look like this

I generally do not make a habit of calling out companies on this site, instead I prefer subtle warnings to users that tell them what warnings to look out for. However, after getting NINE (yes 9) emails in one day from the same person, I am fed up to my eyebrows. So, here’s what a REAL SCAM looks like: A) Low monthly fee: Really? Since when did I have to pay a monthly fee to work.  A membership fee? Seriously? I don’t really think so; B) Q: How much money can I make?  A: Your earnings potential is really up to you....

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Make the most of oDesk: Part 2 Getting Assignments

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Make the most of oDesk: Part 2 Getting Assignments

Immediately after adding your profile to oDesk you will be able to post bids for assignments.  Before you do this, it is a good idea to review the oDesk policies on the number of applications that are available to you and how you can increase them. To be honest, the more you have open initially the better, you’ll get better results if you can post to the maximum number of assignments.  Let’s get started on how to apply and what to watch out for. Reading the posts – One of the biggest mistakes that newcomers make is that they fail...

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Make the most of oDesk: Part 1 Getting Started

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Make the most of oDesk: Part 1 Getting Started

For those who have decided to take the leap of faith and sign up at oDesk, I would like to present a series of items that may help you find greater success. As I previously mentioned, oDesk isn’t for everyone, and you’ll have to have some patience if you are going to find any measure of success. I feel fairly confident writing about this since I have accumulated more than 3,000 hours on oDesk in hourly assignments and a fair number of successful fixed rate assignments as well. Over the next few days, we’ll talk about how to get...

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oDesk: It is not perfect

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oDesk: It is not perfect

I have been and remain a vocal supporter of oDesk for freelancing opportunities. However, with that said, I do not want to give anyone the impression that oDesk is perfect, it is far from it. In fact, some of you read my rant about oDesk Customer Service a couple of weeks ago.  That issue has since been resolved, but this does not address the underlying problem that exists today and has existed for some time. That aside, this is one of the “annoyances” that must be dealt with but these are not the biggest problems that people have with...

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Understanding Online opportunities

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Understanding Online opportunities

While there are numerous opportunities available online, it is important to understand how to evaluate them. There are a number of sites that make grandiose claims about how much someone can earn online. Before accepting any online opportunity, it is crucial to evaluate the validity of the claims being made. What to watch for: · Do not accept any online opportunity where there does not seem to be a valid contact name, address or contact phone number; · Be wary of online opportunities that ask you to pay a significant amount of money upfront to “start working”; · Check the Better Business Bureau...

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Elance vs oDesk

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Elance vs oDesk

Recently, Elance announced a new payment guarantee program for freelancers who use their site. At first blush, one would think they were attempting to compete with oDesk. However, it turns out that the only comparison between the two is the word “guarantee.” After that, the differences are significant. Apples and Oranges I am not generally one who freely reviews any service or product, but as a freelancer, I understand how important a guarantee can be for those who are just getting started. Because of that, I encourage new freelancers to avoid getting involved with Elance. Here are the major issues I...

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Debunking work at home myths

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Debunking work at home myths

If you are considering work at home positions, it is important to understand the issues that you may have to contend with. While working at home has many positive benefits, there are a number of myths that you should be aware of. Separating fantasy from reality is crucial to work at home success. People decide to work at home for a number of reasons. Some people decide that a work at home position is a good option to pursue after a layoff, others decide to become entrepreneurs and still others work at home from necessity due to a disability. Regardless...

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Reasons to use oDesk

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Reasons to use oDesk

In our previous post we talked about the new and ever changing world of finding work online. The impact of Google Panda is still being felt, it is rather like a ripple effect with more people being impacted every day. It may not seem like it was that long ago when writers could sign into their favorite online writing site and scoop up titles, work all day and make a decent days pay. In fact, for many of us this really was not that long ago. However, since many online sites have now changed how you can earn money,...

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Preparing for the new world of online work

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Preparing for the new world of online work

About one year ago, we posted about landing new assignments while working online. Primarily the focus of these posts was getting prepared for the new year and a special post that focused on writing plans for the year. This isn’t something new, each year we’ve managed to provide some post that focused on making money in the new year.  However, going forward into 2012, the landscape has dramatically changed for those who earn a living writing online. What’s changed so much? Writing in a post-Panda world As if writing online didn’t pose enough problems for freelance writers, Panda made things hundreds...

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Writing Site Review Update 2: Bright Hub

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Ouch – very painful. As if it were not bad enough that every site seems to be offering less revenue share, demanding higher quality (which I’m all for!) and cutting back on available assignments, writers at Bright Hub have another problem.  I was thrilled at the beginning of November to finally get “Senior Writer” status at BH which helped since only Senior Writers were able to accept claims in November. It was assumed by most of us that this would continue at least through December. If only! Not so much! Effective immediately (12/01/11) the writer and editor roles at Bright...

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Earnings challenges: We all are facing them

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Earnings challenges: We all are facing them

As Google rolled out their latest Panda update, content farms are facing more pressure than ever before. Demand Media, Helium and Suite 101 are among the casualties (again) of this update. It is becoming even more challenging to earn a living writing online. However, that does not mean that all hope is lost, it only means that writers need to pay more attention to what they are doing and work smarter.   For beginners, freelance writers should be exploring every opportunity that is available to them. I’ve given up on many of the sites I was writing for but, I...

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Cheap and Ignorant

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Cheap and Ignorant

I have been reviewing numerous freelance writing posts to try to get my earnings back up to 2010 levels since most content farms are either (a) no longer paying worth a crap and (b) seem to have a diminishing rate of return on revenue share. Towards that end I’ve been reviewing a number of openings. But some of these people are not only incredibly bold, they’re cheap and they are ignorant too. I found a posting today (and I won’t mention where I saw it) but this is what they are looking for: “we are in need of committed writers to...

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