I will explain how to work at freelancing sites in detail. But before that, I will explain the main concept of Freelance sites.
What is a freelance site?
Freelance site is a online market where Job seekers get jobs and buyers post jobs and hire people which we call Freelancers or service providers or coders etc.
Site 1: Getafreelancer
Site 2: Scriptlance
First Site Getafreelancer (GAF)
GAF is one of the simplest freelance sites to use. Follow these simple steps to have a successful career at GAF.
First of all, simply register at GAF which is 100% free. Remember, after registering; spend few minutes to create a good professional profile. Write your experience (If any), your interests, your hobbies etc. All this is important because many buyers who post jobs (Projects) will view your profile before they give you any work. Do it, it will only take few minutes.
After creating a decent profile, open the main site page.
Here you will see a list of projects with a heading “The 100 Newest Featured Projects”, don’t look for work in this list, scroll down and look for the other list with the heading “The 50 Newest Projects”.
Here you will see Jobs that are just created. Look at the title of jobs and category to see whether you can do it or not. If any project looks interesting, click on it. This will open the detail job page where you will see detailed explanation of the job.
If you think you can do that job then click on “Place Bid”. You can see the budget range for each project. ALWAYS place bid for the lowest price. Its because you are new here, so you need to do few jobs for the lowest price in order to make a reputation. At GAF, we call reputation of a person as “Rating or Reviews or Feedbacks” that a person have.
So, do work for lowest rates, and try your best to satisfy your client as much as you can. This will make your client happy and he will give you a good rating and feedback.
After you place bid, go back to the project description page and click on “PM”. Do not click on “Project Clarification Board”. Clicking on PM will open a window from where you be able to send a PRIVATE MESSAGE to the owner of the project. Sending PM to the buyer is the most important thing to do.
Believe me, if you don’t send PM then I guarantee you that the chance of winning that job is nearly ZERO.
What to write in PM?
Write a decent looking message. I suggest you say that you will do work for the lowest rate or write this, “tell me the lowest price that you want to give for this project; I will do it for what ever you are willing to pay”.
After sending PM, wait for the buyer to reply, you will receive a mail from GAF if the buyer reply. He can reply in few minutes or few days. Meanwhile look for more latest projects, if you find any interesting projects, then repeat what I just told you.
Incase you don’t find any projects in the 50 latest projects then go in different categories to find any interesting jobs. But remember that it’s easy to win new projects.
How many bids can I place at GAF?
At GAF, new members can only place bids on 15 projects.
How to increase the limit for placing bids?
You will have to upgrade to Gold membership which costs only $12/Month. I suggest you first earn some money and as soon as you have $12, you upgrade to Gold member so that you can do more work.
Do I have to Pay GAF a fee for each Job I do?
Yes and No. For regular members, GAF charge a small fee of 10%. This means, if you get a job worth $100, then GAF will give you $90 instead of $100.
But if you are a gold member then you don’t have to pay any charges. That is, if you get a job worth $100, then GAF will give you $100.
At the other site (Scriptlance), there is no Gold membership. Everyone give %10 with each winning project and you can place bids on as many projects as you want to.
How will I get my money?
You will see all your earnings in your account. When you want to withdraw money, you will have few options including PayPal, Moneybookers, Egold, etc.
I recommend that you use MoneyBookers as its fast and secure way to get all your money from your GAF account to your bank account.
Money Bookers
In countries like Pakistan, there is no Paypal. But Moneybookers is available in all countries.