Make Cash Today

While you are building your internet business, or any other kind of business, you will probably find it necessary to earn some money on the side to keep things going. No doubt you have developed a few skills in your line of work – and if you are promoting your business correctly you have probably learned a lot about writing articles and blogs, or even web design. It would be a good idea, therefore, to hire yourself out for freelancing work as a writer, web designer or admin provider.

Due to the growth of the internet marketing industry, there are many people looking for writers and web designers. People who need to do article marketing and blogging but have no idea, or no time, to write the articles themselves are paying freelance writers to do it for them. The same goes for web designers. So many people need good looking websites, but do not have the technical ability to do it themselves.

If you have these skills, then you could put them to good use and earn yourself some extra cash. If you enjoy it, you could even make your freelance work a full time career. I know of people who earn a good annual income from freelance writing alone.

As a writer myself, I use a website called Elance to find writing jobs to supplement my income.

Elance is probably one of the best and safest places to find freelance work and get paid.

The way it works for the provider is this:

You register for Elance, set up your profile, with your experience and any qualifications, and add a portfolio of work (if you regularly write articles this should be easy).

If you want regular work, you really need to be able to bid on the list of jobs that are added every day – and to bid you need to pay a small fee, and you control the amount you pay each month.

Depending on your membership level, you will then be provided with a set of credits, which allow you to bid on jobs that you wish to be considered for. Most jobs cost 1 credit, but some higher paying jobs can take 2, 3 or 4.

Your bid is the amount you wish to be paid for the job that is described. Don’t make the mistake of trying to give the lowest bid – clients will more often than not go for the most qualified or experienced provider. However, when you are just beginning it is best to bid slightly lower than you would normally expect to be paid. As you get more experience, you can increase your rates.

I try to give a bid that is a little under the average bid for that project.

Don’t be put off by the bid system. Once you get into the swing of bidding regularly, you will soon start to find yourself getting work. I read a statistic recently that most people get at least 1 job per 20 bids when they start – but the more work you get, the more feedback you get, and if you are providing excellent work, you will find that the work steadily increases.

When you are accepted for the job, Elance provides a system of work “milestones” and you and your client will agree on when these milestones will be and how you will be paid. Most people use Elance’s Escrow system to make safe payments that are held at Elance until released and you can then transfer them to your Paypal account.

Using a website like Elance is probably one of the best ways of finding freelancing work; there are many jobs listed every day and is much easier than trying to find work via cold calling or trawling through job boards.

Ros Bott

Find out handy recommendations about keyword research ebook – give a look to this publication.