DoNanza, the largest search engine for work-from-home and freelance jobs, released today its quarterly State of the Work-From-Home and Freelancing Economy, looking at the fourth quarter 2010 and online freelance marketing project numbers for all of 2010.

Social media marketing is on track to surpass classic search engine marketing (SEO and SEM), reflecting social media's huge impact

Online marketing projects have become a necessary tool for many businesses. These cover everything from the "classic" lead generation and public relations campaigns - to newer forms such as search engine marketing and social media marketing.

The DoNanza universe data, reflecting projects for freelancers, shows the breakdown of the channels used by businesses for online marketing and the way these channels have changed in 2010, compared to 2009.

Marketing channel share of total project count

In 2010, Social Media Marketing projects have grown by 67%, compared to 2009. The Social Marketing share of all projects has grown to 35%, compared to 29% of projects in 2009. DoNanza data shows this trend will continue into 2011.

Social marketing is a recent addition to the online marketer's toolkit, resulting from the tremendous growth of social networks such as Facebook and Twitter and the increased ability to target and segment potential customers. Although social media has been around for longer, Social Marketing became a mainstay of online marketing about two years ago. Social Marketing includes social advertising, running fan pages, social bookmarking, development of social applications etc, as marketers are trying to get viral in spreading the word about their product or service.

However, growth rates for search engine marketing projects remain high, at 33% compared to 2009, although their share of overall marketing channels has dropped from 44% to 41%.

Direct marketing like telemarketing and email marketing, viewed as old-fashioned marketing methods are at about 9% out of all online projects found on DoNanza. These methods seem to be here to stay.

"This shift towards Social Marketing indicates that businesses believe that the potential value of social marketing is higher than any other online marketing channel", said Liran Kotzer, CEO of DoNanza. "I believe there are many reasons for this: first, the huge number of people spending their time on social environments such as Facebook, Twitter and Foursquare, and the fact that social networks are here to stay and people are learning how to use them for business. In addition, many social media campaigns are more visible and easier to measure and understand than some of the methods used for in search engine marketing. However, Search engine marketing is definitely not decreasing, quite the contrary. In 2010, it is still the largest in terms of projects available on DoNanza."

Social Marketing projects have the highest average budgets

Social Marketing projects typically have higher budgets than Search Engine Marketing projects. The average social marketing budget was $ 1090, compared to $ 683 for the average Search Engine Marketing project. "Social projects typically require more creativity and may involve application development and novel solutions for engaging with customers" said Kotzer. "In addition, since social projects are a recent addition, there are fewer experienced individuals that can take the job."

Facebook Dominates Social Media Marketing

As reflected in the chart above, Facebook dominates social media projects, with projects varying from the creation of fan pages to application development and segmented advertising. Twitter is number two with projects helping businesses to create viral marketing tools as well as customer communications and customer service.

Facebook and Linkedin marketing projects have grown the most

Compared to 2009, MySpace projects have dropped by 46% with LinkedIn and Facebook projects growing at 103% and 120% respectively. Twitter growth is smaller, reflecting the fact that Twitter projects tend to differ from other "classic" social marketing projects that involve applications, brand building etc.

Q4/2010 - The top 50 Requested Skills

Changes in Top 50 Requested Work-from-Home Skills Show a Rise in iPad and Android Development as well as healthy demand for writing skills

Notable changes in the list are the rise of "Social Media Marketing" discussed above, iPad development and creative writing and a drop in SQL and Xhtml projects. iPad demand grew by 86%, climbing 10 spots in the list. The average iPad development project budget is $1551, but the availability of experts seems to push budgets down, with a 11.5% decrease in the average iPad budget from Q3 to Q4.

Creative writing skills are in high demand, climbing 12 spots in the list with a 59% increase in project count. "Demand for at-home writing skills is definitely growing, according to our project data", said Liran Kotzer, CEO of DoNanza. "The availability of a variety of writing styles and projects, from creative to technical writing, means that good writers can obtain interesting and lucrative at-home work".

Groupon Clone Sites Reflected in freelance work projects

Groupon.com, one of the most notable developments in 2010, tremendously affected the freelance and work from home market. "We have seen hundreds of businesses wishing to create a clone of Groupon and other similar services such as livingsocial.com in their respective cities and countries. With an average budget of $1440 per project, barriers to entry in the daily deals and group coupon space, at least on the development side, are indeed low" said Liran Kotzer, CEO of DoNanza.

Drupal Showing the Highest Growth Rates of all CMS platforms

DoNanza data shows that while WordPress continues to dominate the market as a CMS platform, growth rates were highest for Drupal, signaling strong momentum for the platform.
WordPress continued to lead all platforms, with 6.3 times the number of projects compared to Drupal, and Joomla was a distant second, with 2.8 times the number of Drupal Projects.

Conclusion

The DoNanza work-from-home universe is showing healthy signs of growth with a 20% growth in freelance project count from Q3 to Q4, providing more people with the opportunity to make a living from home. "More businesses are posting more projects", said Kotzer "as the appreciate that many tasks can be done simply and reliably through online freelancers".

DoNanza, the largest search engine for work-from-home and freelance jobs, released today its quarterly State of the Work-From-Home and Freelancing Economy.

Most CMS Sites Use Wordpress While the Largest Budgets Go to Drupal Developers

CMS platforms enable business and individuals to launch a web site, blog or online application and to easily manage the content within. Although the platforms are known for their ease of use, launching something that is beyond basic requires professional help. In the CMS freelance world this might mean a developer, a graphic designer, an SEO expert and other professionals.

DoNanza's report reveals several interesting facts about how the rivaling CMS/Blogging platforms fared in the third quarter of 2010, most notably WordPress, Joomla and Drupal

CMS Professional Project Demand is Showing Extraordinary Growth

CMS project counts are growing rapidly, quarter over quarter, with an average growth of 49 percent. There is no reduction in project count for any of the CMS platforms.

In Q3 2010, Wordpress projects in the DoNanza Universe grew by 61 percent, with Joomla growing at 38 percent and Drupal at 26 percent.

Wordpress is Peerless in Terms of Demand for Professionals

In terms of number of projects, WordPress is a clear winner, cementing its hold on the market with more than 6 times the amount of projects in comparison to Drupal. Joomla finds its position exactly in the middle in terms of number of projects.

Drupal Professionals are the Highest Earning

Looking at the average project budget, opportunities for Drupal consistently came in with an average project budget that was more than twice as much as the average WordPress/Joomla budget in the DoNanza Universe. This makes Drupal a clear winner in terms of revenue opportunity per project.

"Growth in freelance projects for certain technologies can tell us where the market is trending even before the finished projects impact market share" said Liran Kotzer, CEO of DoNanza. "Last quarter we noticed the sheer growth in demand for HTML5 and iPad developers. This quarter, in CMS platforms, we're seeing WordPress break out of the pack, while Drupal is becoming a great skill set for those looking for programming centric at-home work that is lucrative and differentiated. This is a result of the relative complexity and higher customization levels that Drupal projects usually have".

Different CMS Platforms Call for Different Skills; Some Platforms are Easy to Use, Some, Like Drupal, Require Site Building Freelance Work, and Others, Like Joomla, Are into 3rd Party Development

Projects data also shows the difference in project type depending on the CMS/Blogging Platform.

Site Development as % of Total Projects

"Our DoNanza Universe data verifies the belief that most people start out with WordPress on their own" said Kotzer. "Only 18 percent of the total WordPress projects are site building, while 31 percent of Drupal projects are site building.It means that with Drupal people are seeking at-home-work freelance support from the get-go and not trying to build the initial site by themselves, as with WordPress".

3rd party Development as % of total projects

Other CMS/Blogging platform characteristics are also verified in the DoNanza data, as 29 percent of Joomla projects are 3rd party development with WordPress 3rd party work only at 16 percent and Drupal at 20 percent.

"This proves that Joomla have a very active market allowing people to create and sell the third party extensions they have created for other Joomla platform users", said Kotzer.

"More businesses and individuals will keep using CMS platforms as a way to express themselves and do business" said Kotzer. "Currently each of the platforms has its own relative advantages, and we are curious to see how the differences between them will play out in the future. In the meantime, all of us benefit from the competition by getting much more flexible infrastructures with and advanced features."

Q3/2010 - The top 50 Requested Skills

Changes in Top 50 Requested Work-from-Home Skills Show a Rise in iPad and Android Development

Mobile Application Development Growing at a Healthy Clip

Online Ecommerce Infrastructure Shows Virtuemart Gaining Momentum

In terms of ecommerce infrastructure projects, Magento is the highest ranking skill, at # 38, with oscommerece coming in at # 53 (not shown in the table). However, Virtuemart projects, the Joomla e-commerce platform, grew at 137 percent with Magento and oscommerce at 50 percent and 42 percent and Zen cart lagging at 29 percent growth.

Online Freelance Jobs Growing Rapidly

A key finding is that work-from-home project counts increased by a hefty 45 percent over the previous quarter. Most of the projects required skills in software development or graphic design, while marketing, writing and translation projects were popular as well.

"The freelance economy is showing strong growth", said Kotzer. "The increase in project count shows that businesses and individuals understand that finding an online freelancer is not an exotic choice to run a business. It is becoming mainstream, with the best value for money. We know this firsthand – DoNanza has tens of excellent freelancers under its hood."

DoNanza, the world's leading work-from-home job search engine, releases its quarterly trends statistics report for Q2/2010. The report is based on the analysis of millions of work-from-home projects, aggregated from all over the web, indexed by the DoNanza search engine.

Demand by Skill Sets

Software development leads the DoNanza demand by skill sets category with 24 percent, way out in front of any other skill category. The closest category, with 15 percent, is graphic design. Other categories worth mentioning are writing, marketing, admin assistant and translation.

Demand for HTML5 Developers Increases While Demand for Flash Developers Decreases

It seems that Apple’s decision to not support flash technology on their iPad/iPhone platforms, and go with HTML5 instead, is showing its influence. But, while the trend is toward HTML5, don’t be fooled - the number of Flash-related projects is still 11 times higher than HTML5 projects.

iPad Overtakes Android in Mobile Development Projects... in Just Three Months

The number of mobile-related projects keeps growing at a rapid rate where Apple seems to dominate this world, especially after an astonishing jump in the number of iPad application development projects after its release in April 2010, which already crossed the number of android projects. In addition, the average budget for iPhone-related projects is 30 percent higher than Android projects, which may be the result of only 28 percent of iPhone apps being free, compared to the Android market with 57 percent of its applications being free.

Facebook Trumps Twitter and the Gap Continues to Widen

With Facebook driving measurable revenue through applications, it’s no surprise to see three times more project requests related to Facebook than to Twitter. Projects on Facebook see a much more significant return on investment. It’s important to mention that there is still growth in the demand for social campaigns in both of the networks.

Location-Based Social Networks Development Are on the Rise

The world of location-based social networking is also growing rapidly, with an increased growth of 70 percent for Gowalla and more than double for Foursquare with 150 percent growth.
The average budget offered for projects related to Foursquare is bigger than the other social networks’ average budget, and might be a result of a lack of geolocation social marketers and developers. We assume that the average budget and the growth rate will keep increasing as a result of location-based social networking’s fast growth.

The Browsers Battle: Chrome is Taking the Lead for Developers

The competition in the browser arena can be traced through the demand for extensions, and Google Chrome is winning the battle against IE, Firefox and Safari. During Q2 we saw for the first time that there were more requests to develop extensions for Google’s Chrome browser than for all other browsers. In previous quarters, requests for Firefox developers were in the lead, but no longer.

PHP Dominates

PHP is defiantly the preferred technology for businesses to create websites. The request for .Net developers is decreasing dramatically even though the average budget for .Net projects remains the highest among the other programming languages. This is a result of the lack of developers, unlike PHP where the number of programmers available is much higher.

An American Designer, English Writer and Indian Programmer Meet in a Bar...

Although the Internet causes some of the boundaries to fall between people in different countries, where an employer in the US, for example, can hire skilled professionals from different parts of the world, one thing is hard to change – peoples’ nature.
Monitoring the skilled visitors to the DoNanza search engine, we can see that in the US the favorite skills are software development and graphic design where in the UK, writing is the most popular skill with graphic design a close second. And in India, software development is most popular, with the following skills a distant second.

Q2/2010 - The top 50 Requested Skills

Below is a table showing the Top 50 requested skills for work-from-home projects, based on all projects indexed by DoNanza during Q2. The change in demand, quarter-over-quarter, for each skill, is noted in the table.

Winner-Take-All vs. Best-Bidder-Wins

Not to get you confused or anything, but we are sure that a lot of independent contractors argue over this: Contests or Bidding Sites? Without plans of settling this argument to an end, DoNanza reveals that bidding sites keep their wins to 75 percent of projects available in the web. Marketplaces like oDesk.com, Elance.com, Freelancer.com, Vworker.com and Scriptlance.com, continue to make ‘bidding-on-projects’ a standard among professionals working online.

However, with the graphic design industry growing each day, we have observed an increase in the use of contest sites for work-from-home projects. In fact, the remaining 25 percent of the statistics are won by contest sites using the select-from-entries format of project award. These contest sites are 99designs.com, crowdspring.com, logotournament.com, designcrowd.com, graphiccompetitions.com and geniusrocket.com. These sites are growing in number, and so are the design contests that they host.

This indicates that the usage of contest as a way to create logos and other brand-related elements is considered as a successful way because it saves money and it attracts many people to the process and by that increases brand awareness.

Here is a free-built path to income

Are you a freelance Web Designer? Looking for some extra cash to help you attain your goal to be financially independent in the near future? No time for more work? If your answer to all these questions is a BIG YES, then read on (Don’t worry, this is not a get rich quick scheme!).

A lot of Web Designers would be delighted to know that they can ‘passively’ earn a good sum of money in the Web. What you are about to read here is not at all a secret for most tenured designers, but can absolutely be a good reference for new Web Designers with budding freelance careers. So here we go with some of the known ways for Web Designers to gain passive income;

Affiliate Marketing – This one is the most known option amongst all others listed here. This is in no way a surprise for most of us because affiliate marketing is viable money making option not only for Web Designers, but also for ‘almost anyone’ who owns a blog. Web Designers have an edge over all others however because they have been gifted with skills to alter a page’s design for an affiliate banner to blend well with the other elements of the blog.

Consulting Services – Offering a service such this is another viable source of passive income for Web Designers. We are pretty certain that a lot of ‘traditionally employed people’ would want to know how you earn at the comforts of your home. Give them a helping hand while gaining monetary benefits in return. Now, you may argue that this is in no way a passive source of income as it will require you to spend time teaching others to learn your craft. You are partly right, but just think of it this way: No matter how busy you are, you’ll need some time off work and you’ll need a social life. Spend some time socializing while still earning by sharing to others what you enjoy doing.

Resell Hosting – Now is the time to see the opportunities right in front of you! You are designing websites so why not consider being a one-stop-shop to your clients? Well, this is not at all too laborious to do. Simply tell your client that you also offer hosting (and make sure you really do!). Saves them time spent on looking for a reliable hosting provider.

Sell themes – Again, you may argue that this option is not at all a source of passive income because you will obviously need to spend hours designing a theme. But hey, we’re certain that once in your career, you’ve done some experiments and you’ve come up with some mediocre work. Why not do some touch up on these designs and sell these themes at an affordable price. Not only will this help you build a brand of your own, but will also help you raise some funds for business expanding purposes.

This list contains the options that will help you gain extra income while keeping a constant and more reliable stream of earnings through freelance jobs. This post not only serves as a resource for you to find more opportunities, but also serves as an eye opener towards seeing the web as a good start for any business endeavor.

Image credits to FOTOCROMO

A lot has already been said about how advantageous it is to be in the freelance job industry. Working at the comforts of your home and earning an attractive pay are some of the most famed benefits of being able to work home based. We are living proofs of this fortune in freelancing— and we hope you are, too.

Looking back  when we’re all still at the starting point of our careers, it can’t be denied that we have had faced our own share of risks— scammers, clients who would not pay and relatively below industry standard rates to name a few. We have learned to overcome all of these and are now at the turning point of our careers. However, another risk is left to be faced– and we are sure that at one point of your freelance career, you’ve come to ask yourself this: Where am I to go from here?

Admit it, no matter how good freelance jobs are, they still lack some of the offers that traditional jobs have. One of this is promotion. Well, without a regular employer, how can such be possible? The alarming fact about this is that we are all brought up to think of becoming CEO’s someday! We are thought to be competitive and to climb up the corporate ladder. Needless to say, sooner or later, a feeling of dissatisfaction will settle within us, which will eventually leave us unhappy and discontented with our freelance jobs.

We have given this a thought for quite some time and we are glad to tell you that there is hope. You need not be left to be a freelancer for long. An invisible corporate ladder is available for you to take advantage of.

Let us explain the concept through this scenario;

Assuming you are a freelance writer. You have your regular gigs from your trusted freelance job website and you are considerably at the peak of your career. However, despite this success, you feel all tired and weary of doing the same job over and over again. Routine is killing you, but you can’t just simply leave your freelance job.  What can you do?

Supposing this scenario is true, there’s really not a need to fret. As a freelancer, you are not only given the flexibility on work hours but a wide variety of options, too! Digging deeper into the world of SEO and establishing a career as an SEO specialist is a very good opportunity. After all, if you already have a knack with words, you might as well use it to your own and your client’s advantage by upping your knowledge about how you can make you content a certified king by ranking them well on search engines . Consider this as a promotion from being an article writer to an SEO specialist. Not only will it change your routine and make your freelance job more exciting, but it will also make you feel good about yourself because of your ability to level your skills up to meet more freelance job needs.

This scenario is not at all to suggest that you take a sudden shift. This is simple a demonstration of the tremendous options most freelance jobs has to offer. Finally, a promotion does not only apply to article writers— how does becoming an internet marketer from being a savvy internet provider sound to you? This is also possible. After all, it is not really about who you know, but what you know that will take you to the top in the freelance job industry. Too bad it is often the other way around for traditional jobs—another reason to celebrate your being a freelancer.

Happy Freelancing!

The earning opportunities that freelance jobs have offered to a lot of people in this tough time of recession are limitless. These freelancing options have provided us with the ability to cope with the situation despite the lack of job opportunities in our respective locations.

A good example is the people from India or people from the Philippines who have literally lived a night life for quite a long time because of their call center jobs. They are now left to sleep day and night, without any work to do, after the announcement of the global financial

crisis late last year. This is very unfortunate as these people are already equipped with skills and strengths to be able to perform excellently in a customer oriented setting— Filipinos are undoubtedly good in communicating in English while locals from India have their inclinations in technology. There is no question that these people are a good fit for customer service positions and that losing job such this is a major nosedive not just in their individual income, but in their country’s economy as a whole.  Good thing freelance bidding sites are here to rescue—these people can now continue with the kind of work that they enjoy doing.

If you are a part of this good sum of population who have lost their jobs in a snap or if you are someone gifted with the ability to talk things over, then this guide is for you. Read on.

Defining Home Based Customer Service

It is always easy to confuse this position with that of a Virtual Assistant or that of a Telemarketer because of the general nature of the job. Therefore, if your aim is to land a CSR or CCR job, then make sure to identify the differences that it has with that of the two aforementioned positions. Below are the IT IS and IT IS NOT’S of a Customer Service Representative freelance job;

WHAT A HOME BASED CUSTOMER SERVICE JOB IS NOT;

• Very sales oriented
• Pay is performance based
• Outbound calls
• Focus is on sales quota
• Responsibilities: Calling out prospects (outbound), follow ups and documentation

WHAT A HOME BASED CUSTOMER SERVICE JOB IS NOT;

• Absolutely no sales involved
• Pay is on an hourly basis
• Focus is on KPIs such as customer satisfaction and AHT (Average Handling Time)
• Responsibilities: Taking in calls  (inbound) and documentation

This is a relatively short list to describe a home based Customer Service position. There’s a lot more to learn in order for you to enjoy the privilege of working home based while you are also able to do the things that you are good at. You just have to do your homework— by this we mean you conduct a self-initiated research that will help you exhaust all options available for you in the industry. You may opt to utilize the ‘search engine’ feature of www.donanza.com to help you find freelance jobs in this category. Alternatively, you can also visit the following links;

http://www.filcancommunications.biz/career.php

http://www.bsgclearing.com/riskmanagement/voicelogthirdpartyverification

http://www.convergys.com

http://www.plantronics.com/north_america/en_US/careers/index.jhtml

http://www.teletech.com/en-US/careers

http://www.overflowusa.com/jobs.html

Happy Freelancing!

There is no doubt that a person’s gift of gab can take him to inexplicable career heights that even he might not be expecting. Communication skills, both in writing and speaking, can help a freelancer acquire numerous jobs;  each of which has different nature which gives him options and growth opportunities as a home based worker. This proves that now more than ever is the best time to learn to be a good English speaker, writer and– listener? Read on.

We’re certain that we have caught your attention there. Here is a trivia: If you have not noticed yet, transcription is on the fifth spot in Donanza’s September Top 10 Most Popular Searches but it is not in Donanza’s 50 Most Required Skills. Puzzling, right? Whether there is demand for this service or not is definitely no issue. The result can only mean that freelance job transcription opportunities are just around the corner completely unnoticed.

Now, you might argue that if clients need transcription jobs, then why don’t they post job openings for it in freelance bidding sites? Well, it may sound unfair, but unless it is really urgent; no client will proactively reach out to you to send you projects— and this does not only apply to freelance job transcription opportunities, but to all other freelance jobs as well.  Therefore, as frequently mentioned here in www.donanza.com, keep in mind that jobs won’t find you so you should be the one to do the looking.  This said, we have prepared the following tips to help freelancers address the growing need for freelance transcriptionists by finding their job ads and taking advantage of them.

1. Utilize Google

Never underestimate the power of your fingertips! The reason you may not be seeing transcription freelance jobs a lot in bidding sites is because they’re not posted there at all! They may be on the ‘Careers’ page of a potential client’s website for all we know. Therefore, you may need to exhaust all of  your resources– and these resources include search engines. Simply type in the relevant keywords in the search bar and hit go/search. Should you need help with keywords, we’ve listed some that you can use in your search;

-          General Transcription

-          Legal Transcription

-          Court Reporters

2. Network with fellow transcriptionists

Nothing beats a good network that won’t only help you find freelance jobs, but can also share valuable tips and advice that can motivate you to keep going with your search and eventually, find these elusive freelance job transcription opportunities. Forums such as that in www.TranscriptionEssentials.com is a good venue to where you can start realizing your professional networking goals.

3. Read through advertisements

This is fairly easy. All you’ll need to do is to read through the advertisements available in the page where you get your daily dose of freelance job transcription tips, advice and tricks or even on the same page where you get your job leads.

Finally, it is also crucial that you understand that finding freelance jobs is not yet the end of your journey— it is only the beginning. You need to have prerequisites prior to it such as a resume and cover letter that converts and/or skill enhancement. And the most challenging amongst all these: You’ll need to keep your clients. After all, it has not been easy for you to find them. Make the most out of your efforts.

It is an understatement to describe the internet useful. In fact, it will be difficult to describe the internet through a single word— no word is enough to capture the very sense of the web and everything it can offer. It has literally revolutionized the way we live from all aspects possible— from the way we do our shopping up to the way we work towards a more rewarding career. This fact holds very true to us freelancers— and the more it would after you read this article.

As a freelancer, you are generally all accustomed of doing everything on your own— logging in your hours, scheduling tasks, handling your finances and even looking for softwares that will make your freelance job easier. If you are new to freelancing, however, and you feel a need to use a resource to make your work a complete breeze; be cautious so as to not fall on baits offered by freelance tool providers which abound the web. Here is the deal: You need not spend even a dime on a freelance job resource just to be more productive. Below are eight of the most recommended tools that will help you with your freelance job.

Google – Google is a BIG word in the internet business. This is for the fact that it has pioneered a lot of applications which made the internet business as productive as ever. Google is similar to a one-stop shop from which you can get any of your needs from the personally owning a blog up to the twisted and complicated world of project management. In fact, you can even start and manage an online business through it— totally free.

Creative Commons – Showcasing masterpieces of photographers and graphic designers have never been this easy and free! This page is run by a non-profit organization who advocates themselves to protecting a freelancer’s work by licensing them and sharing it with others.

You Send It - Now, bulk emails will no longer take up much space in your inbox and that of your client’s. You Send It allow you to be able to send a file of size up to 2GB to your client’s email. From there, they will  just have to download the file directly into their computers.

Protolize – This is a haven for web designers and developers who wish to collaborate and to rank the web tools they use according to efficiency.

Free Contracts for Freelancer – A freelancer will need to protect himself in one way or another. And, what is the best way to do it? – Through a contract or an agreement. Not good with such documents? No need to worry as it doesn’t really matter what your freelance job is, Free Contracts for Freelancers is here to the rescue. Find free templates, tips and how to’s to be able to draft an agreement that is fair and ‘impressive’ to your client.

Fax Zero - Need to send the signed agreement over to your client? A freelance job agreement will not be much secured without you and your client’s signature. Fax Zero is a free internet fax service always available to keep paper fax transactions.

Freelance Switch – Freelance jobs are all over the web. Such demand increased the number of freelancers from around the globe. Fortunately, there is enough work to keep them occupied and earning. However, these same productive people are the same people who needs support groups in order to keep their sanity despite their inevitable isolation from their closest society. Freelance Switch is one site that they trust to build them connections with fellow freelancers and supply them with their daily dose of informative, useful and inspiring blogs.

Zoho – A value provider turned into a provider company? Free project management portal which is useful to almost any freelance jobs is what Zoho does. Sign up for a free account with them to start reaping benefits. As your company blooms, then that may be the time to consider upgrades.

Now, what do you think? Isn’t the internet very generous to even consider giving freelancers all these resources free of charge?

Happy Freelancing!

The economic recession has led to thousands of layoffs which made most of these unfortunately affected people turn to freelance jobs as a source of living. This is not supposed to be a problem at all. For the most of it, it is even a blessing in disguise as it will help a lot of people learn to do freelancing and of course, learn how to be resourceful in a considerably tough time such this. Very good then, but have we ever thought about for the tenured freelancers and the work-from home mommy we’ve mentioned earlier? Without much thought, we can be certain that this movement in the freelance world only spells out one thing for them: C-O-M-P-E-T-I-T-I-O-N!

They need not fret though as honeys are always available for a ready and hard-working bee. Below are the things that you can do (if you are a tenured freelancer yourself) to keep the flow of work and income favorably steady despite the competition.

Know how to play it— and play it right!

The first thing that you will need to do in order to keep yourself in demand despite the presence of your rivals is to strategize. How can such be done? Well, it is fairly easy. You just need to make sure that your strategies point out to a single direction— towards you! You need to be more visible! By this we mean that you try all options possible to be seen as a value provider in your field—someone with proven excellent work history and someone who can be trusted. Update your portfolio and add more recent projects. Create a testimonials page in your website.  Finally, when everything’s ready, check out www.donanza.com for projects that can keep you occupied. A rule of thumb: Look for work as they’ll never look for you no matter how awesome you are.

Be Customer Service Oriented

You’ve read it right. You will have to be customer service oriented because now that the competition is as stiff as ever, you’ll need to be able to separate yourself from the lot! Keep in mind that the sole difference that you have with your closest rival is not the product or the service that you offer, not even the price; but how you deal with clients and with the projects they’ve entrusted you. Stock on professionalism and you’ll surely have enough to keep you up during the dry days.

Be Better, Do Better

Repeat business is always good business. For one, you’ll never have to invest much on a regular client (read: drafting your cover letters and time spent on interviews) and of course, you’ll never have to look for work— they’ll find you whenever they need you! So, how does be better and do better relates to this? Simple— pretty much similar to all other kind of clients, a regular client will have dynamic needs— and you need to meet these needs or else they’ll move on to another provider. These needs can range from a project requiring a new skill in your field to a project requiring a skill that can add value to your already formerly excellent work. Simply put, you need to learn continuously to keep your stream of work healthily flowing.

Now that you are already equipped with the things that you’ll need to keep your business ‘alive’ despite other competitive freelancers coming in, it is now time to think about sharing jobs. Find freelance jobs that you can work on. Never entertain more business than what you can handle. Never be greedy. Give others a chance while you try to keep yourself as productive as before. This is the real essence of a healthy competition.

50 Most Required Skills

There has been a sudden turn of events for Data Entry as it was replaced by MySQL on its spot on Donanza’s last month’s Top Demanded Skills. MySQL proved to be a rising freelance job as it moved from the sixth spot to the fourth on our current list. SEO also gave way to it by moving from the fourth spot to the fifth. Indeed, freelancers who are skilled on database management, particularly on a system such as MySQL, are undeniably in for some more freelance job opportunities in the coming months.

The movement in the trend is not that drastic at all that it is best to refer to it as a shuffle. This only implies one thing: If your skill is on a high-demand now, it is highly recommended that you continue to hone it in order to be a better value provider for the freelance jobs available for your skill rather than to consider a shift to a different skill that you find interesting at the moment. This is of course just an intelligent suggestion to a freelancer who wants a constant stream of work and income. However, if you do freelance jobs for the sake of being able to use your skills and to self-gratify, this piece of advice won’t really be for you.

You may be wondering what the green and red numbers across each skills are for. These numbers are the movement determinants. Through them, you will be able to tell which skills made tremendous leaps on freelance job demands (the green ones) and which ones failed to maintain a good standing on clients’ needs. Amongst those who have made noticeable improvements are technical writing, c#, advertising and animation which number climbed up our list by 35, 34 and 23 slots respectively. Temporary poor performers for this month, however, surprisingly include link building, data processing, internet marketing and sales which demand dropped from our list from the relatively high number of 14 down to 6. This should be no cause for any apprehension though because as it was already mentioned; freelance jobs are here to stay. A favorable trend or a sudden decline on a demand for a skill is perfectly normal— what’s not is you taking it against your own career. No matter how limited your skill has to offer, you are still the manager of your profession. Look for work; they won’t look for you.

10 Most Popular Searches

Now, we’ve come to the moment of truth. What do you think is the best way to determine if your skill has its appeal to clients? Check our month’s Top Searches! Similar to Donanza’s August Top Demanded Skills list, our Top Searches list has not had much movement. It has just been literally shuffled. It is, however, notable that admin support has been replaced by multimedia on our top ten, but this does pose any possible source of worry to admin support freelancers at all. This simply appears to be a ‘seasonal’ movement to be expected from time to time. After all, freelance jobs never promised stability.

Constant stream of work and earnings are still highly dependent on the freelancer’s competitiveness and resourcefulness. Needless to say, no matter where your skill is on Donanza’s Top Demanded Skills and Top Searches list, it is still entirely up to you to be able to find and ‘bag’ freelance jobs and gigs for yourself. Therefore, equip yourself with the knowledge and proficiency your career field requires— and explore bidding sites such as www.donanza.com which collectively gives you all the opportunities available across the web— and you are surely going to be staying the world of freelancing for a long time while loving it.