Image credits to nkzs

I am a work-at-home mom. I freelance my writing services for a living, wash the dishes, do the laundry and feed the baby at the same time. Sounds like too much of a juggle? I don’t think so.

It is true that being a work-at-home mom poses a lot of challenges, and so do traditional jobs. The only difference is that being a work-at-home mom allows you to still be able to keep a career for yourself while being able to spend quality time with your family.  This spells out F-U-L-L-F-I-L-L-M-E-N-T for me. There’s no other kind of work that would allow me to grow professionally while watching my 11-month old baby turn into a charming toddler. And for those who’d rather keep arguing about the challenges of being a WAHM, let me tell you: No pain, no gain! I was a call center agent before and I used to be a sounding board to irate callers. If you aren’t willing to sweat your way to have a good income, there’s no way you are going to get any. I am a work-at-home mom now, and I earn way better than what I earn when I was still working for others. The work is equally challenging, but I get to enjoy the following benefits;

I get to manage my own business

They say that the only way to gain financial independence is to set up your own business. This proved true in my case. Working on traditional jobs comes with investments: transportation, food and clothing allowance. As a work-at-home mom, I am able to work without all these. My desk is just within my room, I get to eat what my family eats (which is within the family budget) and I get to work even if I am still in my pajamas! Now, most of the expenses that used to burden me when I was still working outside home are already well-spent on fun family outings, business investments and/or allotted to family savings.

I treat working from home as working on my own business so there are still times when I don’t get to work in my pajamas. I still occasionally wear the ‘dreaded’ corporate attire when speaking to clients personally or on Skype. I also invest on it, but I get to keep my investment just like my laptop which allows me to work on café’s and out-of-town sans worries of losing business because of unreturned e-mails.

With it as a business of my own, I am able to maximize every earning/savings opportunity that it has provided me with. I am also able to plot my own goals for my own business. The flexibility allowed me to be the best that I can be sans the boss asking me to work harder for a paycheck that’s not even worth it.  As a work-at-home mom, I am working smarter to keep my business growing so I can be financially independent very soon.

I get to choose my clients

When working on traditional jobs, choosing a boss is not an option. You have to work with an ‘ancient dinosaur’ whether you like it or not. As a work-at-home mom, I am able to classify prospect clients as either bad or good. Of course, I only work with the good ones.

The good ones aren’t difficult to find. There are more good ones than bad in the market because the marketplace is literally crowded with professional and business- minded people who are also working smarter to grow their own businesses. In addition, work-at-home people are a lot cheaper to work with than regular employees, so if you are good at what you do, you can expect to attract good clients too.

I get to choose my projects

I prefer to work on writing projects on topics of working from home and freelancing— and I am able to observe this preference when applying for new projects. With a market as wide as the world, you are definitely going to find work that suits your taste and passion. Not to mention finding work that pays you your worth.

I get to choose my work hours

I am a night person. My brain seems to be most efficient at night. Therefore, 9AM-5PM work is simply not for me. As a work-at-home mom, I get to work on my preferred hours without hurting my timecard with absences and lates.

I get to see my family grow as I do all these

Now, the best thing about working from home is the ability to grow my own business while seeing my family grow at the same time. Life is short to spend most days at work, but you can’t earn a living unless you work. I feel so blessed to have a skill that I am able to market online. It allowed me to pursue a passion, earn a living and take care of my family without having to send my baby to day care when I work. Sure, it is challenging, but it is all worth it.

How about you? Are you a work-at-home mom, too? Or are you looking to be a work-at-home mom soon? With time management and strong desire to grow, working from home can be the best career decision that you can ever make. Leave your tips and questions as comments below.

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!

It is now easier to find a career at the comforts of your home without a steady employer to please or a relatively large money capital to start a business with. With the ever blooming freelance job industry, you are sure to have some source of income sans the usual hassles traditional jobs have.

Now, you may be wondering how you are going to find a freelance job that will help you make ends meet without a regular job. This worry is a little easy to settle— all you need is a computer and a reliable internet connection— and you would certainly be on your way to being a busy bee making honey online.

One of the best options that you have is to plunge into the waters of freelance writing. Freelance writing is one of the easiest freelance jobs available over the web. It is also a good stepping stone in order to make it to the freelance job on which you are really passionate about— say web design or programming— since website creation requires web content. Speak of being a jack of all trades!

Writing tasks available range from the simplest article writing and rewriting up to the ever demanding web content writing. Anyhow, it is undeniable that a gift of gab used in writing will take you a long way through the virtual world of freelancing without much investment.

So, maybe the next question that we may need to answer relates to the how to’s of a starter in this freelance job. Assuming that you already have excellent writing skills (do not attempt to jump into this job if you are not confident of your writing abilities), below are the 4 steps that will take your freelance writing career into a bloom.

Research-Learn-Experiment. As already mentioned earlier, a highly developed writing skill is necessary to be able to land a freelance writing job. However, it is also critical that you realize that freelance writing will have very specific demands and requirements that you may need to meet. As such, you may be required to stuff in keywords into your articles for SEO’s sake or ghostwrite and adapt the website owner’s writing voice. Therefore, you have to be patient and flexible enough to research details which you are unfamiliar with, to learn new skills that will make you more qualified to do a wider range of freelance writing projects and to experiment in order to be not a stereotyped writer which may hurt the quality of your writing and worst, your reputation. Needless to say, similar to all other kinds of job, freelance writing will require you to continuously grow as a writer and as a worker.

Specialize. No doubt that this is very necessary. A writer who does not specialize on anything is similar to a basketball player who does not know his role in the game. You will be lost if you have not specified what you would love to write and what you can write. You can always be a jack of all trades, but it will still be necessary for you to be able to determine the kind of freelance jobs that you enjoy and that you are capable of doing. After all, with the varied and huge number of writing tasks available all over the web, you would really have to know which ones you would want to prioritize and which ones would you are willing to give up.

Self-promote. Promoting yourself and your work is also essential to making it big in this business. Know for a fact that no client will be willing to entrust you with a freelance job without seeing what you have got first. Therefore, your very own website from which you can showcase your portfolio of writings is very much needed prior to making any application for writing posts. Such an investment will need not be a costly pursuit though. You are always welcome for a test drive through a free blog on Blogger or in Wordpress. Simply create an account and pour your heart out writing all your thoughts. It is, however, highly recommended that you keep your personal blog from that of your professional. This will not only make your blog more organized, but it will also help you establish samples for both of your professional and personal voice of writing.

Take some time off writing. A freelance job is flexible enough for you to be able to manage your time as you wish. However, it is the same advantage which causes freelancers to be left with ‘accumulated’ work at the end of the day, leading them to feel all tired and ‘isolated’. Now, as a new freelance writer, you are never going to be any different. At some point of your freelance career, you would also feel these negative emotions towards your work. Therefore, it is critical that you prepare for it and even try to avoid it. Take some time off writing. Refresh your spirits, go out of your home office, continue to socialize and be inspired. The more you see of life and the more you experience; the more you will be able to write masterpieces! After all, writing as a freelance job is never meant to box you; it is a means for you to continually explore your options while earning.

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.

With a relatively increasing number of followers and job seekers, the Donanza Team provides detailed statistics for freelance job scopes such as Web Design, Graphic Design, Content Writing, Social Networking, SEO and Sales to keep freelancers clued up on the movement of the ever changing world of freelancing.

This month’s Donanza search engine results are based on thousands of job postings from prominent freelance bidding sites such as oDesk, Elance and Scriptlance. The figures aim to serve as a guide on how ‘new’ service providers can find job from various sources in a single webpage and on how ‘tenured’ providers can commit wise decisions with regard to their field of expertise and career direction.

Last Month’s freelance job market trends report focused on the implication of the month’s statistics on the overall movement of the freelance job and outsourcing industry. Now, the statistics will be presented as is to give freelancers an unbiased feel on how to decide for their own careers.

50 Most Required Skills

This report covers 50 skills (considered most required) with rankings based on the number of jobs posted under each skill in the month of September. Our top 3 skills seem immovable from their spots. Freelancers from India will surely be most delighted on this result as news from softpedia specified India as the next largest PHP development source on the internet— with United States as its nearest competition.

SEO, however, which is currently in the fourth spot of our top 5, appears to be moving in ups and downs from top 4 last July to top 5 last August and now on top 4 again. MYSQL completes our top 5 with CSS and Data Entry always in an attempt to replace it in its spot.

The biggest rise in the list as of the month of September is Ghostwriting. The biggest dive out of the list, on the other hand is article writing with 9 steps behind its former slot. Finally, the Market Trend’s most impressive growth was recorded by Ghostwriting which is now 28 slots up from its former position in the top 100. Ironically, other skills under the category of content development recorded tremendous losses this month.

10 Most Popular Searches

In demand trends or what we refer to as our 10 Most Popular Searches are Graphic Design, Software Development, Writing, Web Development, Translation, Admin Support, PHP, Illustration, Java and Web Design. The list has not gone through much change this month except for the fact that SEO, Multimedia and iPhone are already nowhere to be found in the top 10.

As advised earlier, this report is now simply a representation of the statistics based on collected facts. It will be helpful if you will check out our online freelance job market trends for the month of July and August for a better look on the status of your field of expertise and the demands (opportunities) that it generates for you.