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.

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, however, when we are all still at a starting point; we cannot deny the fact that we have had faced our own share of risks— scammers, clients who would not pay and relatively below industry standard rates are just a few. We have learned to overcome all of these and are now considerably at the turning points of our careers. There is still, however, another risk left to be faced and that will be triggered by a question you may also be asking yourself— 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?

Well, there is always a rainbow after the rain! You need not fret because you have a wide variety of options. 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 knock 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 well on search engines a notch higher. 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 up your skills 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 have expected. Communication skills, both in writing and speaking, can help a freelancer acquire numerous jobs, each of different nature which gives him his desired options to choose from throughout the duration of his freelance career. This proves that now, more than ever, is the best time to learn to be a good English speaker, writer and…listener? Read on.

There is no doubt that a person’s gift of gab can take him to inexplicable career heights that even he might not have expected. Communication skills, both in writing and speaking, can help a freelancer acquire numerous jobs, each of different nature which gives him his desired options to choose from throughout the duration of his freelance career. 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 we’ve got you 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 meant 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, too.  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’ve prepared the following tips to help freelancers looking through options to be able to join the pool and to help address the growing need for freelance transcriptionists;

1. Utilize Google

Never underestimate the power of your fingers.  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 their websites 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. 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 only 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 resume and cover letter and/or skill enhancement. And, the most challenging amongst all, 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 tools 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 then, sharing it with others.

You Send It - Now, bulk emails will no longer take up much space in your and your client’s inbox. 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 simply 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 Freelancers - 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 considerably 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 ready for your use, whenever and wherever, for security purposes which requires a paper fax such this.

Freelance Switch - Freelance jobs are all over the web. Such demands 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.

In dealing with freelance jobs and clients, most often than not, second chance is never an option. A stained reputation and feedback can cost you your freelance career in no time. Therefore, it is critical that you realize of the importance of doing things right the first time in your overall goal as a provider.

This article aims to provide guidance to beginners in freelance translation. As most of freelancers may already be aware of; freelance translation is one of the most lucrative freelance jobs around these days. Thus, competition is stiff and requirements are even stiffer. Needless to say, the greatest challenge a starter freelancer in this field will have to face is how to knock it out the first time and how to make it big in the long run. Below are some few tips that a beginner translator and a beginner freelancer should keep in mind as they go through the hoops and loops of their chosen career.

1. If you plan to go on full time, then work on it! It may take a couple of months or even a year to get an ample list of regular clients whom can assure you a constant stream of work. Therefore, patience is highly recommended as well as a consistent effort to market your service. Freelance bidding sites are great sources of ongoing projects from honest and valuable clients.
2. It is a bad assumption that after a couple of projects, you are already going to have a good source of income coming in each month just like what happens when you are an in house translator. If you do think this way, this will serve as a reminder that in freelancing, there will be the rainy days and the dry days. Enjoy the pour of projects during rainy days, but make sure to prepare for the dry days. Send out applications whenever a project is about to end. This will ensure that freelance jobs will always be available for you whenever you need them.
3. Never overlook the local market. Most freelancers think that freelancing is mostly virtual and will involve two people from completely different parts of the globe – this is not true. In fact, a neighbor can always be a source of freelance jobs. Therefore, make sure that everyone who knows you are aware that you offer your translation services.
4. Link with other translators by joining organizations such as the American Translators Association. This will not only expand your network, but will also expand your knowledge about your work and career. Furthermore, doing so will help you find better projects and better buyers.
5. Acknowledge the fact that you can never win over the freelance job challenges alone. Make sure to ask for guidance from industry experts. Join a freelance translator group who encourages an open communication on helpful exchange of ideas and experiences.
6. Rework your resume. Make sure to indicate your skills and your being a translator in a noticeable part of it. For example: ‘Spanish bilingual Web programmer’. This conveys a message of expertise on both areas of freelance jobs.
7. Go the extra mile and offer services which a veteran translator won’t offer. Let prospects know that you are available for work when no other translators are available such as during weekends or when they are in need of someone for rush jobs.
8. Continue to learn and show a genuine interest in your newly found career. The web is abounded with lots of free E-Books and newsletters which are great resources for a beginner like you. Make sure to take advantage of them. You can even contribute to them when you are already confident to do so.
9. Send out applications, but never commit to any kind of freelance job that you can’t handle just for the sake of bagging a new project. This kind of projects can generate income for you, but can also hurt your feedback score and reputation big time.
10. Make sure that you keep your clients satisfied. In every kind of freelance jobs, and even in regular jobs, this should be observed. Keeping them happy will not only ensure you a good rating in the end of the project, but will also help you stay in the industry for a long time.

I hope that this guide will help you in your pursuit to be (1) a freelance translator, (2) to be a good freelance translator and finally, (3) to be an excellent freelance translator. After all, a good freelance career always starts with an excellent kick-off start. Aim high, hit the keys right and you’ll surely be on top in no time.

The scenario in bagging each freelancers first freelance job assignment, regardless of their expertise, is never easy. In fact, it is always very tricky. The competition is as stiff as ever and if you are not up for the challenge— landing your first freelance job can make you feel very frustrated. One of the many areas in freelancing which poses these challenges is Virtual Assisting.

Virtual Assisting is a freelance job which has lots of field of specialization. To name a few there are data entry, appointment setting, word processing and bookkeeping. These are jobs that were traditionally done in an office setting, but are now being outsourced for practical reasons such as business cost-cutting. And, if it is a common job in the ‘real world’; it should be relatively easy to do it in the virtual world. Needless to say, if you are aiming for this job in freelancing, you can be confident that you are in for a greener pasture out there. Below are tips that will help you jumpstart your Virtual assistant career so you can eventually enjoy the good opportunities this new line of business pursuit has to offer.

1. Define your interests and know your skills. Be certain of your goals and work on it. As mentioned earlier, you can specialize in this kind of freelance job and specializing will do you good. Not only will it allow you to set your own boundaries, it will also allow you to build a name and brand as a freelancer in the long run.
2. Do your homework. Research and study to prepare. Be familiar with industry terms and be aware of your job description.
3. Redraft your resume to satisfaction. Make sure to emphasize your relevant skills and work experiences. If you lack a relevant work experience, make sure to note any possible relationship to any of your activities and work experiences to the freelance job that you are aiming for.
4. Prepare your place for success. Even if you are not yet hired for a freelance job assignment, make sure to already have the essentials handy— folders, cabinets, a printer— these are you investments. These are fairly cheap as compared to the hassles of travelling to and from work.
5. Set up a realistic rate. By realistic we mean a rate that is affordable, but is also enough to pay for your own resources that you used for the freelance job (electricity bill and your time). You may have saved on travel fare, but these things replaced it. However, make sure to offer a competitive rate that a client will not dare refuse. A balance in this aspect of your career will back you up for a good and fair competition with other freelancers.
6. Build your name by offering a service that buyers will be crazy to deny. Go the extra mile if necessary. Make sure to impress a future employer. Do it right the first time!
7. Finally, be excellent and remain excellent. Landing your first freelance job assignment is no reason to be too self assured and be lousy. Remember that your feedback score counts in your pursuit for a constant stream of work. Similarly, a client’s feedback towards you can cost you a stable continuous business with him or her.