Online Freelancing
The internet allows people to easily connect with others, share ideas and even find employment opportunities. One type of employment opportunity, called freelancing, is essentially someone working as their own boss and looking for flexible work online. Today we will discuss what this is, what type of work you can find and how this is revolutionizing how people can make money online.
What Is It
Freelancing involves websites, typically called freelance sites, that act as a hub and marketplace to find work. This isn’t your typical recruitment site where there are recruiters looking through resumes and posting jobs. Instead it is where freelancers can post their profile, skills, examples of their portfolio and rates. Customers come to these sites and either post jobs or contact freelancers directly for work.
Freelancing also differs from traditional consulting work as most of the jobs are short term. With traditional consulting work, a typical project might be 3-6+ months. In the world of freelancing, some of the projects can take weeks but more often than not the time is measured in hours or days.
Once a freelancer finds work (i.e. the client picks them as the right freelancer), they deal directly with the client, sharing correspondence and material through the site. After the job is successfully completed the site automatically deals with transfer of funds. No more do you need to hunt down clients who haven’t paid 2-3 months after a job is complete.
Different Types Of Freelance Sites
Different types of freelance sites focus on different types of opportunities. Some of them, like Upwork or Fiverr, offer a large variety of more traditional office type work, such as IT, marketing, writing, admin and graphic design opportunities. Others are more specialized, such as the handyman/errand work on TaskRabbit or the translation services found on Globtra. This means that it isn’t restricted to IT type roles and almost anyone can look for opportunities on these sites.
The ones that are more specialized, such as translation services, may require you to pass some tests before you can complete your registration, as those sites want to ensure they have the highest quality candidates.
Flexibility of Work
Most of these sites and the projects you take are outcomes driven. This means that you can set your own hours and work when you want to, as long as you are complete by the deadline the client has. You only take the projects that you want to do. If you want to take a two week break between projects, it is perfectly fine. Want to keep your day job and do this on the side? You can.
Starting Off
It can be hard to start off until you establish a reputation and client base. With the growing popularity of those sites there is a lot of competition which means customers have many more freelancers to choose from. Initially you will need to likely offer a lower rate, take small jobs and will work intermittently.
Being registered on multiple sites at the same time is a good idea as well. As you successfully complete jobs, happy customers will either contact you directly for new work or will leave a good rating (which makes getting new customers that much easier).
How Much Does It Pay
Overall the comparable hourly rate is quite good for freelancers. Depending on the work you are doing, the urgency, the competition and how fast you work it can range from $15/hr up to $75+/hr. As per the costs to use the freelance sites, the vast majority of them do not charge an up-front fee. Their fees are typically a commission from every sale or project that a freelancer does, anywhere from 2-7.5+%.
Initially it will be difficult to keep busy full time and this will impact how much you take home per month. This is why it isn’t recommended to quit your day job and jump right into freelancing full time. Grow your brand, build your portfolio and gain a loyal client base.
There are many established freelancers who now do this full time making over $80,000 per year. It isn’t common and takes hard work but it is possible to do.
What Are Some Of The Best Sites
Non-Specialized Sites
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Fiverr
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PeoplePerHour
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Upwork
Handyman Specific Sites
- TaskRabbit
Translation Specific Sites
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Gengo
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Globtra
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Guru
Graphic Design Specific Sites
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99Designs
Learn More About Freelancing
Freelancing is just one of many ways to make money online; be it some pocket money for the weekend or a steady side hustle doing what you love. The problem is that there are many scams out there or people oversell something as a way to get rich quick.
StudentOnlineHustle.com was setup as a research site to review all the ways to make money out there, provide details on exactly how they work, what can you realistically make, how many people really make money, the effort involved and the best sites out there.
Besides freelancing we also review topics such as:
– Setting up online stores (i.e. dropshipping, shopify stores, Fulfilled By Amazon, etc)
– Licensing graphic designs
– Online surveys
– Affiliate marketing
– Forum moderator
– Micro-tasks
– Advertising
For more information check us out at StudentOnlineHustle.com.
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