What are the best places to find quality, high-paying freelance jobs? A lot of freelancers struggle with this and frankly make mistakes in their approach.
But, making a simple switch in how you go about looking for freelance jobs you can open you up to a greater array of clients. So you can get as much freelance work as you want. Here’s how:
Finding Freelance Jobs
I find a lot of freelancers believe in an “all-in” approach to freelancing.
- They either go “all-in” with freelance sites or “all-in” with getting clients from their website.
- They go “all-in” with Upwork or “all-in” with Freelancer.com (or whatever other network).
- They go “all-in” with ABC strategy for getting clients or XYZ strategy.
The idea is to keep things simple. They already hate selling themselves so they’re going to do as little of it as possible.
It’s a losing approach.
Upwork had 2.8 million jobs posted to its sites in 2014. Freelancer.com has 7.5 million freelance jobs posted to its site. In the United States, freelancers earned $715 billion in revenue.
Why cut yourself off from any of it?
The right approach is to leverage every aspect of the market in order to get jobs.
Be on Upwork. Be on Freelancer. Be on Fiverr.
Get work from your own website.
Diversify and put yourself where the jobs are and increase the opportunity for a client to come across your profile and hire you.
It’s not that much more complex. You can use the same information on one site as the others.
And, if a client wants to give you money… do you really care that you have to login into Freelancer instead of Upwork?
(Hint: you shouldn’t)
So, snap out of it! Don’t worry so much about the “best” site… find the top 3-5 and be on ALL of them. The jobs are there.
Now, that you have the right approach.
What Are the Best Places to Find Potential Freelance Jobs?
I recently wrote an article on how to find the most popular jobs on any freelance. I’d recommend checking it out (HERE), but you ultimately want to get the majority of your clients from your own website.
Freelance sites are designed to make you compete so you’ll always make less and work more when you get jobs from them.
So, #1 on the list is: yourdomain.com
From there, you have two distinct types of freelancing sites:
- Open networks
- Curated networks
Open networks like Upwork and Freelancer.com are easy to get approved on and have a high number of jobs available.
But, they also have millions of freelancers and the competition is fierce.
Plus, you will often find yourself competing on price and getting undercut by developers charging $5 or $10/hour.
There ARE ways around it… but it’s still annoying.
Curated sites like Crew and Toptal have a more rigorous application process… but once you’re approved they’re in the business of keeping you employed.
There’s a lot less competition and you’ll generally get paid more for what you do.
Which Freelance Site Should You Choose?
Again, the ultimate goal is get most of your work from your own website.
But, if you’re just starting out you’ll likely have to go with a site like Upwork or Freelancer.com, gain experience and build up your portfolio.
Once you’ve established yourself you can then move toward the curated sites and work on getting accepted there.
Eventually, you’ll build enough of a reputation where clients will seek you out and you’ll get most of your work from your own website.
So, the freelance site you choose depends where you’re at in the above process:
- If you’re brand new, go with an open network
- If you’re fairly established go with a curated site
- If you’re a pro you can likely use your own website
Here’s how to get started with all this..
- Determine where you’re at with your career.
- List 3-5 freelance sites to target based on your position.
- Identify your freelancing niche (article here if you don’t know this)
- Write up your bio/application and apply to those sites.
Here’s resource list to help you with the links…
Open networks:
Curated networks:
Now, hopefully that helped you out. Please, if you know a freelancer who could benefit from this please help me out and send them this way. 🙂
