How To Make Money Online With Freelance Marketplaces (2024)

The unbelievable number of ways to make money online and there are still people who complain that they don’t know where to start.

In my Make Money Online archive you will find many ways that you can make money online. Have a look and see if any way helps you to get started.

Recently I started looking into the world of freelancing and decided that that would be my next blog post idea.

There are so many people who have different skills that can be sold but they either do not have the knowledge on how to sell them or know how to sell them but don’t know how to start.

This blog post was created with those people in mind.

Today I will be speaking about making money with freelance sites such as Freelancer, Upwork and Fiverr.

• The top 3 Freelance Marketplaces where you can make money
• What skills you can sell on the marketplace
• How to create an account and set up your profile
• How to promote your gigs
• How much money can you really make as a Freelancer

As a freelancer you are selling your skills on the marketplace to people who want a specialised service.

Back in the days the usual way to get your freelance services known was to set up a website, state your services and promote that website using advertising means.

Now the easier way to get your services out there is to join a freelance marketplace and advertise your services there.

The reason why it becomes easier for you to use a freelance marketplace is because they have their own traffic.

Many individuals and businesses go to these websites when they want tasks completed which they cannot do themselves.

It is because of this demand for these services, that it is easy for a freelancer to join one of these marketplaces and never have to worry about promoting their business on the internet because of the driving force of these marketplaces.

There are many marketplaces online that you can promote your services but the three that have come to be the most popular go-to marketplaces are Fiverr, Upwork and Freelancer.

Fiverr

Fiverr is an online global marketplace which makes this one of the places where anyone from any country can easily set up an account and start offering their services.

Most of the services performed start at $5 per job which is where the brand got its name from.

By attaining good performance reviews and building your brand you are able to promote yourself and offer services for more than $5.

Upwork

You may have known Upwork as Elance-Odesk. This marketplace is another global platform where you can market your services for free and get paid for jobs that you complete.

Freelancer

Freelancer is a global marketplace where any employer wanting a job to be completed, can post their position, the requirements for the position and have freelancers bid to win the job. The best person for the job who sells their services by stating what they can offer and for how much, is then contacted by the employer.

With Freelancer you can also build your profile where you can attract employers to contact you about any job that they want completed.

The skills that you can sell are typically creative and digital skills.

Any type of skill that you can do online such as building a website, creating a logo, creating a video introduction, doing a voiceover, can be sold on these marketplaces.

All of the jobs that I have seen on these marketplaces are for online businesses.

Therefore if you are trying to sell a car repair service or dog walking service, then these marketplaces are not for you.

When deciding what skills you can sell you can easily leverage the marketplace platform to see what other services people are selling and then create your own.

So if you go to Fiverr.com there is an explore feature where you can look to see what other type of services are being offered.

Can you think of any services you can do in one of these categories?

If we click on Music & Audio it is broken down in to further sub categories. By using these categories you will get a few ideas of services you can offer, then you can create your own profile to offer the same service to the world.

You can use this same method of researching ideas for your profile with both Upwork and Freelancer. Feel free to navigate the sites to see what options you have.

Once you have decided on the skills that you want to sell, it is now time to create your account.

Each marketplace requires certain personal information about you to create a user profile.

Your user profile is made available to the public so they can see who they will be working with and what services you have to offer.

I would advise that you spend about an hour preparing a detailed profile to get the best chances of people finding your gig and hiring you.

If you are not sure about what to include in your profile, find other users who offer the same service as you do and use their profile as inspiration. Do not copy other people’s profiles as you run the risk of being banned from the network.

Let’s look at how each platform works to set up your user profile.

Fiverr

To start selling your services on Fiverr click on Become A Seller.

You can join Fiverr by either signing up with your Facebook, Google or Email account.

Once you have selected your method for signing up click on Become A Seller then complete the screen to enter your relevant skills and proceed to list your first gig.

Upwork

To start selling on Upwork click on the button Become A Freelancer.

Enter your details to then sign up to the platform.

Next enter a password and click on the button link Work As A Freelancer.

Complete all the fields for a username and bot check.

Ensure that you read and agree to the Terms of Services then click Next.

You will then be asked to verify your email address.

Once you have verified your email address complete the onscreen details to commence your application. Upwork requires you to submit an application to start posting jobs in their marketplace.

Ensure that you complete these details carefully to get the best chance at being accepted.

Whilst there is no guarantee that you will be accepted onto the Upwork network, if for whatever reason you are rejected, there are still avenues with Fiverr and Freelancer that you can explore.

Freelancer

To start with Freelancer click on the link that says Sign Up.

You can sign up to Freelancer using a Facebook or email account.

When signing up make sure that you select Work then click on Create Account.

You will then be able to select your relevant skills that you would like to offer. You can always update or change these skills at a later date so don’t worry if you do not have as many skills to offer at this time or you do not know what to select.

Once you have selected your skills you will be required to verify your payment. Verifying a payment is simply an extra layer of security that Freelancer has to ensure that only serious persons get onto the network.

If you do not wish to verify a payment you can always skip the step.

You will be offered a chance to start a professional membership. This membership allows you to have several more benefits than a basic membership.

Basic memberships are free to start whilst professional memberships cost $29.95 per month.

Once this step is created you will then be able to search for jobs that you can fulfil. Remember that unlike Fiverr or Upwork, employers on Freelancer post their requirements and if you suit any of them you can bid on the job to get a chance at being offered the position.

In some cases as on Fiverr, you may have to do a little bit more than simply completing your profile and hoping that people find you.

Because there are so many freelancers in the marketplace, you have to go the extra step and promote your own gigs so that other people can find you.

When people find your gigs you have a higher likelihood of getting work.

To set up your profile so that it can be found easily ensure that you use meta data and tags in your description when designing your gig.

So for example if your gig is blog writing, be sure to add some keywords in Gig Title and Search Description that are relevant to blogging.

You should also carefully add relevant tags to your description as this helps rank your gig faster.

Here’s a hack that I learnt from a good friend of mine who easily gets his gig listed in the top 10 rank on Fiverr for his keyword.

Firstly create a dummy account on Fiverr.

Find the gig that you posted using your normal account and buy that gig at least twice with the dummy account. When you buy the gig show that it is completed and add a positive review.

Next using a small outlay buy some traffic to your gig so it appears that people are clicking on your gig and checking it out.

What this does is it gives Fiverr the impression that people find your gig interesting enough to click on it and so Fiverr will want to show it to more people, thus ranking your gig higher.

You can easily get traffic from solo ads, or even from Fiverr but a word of caution, never use Fiverr as a traffic source for a legitimate purpose.

On this occasion because you essentially want to “cheat” the system, it is ok to use Fiverr traffic to do so.

Freelancing is a serious business and only if you take massive action can you potentially make enough money to earn a full time income.

In this article on Forbes they tell how three people make six figures a year with Fiverr.

Even as a teen you can make money on Fiverr like Damian Pros writes in this article.

Check out this article that I found about Ari Zelmanow who earned over $10k on Upwork in under a month.

The stories told in these articles open up the world of possibilities for anyone to turn their skill into a side hustle.

All you have to do is get to work and go for it. Like anything if you want to be successful with these freelance marketplaces you must treat this like a business. Therefore you need to show up everyday and work hard to build a brand for yourself.

Whichever platform you decide to use, good luck.

There are so many ways that you can make money online. I hope this resource has been helpful. If you want other ways to make money online then feel free to check out the following articles below.

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Cheers