Being a freelancer can be a huge challenge for us all. A lot of things have to be considered, and it can be tough to come to the point where you’re able to earn enough to cover all of your expenses. There’s always hope though, if you’re prepared to work hard and stay focused.

Here is ten great tips that can help you earn more money and succeed in the world of freelancing. Let’s have a look...

1. Do your best – always!

It sounds logical and is something you always should aim for, but it can be hard to remember this at all times. By always doing your best you’ll get happy clients. Happy clients come back for a second and third buy, they could give you new clients from talking good about you – and they are great to add in your portfolio.

2. Build a great portfolio

We’ve said it over and over and it can’t be said enough. Taking the time, money and effort to build a great portfolio will definitely help you get more customers and that way help you earn more.

3. Spend money on marketing

A certain amount of what you make should go back into building your business. To have more clients notice you, you have to spend some money in getting your name out there. This could be anything from leaving business-cards with everyone you talk to, making brochures for your services, advertising in a local newspaper, buying ad space on bigger websites and so on. You’ll quickly notice that this is a great way of finding new clients and that way earning more.

4. Stop Under-Pricing your work!
A lot of freelance workers, especially those that are newly started, tend to price themselves too low compared to competitors. This could give you an extra client here and there – but in the long run it’s bad for business. Make sure that you check out the prices of your competitors, keep budgets and keep track of how your time is spent.

5. Don’t be too expensive

Under-pricing your work is more common than being too expensive, but make sure you don’t do either. By asking too much, you’ll get fewer projects and your clients are more likely to be unhappy. Just like in #4 – remember to check out who you’re up against and how much everything costs.

6. Be open to including more products and services
If you’re working with design, it’s very likely that you have a couple of specialties. This is always good. Be aware though, that by including one or two more related products to your repertoire you could look at a potential income boost. This means more products/services that can earn you money, and more things to sell to every client. They’ll see that you have a more complete package to offer, which can be what has them choose you over your competitors.

7. Working with others

By working together with other freelancers on bigger projects, you will be able to serve bigger clients and give more complete packages together. This gives more work and often better prices as well. Example like logo designers and web designers working together. What I’ve seen and heard so far, witnesses of great possibilities from this.

8. Increase your online presence

New projects and new clients can come from everywhere, all over the world. By making sure you have a portfolio and galleries displaying your work in communities like deviantART. You should also make sure to be part of social media, like Twitter, Facebook – and so on. This way you’ll get a lot of valuable new contacts, get feedback, become inspired and pick up some tips on how others do things.

9. Contests & crowd-sourcing

These can be great ways of getting your name out there, possible earning a few bucks, making new contacts and practicing your skills. Many websites are available, and especially if you work with web design or logo design, you’ll find plenty of projects to join. This has a potential for you to earn some extra money and is definitely better than just sitting around hoping for projects to appear. Some places to check out if this is of interest would be Freelance.com Crowdspring and 99designs.

10. Write articles

If you’re good at what you do, explain it well and like to write – this can be a great source of extra income. Lots of websites related to design are looking for guest authors all the time and if you’re effective and deliver high quality you can earn a good chunk of money writing about it. Absolutely something to consider, and it gives quick results in form of payment and often a link bank to your website.

Conclusion These were our 10 tips on how to make more money as a freelance designer. Hope this can be of help to you either all the time or during dry periods. Remember that working hard and looking for options will get you far.

Good luck!

Author – Hilde

Search engine optimization or SEO is actually a complete package of services that every website needs to have these days.

The competition is such that if you are seriously focusing on internet as a means of marketing and making money, then you cannot do without an SEO strategy.

With search engine optimization, everything about the website, that is, on and off the page, can be improved.

Through SEO, the web traffic to the website can be increased and search engines will also find the website good enough to be ranked high. But all this is done in an effort to make the website more visible and be able to generate more sales.

For any business, every visitor viewing its website is a potential buyer. More potential buyers are brought in with SEO and this means that there are more sales.

SEO is also not a process which can be forgotten at any point or can be achieved fully only once. You need to always improve and improvise the SEO methods so that your website is always ranked high and is seen by more and more people.

Remember that nothing in the internet world is static. There is always movement and changes so you need to stay updated.

A good SEO strategy can be broadly broken up into four steps. Each of these is important and integral to the whole, as the whole thing can only provide the desired results.


The first of these steps is the website analysis.

1. During this phase you should do a detailed study of your website, analyze it point by point, its structure, layout, content, SEO details, visitor reactions and appeal.

2. You should be able to see what keywords are being used, how effective these are depending on the ranking of the website on search engines.

3. Then, you will see if the visitors are allowed to post their feedback, what the feed backs say, how good and relevant is the content, what follow-up procedures are done to keep a client, the RSS feeds on your page and links.

4. You should also be able to check which search engines your site appears on and check the effectiveness of your search engine marketing (SEM).

 
The second phase is to analyze your rivals or competitors in the same way.

While each detail is noted as for your site, a comparative study is also conducted. The competitors are first identified according to the audience and then every detail is noted starting from ranking to website structure and even links. These services will help to put your links on these sites on a sharing basis.

The third step is to define what needs to be done after studying your website and comparing it to your competitors' websites.

The three steps above should provide you with ideas on how to improve the web traffic to your page and in effect, increase your sales.

The fourth step is the implementation plan and the assessment of the results achieved.

Please note achievements do not happen overnight, they are a gradual process... so be patient ~~~

By Author: M. Moume

Online selling & auctions are great places for entrepreneurs and bargain shoppers alike. Online selling site or auction sites are like giant flea markets; they provide a forum for buyers and sellers to find or sell just about anything.

There are many ways to approach online auctions. For many, selling items on Internet auctions sites is a hobby and a good way to supplement their income. For others, it is a job and way of life. For buyers, it’s a great way to find good deals on rare, unusual collectibles or everyday items.

Here is few top sites you may look in to to kick off you business:

INTERNATIONAL SITE

eBay
www.ebay.com

Amazon
www.amazon.com

Webstore
www.webstore.com

Onlineauction.com
www.onlineauction.com

Quicksales
www.quicksales.com.au

Overstock
www.overstock.com

Webidz
www.webidz.com

Cqout
www.cqout.com

uBid
www.ubid.com

ePier
www.epier.com


MALAYSIA SITES

Mudah
www.mudah.my

Lelong
www.lelong.com.my

MyBarang
www.mybarang.com

Shoppy
www.shoppy.com.my

Autoworld - Car Selling Site
www.autoworld.com.my

Hope the above resources able to assist you search to selling online, if you have any good site that come across and want to suggest, feel free to leave at the comment. THANK YOU!!!