Freelance jobs online includes just about anything–if you can think it up, you can freelance it. Some of the more common freelance gigs are writing, graphic design, and IT & programming. But really, the possibilities are endless –if you’re good at something (seriously, anything), you can offer those services as a freelancer.

As far as work from home opportunities, freelancing is an attractive way to earn a living while doing it on your own terms (for the most part!). As a freelancer you can choose which jobs you take, for whom you work, negotiate your pay rates, and decide how and when you work. Sounds ideal, right?

It can be. But there’s also a bit of a learning curve when first starting out as a freelancer. When just starting out, you’ll need to build your client roster and perfect your pitch in order to be successful. 

Finding Freelance Jobs Online

There are many websites devoted to helping individuals find freelance jobs online. Upwork, Guru, Freelancer, and Fiverr are the some of most popular platforms.

These sites are great for helping you gain your freelance footing. If you’re successful on one (or more!) of the freelance marketplace sites, you’ll likely have recurring projects, repeat clients, and more work than you’ll know what to do with.

I’ve tried my hand on just about every freelancers’ site. And my hands-down favorite is Upwork.

Freelance Jobs Online with Upwork

Upwork was just launched on May 5, 2015, but it isn’t technically new.

Upwork was formerly known as oDesk. In December of 2013, Elance and oDesk, the two largest sources of freelance jobs online at the time, merged together. As part of the merger, they opted to remain two distinct sites; Elance stayed the same and oDesk changed to Elance-oDesk.

Then over the next year and a half, Elance-oDesk was rebuilt and launched as the new site, Upwork. And  since Upwork has now officially taken over both Elance and oDesk, it is now the world’s largest freelancer’s marketplace with literally thousands of gigs posted every single day.

Signing Up at Upwork

According to Upwork:

If you have amazing skills, we have amazing freelance jobs. With 4+ million clients using our platform, Upwork has opportunities for all types of professionals.

Creating a freelancer account on Upwork is pretty straightforward. All you need to do is go to their sign up page, fill out basic information and choose a username and password. You can also sign up with Facebook, LinkedIn, or your Google account, if you’d like.

Once you’ve signed up, you’ll just need to confirm your email address to begin building your freelancer profile.

Creating Your Upwork Profile

After you’ve confirmed your email address, you’ll be prompted to complete your Upwork profile.

When looking for freelance jobs online,  you’ll need to create a profile that sets you apart from the many other freelancers out there.

Upwork is no different.

Before you jump into completing your profile, you’ll need to decide what freelance services you want to offer. Are you a writer? Programmer? Engineer? Legal professional? Depending on your answers, you’ll need to select the most appropriate category from the options Upwork gives you:

After you’ve selected your general area of freelance services, you’ll be given the opportunity to narrow down your niche. For example, as a writer, your expertise probably lies within a few areas, perhaps it’s blogging, copy writing, or web content. Maybe you will only write product descriptions or supply copy for lawyers and legal professionals.

Or if you’re a designer, maybe you have a knack for logo design or presentation creation.

Whatever your area or areas of expertise are, Upwork allows you to showcase those categories which you’re the best at. It’s important to stick to a niche or two and focus on those. As you get established, you can always branch out. But in the beginning, always, always, always start small.

The next portion of your Upwork profile is where you’ll be able to tell potential clients about you and what makes you great. Freelance jobs online and freelance job sites can be super-competitive. But a well-written, thoughtful and complete profile can go a long way in helping you land your first gig.

What’s nice about Upwork’s profile creation is that you’re prompted to fill in details. Being walked through the entire process, step by step, helps streamline what can be a somewhat daunting task.

Introduce Yourself on Upwork

The introduction portion of your Upwork profile is all about you. You can choose to link your social media accounts to your Upwork profile. If your social media accounts are professional and showcase your work and talents, then by all means, share them.

If they’re personal and used mostly to stay in contact with friends and family, I would skip this. Or better yet, create some social media accounts specifically for your freelancing endeavors!

Clients love to know they’re working with real people. This unique feature of being able to link your social media  accounts with your Upwork profile can help give you a human presence. Plus, it can really make you stand out against your competition seeking the very same freelance jobs online.

In thinking of giving your profile a human presence, you’ll need to upload a photo of yourself. This is one of the easiest ways to help boost your profile’s credibility, yet many freelancers skip this when first starting out. But really, if you have even a semi-professional shot of yourself from the shoulders up, you really should upload it. Why?

Freelancers with a friendly, professional-looking portrait are hired 5 times more often than those without a photo.

You can’t argue with that. So go ahead and upload a picture of yourself. Don’t have one? You can always try the DIY approach to taking a professional headshot.

In the introduction portion of your profile, you’ll also need to create your title, write an overview, and select your skills.  

The overview is really a chance to stand out when seeking freelance jobs online. Most freelancers, especially beginners, don’t maximize the overview’s full potential.

When writing an overview, always, always, always open with what you can do for the client, not what your talents are! It works. A client really does want to know what you, as a freelancer, can offer them.

Of course after you open with what you can do for a client, you should then include your experience and skills. And at the end of your overview, you should include some kind of incentive for them to hire you or contact you for more information.

Any good salesperson will tell you that at the end of any pitch you’ll need a call to action, that is something that lets a person know what you want them to do. (This is why a salesperson will always ask you for the sale at the end of their pitch.) As a freelancer you are selling your services and talents. Don’t be afraid to ask the client to contact you or hire you! 

So remember when creating your overview for any freelance jobs online:

1. Open with what you can do for the client
2. Close with a call to action (hire me, contact me, let’s work together, etc.)

 Experience & Education

After you’ve introduced yourself in your Upwork profile, you’ll have an opportunity to include your experience and education.

Don’t panic if you have little to no experience or education in your chosen freelance field! In my experience, many clients consider these things secondary to actual talent. There are, of course, those clients that specify a certain education level or experience. But many more will simply want to see that you can do the work they need done regardless of where you’ve worked or graduated from.

Note: You will have to include at least one education entry on your Upwork profile.

Using Your Portfolio To Get Freelance Jobs Online

In order to demonstrate that you can get the job done, you really should upload samples to your portfolio.

Upwork has this section marked as “optional.” But really, regardless of your field, a few samples can go a long way in helping you land your first freelance job.

So, what if you don’t have any samples? Make some.

If you’re a writer, write a few sample blog articles or landing page content. If you’re a designer, create some logos to showcase your talent. There’s no excuse not to include portfolio samples, even if you’re a beginner.

As you gain experience, you can upload newer samples. In fact, it’s good practice to keep your portfolio fresh with recent, up-to-date content. So after you’ve successfully completed a few jobs, you should update your portfolio. As you grow your freelance business, try to make it a habit to freshen up your profile and portfolio about once every three months or so.

How Many Samples Should I Upload?

A general rule of thumb is to include two samples for each of your skills listed. So if you’re a WordPress site creator, logo designer, and photographer, you should have two samples demonstrating your proficiency in all three areas.

The Final Details

You’re almost ready to begin searching freelance jobs online. There’s just a few more final details to hammer out.

You need to set your hourly rate. A lot of gigs on Upwork are billed hourly instead of per project. So you’ll want to sit down and seriously consider what hourly rate you feel comfortable working at.

Remember:

• Upwork takes a 10% cut. So if you bill the client at $15.00 per hour, you’ll actually receive $13.50.
• As a beginner, you might have to price yourself at a lower rate until you gain experience

Having lower rates in the beginning is pretty common when it comes to freelance jobs online:

Once you build your reputation through consistently high client satisfaction, you’ll be able to command higher rates from clients who respect your proven skills. In fact, we have found that freelancers on Upwork, on average, increase their hourly rate almost 60% in the first year and close to 190% over 3 years.

So don’t be discouraged if you’re having to work at a lower-than-expected rate right out the gate. Over time, as you prove yourself, you’ll be able to increase your earnings.

After you’ve settled on an hourly rate, you’ll just need to provide your location details.

Something a little different about Upwork is that your profile needs to be reviewed before you can apply to jobs.

Once your profile is approved (I can’t imagine why it wouldn’t be!) then you can begin connecting with clients.

Note:  I submitted my profile for approval at about 10:00 p.m. and was approved the following afternoon at about 1:00 p.m.

Much like its sister site, Elance, Upwork gives freelancers a certain number of connects each month. If you find a job you’d like to submit a proposal for, you’ll need to use your connects to do so.

With a free account you get 60 connects per month. With a paid membership you get 70. For the $10.00 per month you also get to carry over any unused monthly connects.

In my experience, the free package should be sufficient. Unless you’re really, really curious about what your competitors are bidding on jobs, there’s really no need to upgrade at first. Remember that with all memberships, free or premium:

All payments are made securely through the Upwork platform. When working on hourly projects, you’re eligible for Upwork Payment Protection that assures that an hour worked is an hour paid. On fixed price contracts, pre-funded milestone payments from your clients are secure with Upwork Fixed Price Protection.

Finding Freelance Jobs Online with Upwork

When you login to your Upwork account, you’ll see a list of jobs that are recommended for you based on what’s in your profile. You can also perform a basic or advanced search to narrow down more specific jobs. If you find a job that sounds interesting, you can use your connects to submit a proposal to it.

The right proposal can make all the difference in how many gigs you land. Make any of these common Upwork proposal mistakes, and you may be harming your chances of getting hired.

And that is the basics of getting up and running on Upwork. It really is quite similar to Elance, with some marked differences. For one, Elance requires that all jobs pay a minimum of $20.00. This keeps competition healthy between freelancers without jobs simply going to the lowest bidder.

I can’t say the same for Upwork. While I did come across some great opportunities on the site, I also noticed many terrible ones, too. Some companies consistently pay at a rate of $5.00 per hour. I’ve seen other freelancers working consistently at $3.33 per hour and clients who will only hires those freelancers willing to work at such low rates.

Unfortunately, there is no minimum pay rate on Upwork. Some clients are simply seeking freelancers who will work at absolute rock-bottom prices. However, with a little diligence, a perfect profile and pitch, you can find clients willing to pay fair prices for good work.

As all Elancers merge over to Upwork, you’ll see an increase in the number of opportunities, too (good and bad!).

What do you think? Interested in finding freelance jobs online through Upwork? Already earning money from home each month with Upwork? Have questions? Leave it in the comments below!

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This Textbroker review is best suited for beginning freelance writers. When I first started researching freelance writing opportunities, Textbroker was a company I continually came across as it was highly rated by clients and authors alike. Now that I’ve had some experience writing for them, my personal Textbroker review is one of overwhelmingly positive experiences. I would not hesitate to recommend this site to anyone.

Textbroker is an online content firm or ‘content mill’ as it is commonly referred.

If you’ve always enjoyed writing, but thought it was impossible to get paid to write without experience, think again. Textbroker provides writing opportunities for freelance writers with all experience levels, beginners too! Depending on your skill level, you’ll be able to write for a certain set of jobs. But don’t worry, your work is continually reviewed and as your writing gets better, you’ll be given the opportunity to make more money with each article you write.

What is Textbroker?

Textbroker is a content mill. If you’ve never heard the term before, it means Textbroker’s  clients pay to have articles written and Textbroker offers these jobs to writers at a fixed rate. In Textbroker’s case, they pay by the word. The client pays Textbroker and Textbroker pays the writer (after Textbroker takes their cut, of course).

Essentially, Textbroker is the middleman. They bring together content writers with companies who need content. They make their money by taking a percentage of what the client pays and the writer gets the rest.

Signing Up at Textbroker

You can get started working for Textbroker in just a few steps. When I signed up for Textbroker, I was able to do so easily enough. The hardest part was the wait! It took just four days to get approved to begin taking paid writing assignments, but when you’re eager to get started, even four days can seem long!

If you’re interested in writing articles for Textbroker, you need to head on over to their registration page to sign up. Before you sign up, make sure you meet the qualifications:

• U.S. Citizen or Permanent Resident (this will be verified)
• 18 years or older
• PayPal Account

When you reach the registration page, you’ll be asked to fill out basic personal information like name, address, phone number, email etc. You’ll also need to indicate your areas of expertise and create a login name and password. From there, read through their terms of services and privacy policy. If you agree to them, you can accept them and submit your registration.

Once you do, you’ll get a confirmation email directing you to confirm and activate your account. After that you’ll be able to log in.

Confirming Your Citizenship

A Textbroker review would not be complete without discussing a unique step in their registration process: confirming your citizenship. Before you can begin writing for them, you’ll need to submit a copy of a government-issued ID showing that you are a U.S. citizen or permanent resident.

When I went through this process, I was a little leery. I never like to just hand out personal information online whether or not it’s for money-making purposes. But as it turns out, this is standard for all of Textbroker’s new hires.

When you confirm your email and activate your account, you’ll receive an email that states:

In order to write for textbroker.com, you must be a US citizen or permanent resident who is at least 18 years of age.  Due to an influx of non-US citizens who have tried to sign up, we are now requiring a valid government-issued photo ID from all new authors, such as a state-issued driver’s license or ID card, US passport, permanent resident card, or military ID.

The email gives you options on how to submit it (email, fax, snail mail) and also lets you know that you may block out the ID number to help safeguard your identity.

Feeling reassured, I went through with it. I have no reason to believe my information was ever or will ever be compromised in any way. I chose to email a scanned copy of my license (with the number blocked out) to Textbroker. About four hours later I was sent a confirmation letting me know it was received and I was green lighted to continue on with the signup process.

Note: If you’re not willing to provide Textbroker with a copy of your ID, license, passport, permanent resident card, etc., then you won’t be able to begin writing for them.  There’s no way around it. If you want to write for them, you absolutely must provide proof of citizenship.

Once your registration is complete, you’ll move on to writing your sample.

Writing Your Textbroker Sample

Textbroker was the very first site I signed up for when I wanted to start writing for money. When it came time to write a sample, I was a little anxious.

A Textbroker editor will read your sample and rate it from a scale of 2 to 5. The rating you’re assigned will determine your pay rate and which articles you’ll be able to write.

For example, if you’re given an initial author rating of 2, you’ll only be able to write Level 2 Articles. This greatly limits the number of articles available to you. However, if your initial author rating is a 4, you’ll be able to write Level 2, Level 3, and Level 4 articles which means way more articles to choose from and more money too.

Essentially, your sample article will determine your beginning pay rate and the number of jobs available to you. No pressure, right? I didn’t want to write something that netted me a poor review resulting in lower pay and limited access to articles. That certainly was not the tone I wanted to set for my budding writing career. This anxiety led me to spend more time than I normally would for a 300-word article. But it paid off.

My article was reviewed and I was given a Level 4 author rating. Whew. And trust me when I say, you too can write a sample that earns you a Level 4 review.

What do you write about? You’ll be given a list of topics and you’ll have to select one — if you want to score higher, you should select the topic you’re most comfortable with.

Things to remember when writing your Textbroker sample:

• It must be at least 200 words long
• It should be on a subject you’re familiar with
• It should be of your highest quality
• You can use a previously published work as your sample (remember to include a source byline)

Getting Paid

Once you’ve registered, confirmed your citizenship, and been given an initial author rating based on your sample writing, you’re ready to begin writing! But if you’d like to get paid for your work, you’re going to need to fill out tax forms. Why?

In order to pay you your money, we are required  by the IRS to ask you for a W-9.  This form confirms that you are a US person (citizen or resident) and subject to US tax rules.  This is a completely normal verification process that serious companies ask of their contractors.

Your data will be handled confidentially according to our privacy policy.
As soon as we have your signed and dated W-9, we can process your pay-off requests.  To expedite processing, please include your e-mail address or Author ID in the box “List account number(s) here (optional).” The process is quick and confidential.

You can either send the form in via regular mail or fax it on over. At this time, you cannot email it to them. However, I submitted mine without problem via an online faxing service like MyFax.com. You just fill it out, scan it, save it and send it.

It takes a business day or two to process your form once they receive it. And when they do, you’ll get a confirmation letting you know everything was verified.

Your Profile, Star Rating, and Making The Most Out of Textbroker

At Textbroker, your work will be continually rated by Textbroker’s editors. Your star rating will be the average rating of your five most recent articles.

This is really important. Your star rating will dictate what work is available to you and what your pay rate will be. You’ll want to try to write five-star articles each and every time. And trust me, the pay rate differences are great enough that you really do want to shoot for that five-star rating.

Here’s a rundown of the pay rates:

• 2 Star = 0.7 cents/word
• 3 Star = 1.0 cents/word
• 4 Star = 1.4 cents/word
• 5 Star = 5.0 cents/word

Textbroker’s star system acts as a bit of an incentive program for all their writers to contribute articles at a five-star level. After all, wouldn’t you rather make 5.0 cents per word versus 0.7 cents per word?

The good news is, you’ll receive feedback on how to improve your writing. Plus, Textbroker provides a guide of sorts on how exactly they go about rating their writers. This gives you a greater opportunity to improve and hopefully earn $0.05 cents per word!

Your Profile

As an author for Textbroker, you’ll be able to fill out a profile. Your profile is made public to only registered clients and Textbroker employees. It’s a good idea to fill it out in full and take some time doing so. The information in your profile can lead to direct orders.

Clients can perform author searches and the information you provide in your profile can lead these clients right to you. That’s a good thing. If a client sends you a direct order, you’ll notice that the pay is greater than the standard per word rate. For example, while a four-star author makes 1.7 cents/word on open orders, a direct order can result in 3-5 cents/word pay!

So having detailed information about you and your areas of expertise in your profile is a great (and easy) way to make more money writing for Textbroker.

Open Orders

While direct orders are a great way to make more money, you’ll likely find that open orders are the most common types of jobs you’ll be working on.

When you log into your Textbroker account, you’ll be able to click on the “Assignment” tab to see all orders available at any given time. These are known as open orders.

The open orders are broken down by categories and star rating. For example, as I check the open orders page right now, I can see that there are 149 “Shopping” articles available for authors with a minimum 4-star rating. There’s 45 “Movie” articles available for authors with a minimum 2-star rating.

There are over a thousand articles available at this moment. Each one is in a category and tells you what the minimum star rating is you’ll need to have to accept it. So if you’re a 3-star-rated author, you’ll be able to write 2 and 3-star articles. If your a 5-star author, you’ll be able to write 2, 3, 4, and 5-star articles.

From the open orders dashboard, you’ll be able to view the particular requirements of each available article. For example, when I click on the 149 “Shopping” articles, I’m able to see them all and their associated keyword, deadline, number of required words, and possible earnings. I say possible earnings because articles are given a word count range. You might see an article that needs to be between 400 to 480 words. If you were a four-star author, you could make between $5.60 and $6.72 depending on the final word count. Most authors will choose to max out the word count in order to make the highest rate possible on the article.

You can then click on each individual article to read the client’s instructions. This will typically include the keyword that needs to be used, the required keyword density (the number of times it needs to appear in the article) and any specifics on headings, title, and links that need to be included.

What’s great about Textbroker’s dashboard is that while you’re viewing an open order, no other authors can view it. You’ll have ten minutes total to decide whether or not you want to accept that order.

I think this is great. It allows you to thoroughly read through the assignment and decide whether something is a good fit for you without feeling rushed or that another author might swoop in and claim an article out from under you.

If you like what you see, you can click on the “I want to write this article” button. If not, you can go back and view other open orders until you find something you would like to write.

Team Orders

Yet another way to earn money through Textbroker are team orders. You must apply in order to be accepted into teams. In order to apply, you’ll need to be a four or five-star author.

Casting Call Teams are those which are open to all four and five-star authors. As I type this, there are 1,190 Casting Call Teams available! Team orders are great because you can leverage your experience, expertise and knowledge in certain fields to make more money. And since teams are subject based, you can write articles in areas that you know well and interest you.

There are a variety of teams like health writers, social networking, and education just to name a few. If you’ve got the know-how and meet the specific requirements expected of authors on these teams, you’re encouraged to apply. Like direct orders, you can make pretty decent earnings when writing articles as part of a team.

You may also be invited to join specific teams. Invite-only teams are based on your previous work and the information in your profile. Again, this is a good reason to make sure your profile is current and highlights your areas of expertise. The information in your profile can lead to direct orders and team invites.

Requesting Payment

Now that you know how to make money on Textbroker, you’d probably like to know how to get paid. It’s pretty straightforward.

You can request your earnings once a week as long as you’ve met the minimum $10.00 payout. Money is payed via PayPal. That’s it.

Remember, as an independent contractor, you’re in charge of paying taxes on the money you earn. Textbroker does not withhold federal income taxes from your earnings.

Ready to Write?

Although this Textbroker review is geared towards beginners, it’s still a great site to hang onto even after you’ve gained a little experience.

I’ve found even when things are slow elsewhere or when extra income is welcome, say around the holidays, Textbroker always has work available.

Plus, if you keep a four or five-star rating and have a strong profile, you might just find direct orders and team invites filling your inbox. These can actually be quite lucrative!

The bottom line? Trying to keep this Textbroker review as unbiased as possible, I really can’t say too many bad things. I’ve had success writing for them. It’s pretty straightforward. And your rate of pay is determined by your skill rather than experience. So even someone who’s never written professionally a day in their life can still earn their highest pay rates.

If you’re new to freelance writing (or even a veteran) Textbroker is a great place to find varied and steady work.

Are you currently or formerly a Textbroker author? I’d love to hear your thoughts and experiences. Please share them in the comments below!

Starting from Scratch

If you like the idea of becoming a freelance writer but just can’t get behind the idea of writing for a content mill — no problem! It’s certainly not for everyone. Launching your own freelance writing career with no experience is completely attainable (without having to write for Textbroker or similar sites!). Just ask mother to twins, Elna Cain.

She started a freelance writing career from scratch and is now a successful writer. Check out her self-paced ecourse, Write Your Way to Your First 1K, where you can learn how to become a paid writer and earn your first $1,000.

This post contains affiliate links. Please see my disclosure statement for more information.

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