Most of the time, you will only need to write one really good, thorough, cover letter and be sure to keep it up to date.  Sometimes however, you will want to write something new for a specific job in order to outline your qualifications in an area that is important to the job you’re applying for. You will want to really spit-shine your skills and write something that will be sure to impress anybody who reads it. It’s important not to lie, as the trick should be in the wording, not in deceit.

Really brainstorm about the experiences you’ve had that could make you look as capable as possible to your potential employers. If you’re having trouble coming up with anything, don’t worry, we are all good at something. Go ahead and focus on your strong points, provided they’re relevant to the job you’re applying to. If you’re applying to something unfamiliar, fill in the gaps with confidence and a willingness and adaptation to learning new skills. If you don’t think you’re experienced enough or capable enough, don’t let it show through your writing. Be sure to avoid choppiness and insecure ventures in highlighting what might be helpful in getting the job you want. Keep a positive outlook throughout your cover letter and make sure it is upbeat and sincere. If you’ve got an eye for detail, tell them so, and list an example of the type of work you’ve done in order to improve that skill.

It’s important to have experience in whatever they’re asking you to do, but if you don’t, don’t fret. Be sure to thoroughly research whatever you would be doing, practicing if possible, and drop in words and concepts that would make you sound more qualified. Be sure you will have a handle on what you’re doing, even if you’ve never done it before. Not having professional experience isn’t important; the important thing is that the employer will be likely to give you a chance to accumulate professional experience that highlights your skills.

Once you’ve secured your new job, you can worry about how well you learn and adapt to what you’ve got to get done. If it turns out you’re in over your head, then you will deal accordingly, ask for help, and still have a new set of skills and experiences to draw from. It’s not the end of the world if you end up having a problem. In fact, we learn the most through making mistakes.

Securing a job will most likely take a well-written resume and cover letter. Writing your cover letter should be fun, and a way to really think about the things you’re good at and what you might have accomplished over the years. It should leave you feeling good about yourself after you’ve written it, not make you feel defeated and like you have nothing to offer that an employer might want.

If you’ve brainstormed and brainstormed and still can only come up with a few things to write that make you sound like a good candidate for a position, don’t let it discourage you. Talk about the things you’ve learned from the jobs you’ve had, rather than the job itself. For example, if I wanted to apply for a job proofreading but I’ve only had experience in fast food, I would say that  my attention to detail was strengthened when I had to read different orders for different people The point is to make your experiences and the skills you’ve learned from them relevant to the job you want. We’ve all had experiences of all kinds, and have plenty to show for it. The trick is in learning how to write about them.

Here is a sample of a cover letter, which you should be able to provide more details for from your own experiences and lives. Because this is mainly to summarize how to do your cover letter for oDesk, I left out the professional standards of including your address and that of the company that you are applying to, because you should never give out personal information to strangers on oDesk, or anywhere else.

 (Greeting of your choosing),

 Hi,

My name is ________. This is the paragraph where you talk about yourself and the job or type of job that you’re trying to get. You introduce yourself,   making sure to let everybody know that you are very confident in your ability to do the job required. Talk about the job you’re applying for and how well you would do it.

If possible, express your self-confidence in full in the last sentence, because it leaves your paragraph off on  a strong note.

This is the paragraph where you should be talking about your skills, qualifications and experiences that you can relate to the job you’re trying to land. It always helps if you know what the person hiring is trying to find in an employee, so you can cater your skills into a pretty little package the employer will be drawn to. Highlight whatever you are capable of that you think might give you a higher chance of getting the job.

 This is the paragraph that should be the conclusion, the end of your cover letter. Try to make it brief and summarise your enthusiasm about getting the job done and hearing back from your potential employers.

(your name)

Contributed by:

Amanda Bassett,
Freelance Writer

It is a wonderful strategy to build a strong relation with clients for long time rather than just treat them as cash – cows. This way client will be pleased as it will give them a sense of respect, and care as well that will be beneficial for freelancers to get more projects from those clients as well as from others because clients will recommend them to their colleagues also. The time freelancers spent to nurture relationship with clients will pay them back in form of good projects on long term basis.

If the relationship is strong you can ask your clients to promote your services by writing testimonials, and reviews about your work you have done for them. Strong relationship with clients can provide the chances of better, and more business. Some useful instructions are given for maintaining good relationship with clients.

Maintain Record of Every Client

Maintaining record of every client is useful, and it is easier in the form of spreadsheet that contains the name of client, description of project, contact information of the client as well as social media accounts. There is a note column as well where comments about each client can be given.

Mention Date of Last Contact

It is important to mention date of last contact with each client as it gives idea about how long it has been that you last contacted him/her. Make frequent contacts with clients via email or a short phone call because it will be helpful for you to get more good projects, and leads from the client.

Be Generous To the Client

It is good to be generous than to be stingy. If the client is facing any problem it is your moral duty to be generous with honest advice to resolve the issue efficiently.

• It’s easy for everyone to do.
• Physical appearance has nothing to do with writing so only writing skill will play a main role.
• This mean of marketing is time efficient because writing, and editing does not take much time.

The advantages can convert into disadvantages if the job is not done efficiently so here are some tips, following which the business of freelancing can be taken to the top. These useful tips will not take much time, but they will help your business grow immensely.

Seek Help of Newsletter Owner to Publicize Your Content

First thing being a writer to consider is that content must be excellent with eye catching headlines to grasp the attention of readers. Owners of newsletters will be of great assistance to publicize your content if you are confident that content is up to the mark.

There are many top bloggers who find it difficult to update their blogs  due to several reasons so you can offer your services to those bloggers, and get your content publicized to their popular blogs. It will help you expose your content to a large number of readers. Guest post is also an effective way to show your talent because if your post will be liked by the readers you will get many opportunities to write more for high rank blogs, and sites.

Write For Backlinks instead of Traffic

Backlinks lead to increased traffic so first prefer writing for backlinks so that a large number of visitors can be gained. Good writers can increase the traffic easily. Also strive to reach informative content that can add up to the visitors’ knowledge.

Begin a Newsletter

Newsletter is an effective way to build a relationship with your audience, and it puts you at a higher rank as an expert writer. It is a source that keeps you close to your regular readers, and sending emails to your regular subscribers over the time ensures that you are master of your field. This helps in building a strong bond with your subscribers.

Get Published Your Own Report

It is a useful way to get your own report published as it can be done in two ways, either to sell it or to give it away free of cost because this way it will be more beneficial for you at the initial stage.

FreelanceSwitch has listed some great productivity tips for freelancers. No doubt they are good but a lot of such stuff can have a negative impact on your work as well. Try to utilize only the positive tips and follow the ones that suit your own personality. Not everyone can work like a robot!

Here are some of the useful tips i have gathered with my experience and research, hope you like them.

Avoid Getting Burnt Out

You want to avoid getting burnt out. It’s very easy to do if you’re working full-time and coming home to even more work. You’ve got to keep in mind that it is worth it, because once you have successfully built your freelancing profile, the stress will seem worth it and you will be able to be your own boss. It might take a long time to get to this point in your freelancing career, but if you can make the time to do the work and learn how to prioritize your workload, then you will be your own boss before you know it. There’s nothing more satisfying than being in complete control of your time and creating your own hours.

Utilize and Manage Your Time

You might want to begin by going through your responsibilities and seeing which of these you need to do immediately versus those that you can set aside to do later. Remember that every spare second you have can be used to work on your freelancing career. Even if you aren’t able to work on your project physically, you can use the time you have on your hands to brainstorm how to handle one of the projects you are working on in a way that will fully satisfy your client. You’ll need to dedicate a lot of your spare time to your freelancing endeavors. They may just be a side-income, but if you plan to gradually move away from the time-consuming 9 to 5 workload doing something you don’t care about, then spending as much time tailoring your freelancing career is a necessity.

Do Not Hesitate in Making the Tough Decisions

Eventually you might find yourself having to choose between things like eating out for lunch during your breaks, or going out with friends after work, and working on your side projects for freelancing. Don’t worry, you don’t always have to ignore your leisure time, but the sooner you want to have your freelancing profile satisfying enough to sustain you, the more time you need to spend on getting good reviews from clientele and getting your name out there. It would help if you don’t work a rigid job with inflexible hours.

Squeeze in Those Extra Few Minutes of the Morning

It might also help if you were to wake up earlier and get your day started instead of squeezing in that extra hour or two of shut-eye. I’m not telling you to skimp out on your sleep. Sleep is an important factor in keeping your stress levels down, and working full-time while freelancing is hardly a good idea. Stress can create horrible physical, emotional and psychological consequences, especially if you don’t get enough sleep. However, try to see just how much sleep you need in order to function healthily, and adjust your schedule to try fitting in another hour in the morning to help you get things done.

If you do not use this vital morning time, you are losing out on communication with your client. Morning is when you wake up after 6 or so hours of sleep – out of contact with client. Then you wake up and go to the office where you spend the next 8-10 hours. This means you only get to contact your client inside a 6-8 hour window which isn’t good. Checking your email at least in the morning before going to work and responding to clients will mean your clients won’t have to wait more than half a day to get a response from you.

Avoid the Time Wasting Habits

This one might seem obvious, but it’s worth mentioning. It would also be helpful if you create a focused area to complete your work. By focused, I mean no television, no radio, no internet except that which applies to your current project. Cutting back on general t.v. time could also prove useful if you have a particularly heavy workload. Being a slave to work may seem like a contradiction when your ultimate goal is to be your own boss, but temporarily that might be what it takes. The end result should always stay within your mind, and feel close enough to touch.

Prioritize and Schedule Your Work Load

My last tip would be to make your best effort at prioritizing your workload, and possibly even set up a schedule for yourself. Keep your projects, deadlines and other necessary information on-hand and organized so that you can always take a glance at your priorities, do a mental check, and keep yourself on track. If possible, keep it somewhere you can see it frequently, like a checklist on your phone. If you do whatever you can to make your freelancing career your main priority, it’s possible to make it a full-time way to make money.  Be sure to ease into it and try not to stress yourself out.

Contributed by:

Amanda Bassett,
Freelance Writer

Bid Quota

One of the biggest differences between Elance and oDesk is how many applications you can submit monthly. On oDesk, this number depends on the completeness of your profile and the status of your other applications. On Elance though, if you sign up for the free membership, you’re only allowed to have fifteen proposal monthly, along with the basic profile. Of course, Elance recommends you to sign up for their individual membership plan, which grants you 30 proposals per month and their spiffy premium profile. You would be paying ten dollars a month for fifteen more applications and the chance of making money. If that sounds worth it to you then it just might be, however, I’ve heard there are ways to work in an extra fifteen proposals monthly with your basic profile. You should also take into consideration the fee that Elance charges, which is included in the price quote of the job.

Minimum Bid

When you are applying for a job, there’s a major difference from oDesk. Elance’s job prices range through a system called “Proposal minimums.” This means that when you see a job that you would like to do, you have to pay attention to the budget proposed by the client, and offer your services for no less than the proposal minimum. For example, if you see a fixed-price job that will pay you no more than 500, you can bid to work for no less than $20. There is a page dedicated to highlighting each proposal minimum if you become curious.

Dispute Resolution System

The nicest thing about Elance is that both their hourly and fixed price jobs guarantee assistance to the resolution of a problem by Elance if there happens to be a dispute. Being ripped off on oDesk is something of a commonality in my experience because oDesk doesn’t offer that same kind of protection to their users. Taking this fault of oDesk’s into consideration makes knowing that Elance will be willing to work with both contractors and clients when there is a dispute quite a relief.

Work Rooms

For hourly jobs, Elance offers a program called Work View, which allows you to document your work with screenshots and get assistance or input from the client as you work. It keeps track of your timesheets and guarantees payment. Work View isn’t required, but it does provide quality services to both clients and contractors. Elance uses Escrow for safe payments that can be released upon the client’s approval.

Elance also offers a Workroom, which you can use by clicking “Home” and then choosing the appropriate job whose workroom you want to visit. A Workroom is created whenever you accept a job in order to make communication and file transfers easier for clients and contractors. The email address of the Workroom will vary depending on the job. If you don’t know what it is, you should be able to find it to the right in the workroom.

Feedback System

Like oDesk, Elance also has a feedback system, and you should fill out your profile to be as complete as possible. You can also take tests to prove your skills or simply self-assess them. If you are trying to make money freelancing, Elance seems to be a good opportunity to get the credit you deserve for the work that you do, or to get quality work done if that’s what you need.

Contributed by:

Amanda Bassett,
Freelance Writer

Fortunately, you can take your disputes directly to Elance, and they will do their best to resolve each problem you may have had with your client (or contractor). Unfortunately, we can’t always afford to take the people who rip us off to court. It’s not only expensive, but also lengthy and tedious, especially if your dispute is over a $35 job you worked hard on, only to be stiffed. Paying the court fees won’t really seem worth it. The alternative to court for a fixed-price job is something called Arbitration. Arbitration calls for a third party, often independent, to help solve the problem objectively. Elance charges for the service, but pays 1/3 of it. The contractor and client both have to pay 1/3 each. The arbitration cost depends on the value of the job being disputed, and Elance chooses the arbitration service.

Before we go into the details of the dispute process, you might want to know a few helpful ways to avoid disputes in general, and have your back covered if a job results in a dispute. It is highly recommended that you use Escrow. This enables clients to deposit the funds that contractors are working for and release them upon verification of their completed work. If you’re working for a client, Elance also suggests you hold off beginning your work until the payment is secured in Escrow. Make sure your client knows these are your terms; it may help you to avoid a lot of problems. Elance makes it possible for you to set up milestones, or checkpoints, that help determine a job’s progress and record its quality.

Another thing you should do for every job, just in case of a dispute, is to always use Elance as your venue of communication. This way, if there is ever a dispute, your conversations can be referenced and provide evidence in your favor. Be sure to always let your clients know if you are working on other jobs, or if there might be any other reason that your output of work may be impeded. Let your clients or contractors know if there are any changes to your schedule right away, and it never hurts to apologize if there’s any inconvenience caused by a change in schedule. Disputes might arise if terms are changed and can’t be agreed upon.

Dispute Resolution System for Fixed Price Jobs on Elance

Jobs that are fixed-price have three steps to the Elance Dispute Assistance process. The first they call “member resolution.” Basically it’s when you and the person you are disputing each file documentation of the problem and how you expect the settlement to turn out. Ideally, you’re supposed to try reaching an agreement with the other party. After that, you have the option of scheduling a dispute call with someone who works with Elance. If you ended up making amends with the other party before the call, then the call isn’t even necessary. If you haven’t, then the Elance facilitator will attempt to help you discuss mutual solutions. If that doesn’t work out, then it comes down to arbitration. Elance will provide the service, and the client, contractor, and Elance will split the bill three ways.

Dispute Resolution System for Hourly Jobs on Elance

Hourly job disputes work a little bit differently. They don’t qualify for arbitration or a dispute call. There are conditions that must apply before a dispute can be filed, and if there is one, then Elance reps will take the initiative to look over the request and decide if the work done is worth paying for. You can only dispute if the following things apply to your case, and I’m going to copy these right from Elance’s page :

• Disputes can only be filed for unpaid or rejected time.
• Both parties have agreed to use Tracker with Work View in performing and reviewing the work
• There must be at least one comment recorded per hour billed & disputed, documented in Tracker with Work View
• The screenshots taken automatically by Work View™ must be clearly related to the job requirements or client instructions in the workroom
• The number of hours billed must be within the hours authorized for the week.
• The Client must have a valid payment method established and agree to automatically pay for hours billed through Work View™ (except those hours the client identifies as not related to the job requirements or client instructions).

If your dispute applies, then Elance will help you resolve it. Not a bad system, eh?

Contributed by:

Amanda Bassett,
Freelance Writer

1. No Free Samples!

I have learned the hard way about this one. It is one thing to be interviewed by a potential client, and quite another to do a bunch of free work just for the chance of landing a job that offers more of the same. Don’t take the bait. If you think it’s a good opportunity, make sure your work is protected. You could use watermarks or locked pdf files, basically whatever you can come up with to keep your work safe from being stolen. Many times, if you see that many people are being interviewed for the same position, chances are that this means the crooks are asking each interviewee for different samples in order to complete a whole project for free.

2. Don’t Pay for Your Employer!

I don’t know if they thought I was stupid or what, but when I applied for a good-paying (supposedly) job from oDesk, the “employer” told me I had to use my own credit card information to create an account for him. Obviously, I respectfully declined. The moral of the story is, do not, under any circumstances, pay out of pocket for a job you are supposed to be paid for. And especially never give away any personal information. As unfortunate as it may be, people are not going to hesitate to take advantage of you. Make your own experiences as painless as possible by keeping your confidential information confidential and keeping your own personal accounts out of dealings with your employers.

3. Beware of Jobs for Newbies!

Okay, here’s the thing. You’re probably going to start out your freelancing career from scratch. On sites like oDesk, the employers are going to know that. They have this way of prowling about and luring in fresh meat with promises of good reviews in exchange for grossly underpaid work. Again, I learned this one the hard way. My first job on oDesk was writing a group of ten articles for a measly total of six dollars. Each of them had to be about a page long, and it was particularly painful to me to sell myself out in order to work in a key phrase that I knew was probably just going to spam somebody. I tried hard to do my best, although it didn’t take me long to realize I was getting ripped off. Try not to let the same happen to you!

4. Avoid Control Freaks!

We’ve all been in contact with the type-they demand all that and more from you, while most of the time commanding you about in all caps and stressing how your insolence will not be tolerated. I’ve read one or two job postings on oDesk and thought my former landlord might have been the buyer. While control freaks may give you clear instructions (you’d want to avoid anyone who doesn’t), they will not think twice about monopolizing all of your time and demanding edits and rewrites and little tweaks galore. I’d be sure to mention that you are willing to redo your work as needed, provided it’s reasonable. There are some people out there who might not give you a break. Not only is this annoying, but it’s bad for morale! You’re a writer because you have a voice, not so you can kiss butt for less pay than you’re earning. Just look out for the controlling types, no voice can please them but their own.

5. Know When the Demands Are Ridiculous!

Jobs with a low average bid are probably horrible. People seem to be most interested in saving themselves money and outsourcing to get good, fast work done cheaply. If they want something done for them in ten minutes, just say no. No contracting job can possibly be completed in such a short amount of time. In fact, it would probably take longer than that to confer with them and become clear on their instructions. If the duration of the job seems unrealistic, it probably is. If the pay being offered for the job seems unreasonable, then it probably is. Trust your gut. If they’re asking for contractors, but aren’t giving any detail about the job in their post, I’d just forget about it. Equally, if someone asks you to start up a fully operational space unit complete with supercallofragilisticexpialodocious technology and control manuals (in perfect English) to boot, for the low, low cost of 150 dollars…I’d recommend not doing it. You should also be wary of jobs that seem to pay well at first glance. Further down the description you may realize that the pay isn’t quite as good as it first appears. Lots of people stoop to this to trick people into applying for their position and ultimately stick with a lower payment than the contractor had been anticipating. Devious, eh? This comes from another first-hand experience…not including the space unit.

6. Be Wary of Jobs Including Anyone but Yourself and the Buyer!

If your buyers are mentioning the things that their clients want, what they really mean is that they are paying you to do their job. When you’re doing a job that somebody else is paying your buyer to do, crucial data may be lost in translation, resulting in more work for you. Who needs that? I personally despise having others take credit for my work, and you’re probably not going to be paid as much as your buyer will be for your sweat and blood. You should also keep an eye out for jobs from buyers that include work done by previous contractors who weren’t quite able to finish. This could be due to a multitude of reasons, but let me just say, this can be messy, tedious work. In many cases, both you and your buyer will be better off starting from scratch, unless what was left for you to complete was already very clear. Otherwise, you might have a long, tedious project, (and not to mention, headache) on your hands trying to sort out someone else’s jumbled ideas.

7. Don’t Help Out the Weasels!

Plagiarism is bad. This was stressed to us all our lives through a formal Westernized education. You really don’t want to be caught up in the wrong crowd, one full of people who are looking to profit off of other people’s labor and leave them screwed. You should remember that stealing someone else’s ideas and phraseology isn’t the only type of plagiarism. You may also encounter those types out there who are looking for help stealing images or information in order to profit. If someone is asking you to remove watermarks, you probably shouldn’t be doing it for them. I’m not just saying it because it’s illegal; I’m saying so because it’s mean. The starving artist reputation exists for a reason, so you’d be working against members of your own creative or artistic community. The same is true of CAPTCHA work and web scraping. Doing CAPTCHA work helps people to invade someone else’s web space for spam, and web scraping steals the information from solid websites, in mainly html format, and logs it into a database so that other people can use it for whatever they want. It’s not cool to steal or rip people off, no matter what you’re getting paid.

8. Don’t Sign Up for Anything!

Alas, another lesson learned the hard way. You don’t have to go above and beyond for your buyers. You shouldn’t have to sign up for anything from a website beyond the original site you’re contracting for. User accounts may come and go, but that’s no reason to set yourself up for a butt-load of spam. You should be comfortable contacting your buyer, and they may ask to contact you from Skype or another messenger of some sort, which is okay if you’re comfortable with it. I personally set up a separate Skype account to keep myself from showing my buyers too much personal information. I can’t stress enough how important it is to keep your confidential information private, which brings me to my next tip.

9. Stay Confidential!

There is no conceivable reason that you should have to verify your identity to a buyer outside of the platform on which you are working. If you’;re using oDesk, that is enough to verify the fact that you can work. If you don’t believe me, remember when they sent you those tax forms upon signing up? Never give out your personal information, like your social security number, or as mentioned earlier, any banking information. Also, keep an eye out to make sure your buyer has a confirmed payment method. You can see when applying to their position on oDesk whether or not they are going to be able to pay for the work they are offering.

10. Trust Your Gut!

This has been my most reliable asset so far, especially when intuitively bidding on some jobs that seem to good to be true. It isn’t always the case, but if you can feel it out for yourself, maybe it is. I got an amazing opportunity to write $30 dollar articles about something I loved, even though the warning signs seemed to point me away. I also had my doubts about the other times I was scammed, but when you need some extra cash, sometimes you’re willing to take the risks. Fortunately, I’m still safe and sound, and I hope the same will remain true for everyone else out there. Best of luck!

Contributed by:

Amanda Bassett,
Freelance Writer

#1 – Be as friendly and helpful as possible

This seems like a no-brainer, but if you take the initiative to be friendly and caring to your clients, they will greatly appreciate it in the long run. From experience, would you rather work with someone who appeared more professional who did the job and stopped there, or would you rather work with someone who not only did the job, but was friendly and helped you beyond the work you provided? Treat your clients as if they were your professional friends, and certainly not a stranger you make money from, and make sure you treat them with respect. You’ll improve any professional relation in no time!

#2 – Be punctual

Hand in your work on time, and if you’re communicating with a client, make sure your responses are quick and timely. Everybody appreciates being someone’s top priority, and in today’s fast-paced world quick responses and work are crucial to maintaining a sustained and good relationship with your contacts. People who hand  things in late will often not be hired again, the client often choosing someone who is more organized with effective time management skills. Be aware of how late you let those assignments sit, or how long it takes you to respond to a client. It might mean the beginning of another job or the end tail of your last one.

#3 – Know exactly what you can and cannot do

You must be able to sell yourself to a client, but you have to be honest at the same time. If you don’t have the skills the customer is looking for, don’t pretend that you do. “Hard-working” looks good on paper, but you have to be able to deliver the same quality and effectiveness to all your jobs and clients, no matter what you do. It’s a contract between two people, but at the same time it’s also a promise to someone to be able to help them do a certain job.  Make sure you can do it, and if you can, let the client feel the utmost reassurance that they have placed the job on your hands. Do your best!

#4 – Talk to them

Perhaps the best way to improve customer relations is to talk to your clients. What do they want? What are they looking for in a job? Have they been having a good day? Like tip number one says, care about your clients. And what better way to care about them than to talk to them one on one?  You’ll find out exactly the way they want a job done, and you’ll have a satisfied and happy customer in the end (who will hopefully have more jobs for the friendly freelancer who helped them so much last time). Do you remember the sales associate who pointed you to aisle three, or do you remember the sales associate who showed you personally where aisle three was to whom you explained exactly what you wanted and the name of your dog?

#5 – Don’t criticize competitors

If a client is looking for a job done, they are less likely to respond to negative comments. Especially if it’s coming from you about your competitors like John down the block who writes sloppy cover letters and can’t use apostrophes. You may have the inclination to badmouth the guy who took your last job, but as an employer, they will have an idea of who they’re looking for without your judgment. It will make you appear trivial and less professional – don’t do it. Treat everybody with respect, and that includes the John from down the street who stole your stapler (and your cat).

 As a freelancer and a human being, it’s of the utmost importance to treat your customers with respect and a friendly attitude. Make sure to get the job done on time and make your client feel special. Know your skills so you can be honest to your employer, and talk to them to know what they want from the job. Excel by not only getting a job done for someone, but take pride in your work and do your best every time. Help your clients, treat them well, and you will be successful in both your business and your relationships with your customers.

 Contributed by:

Amanda Bassett,
Freelance Writer

I know this seems as an obvious thing to do but why do I mention it here? For the simple reason that when you deliver late, even though the buyer may not mind it and you may have already agreed with the buyer on a late delivery, it ‘will affect the turnaround time of your gig.

The level of expertise of a person depends upon the different types of services he is providing. If a person provides web programming services, cartoon sketching, content writing and voiceover services, then there is no doubt he is a worthy candidate for being a Top Rated seller. But the first target for you is reaching level 1 and level 2. Remember, the upgrade to the next level is an automated process. So it is a computer program that eventually decides whether you qualify for the next level or not. So how do you fool the computer?

A computer programmer reading this will know that the algorithm used to determine the level of a writer will contain a few parameters. Among them will be the different number of gigs sold. So what you can do is create 8-10 gigs that offer a slightly modified service to what you already sell. When you start getting orders, you will get clients who will want to order again! You can use these clients to great advantage. Ask them to place their next order through another gig even though you will be providing the same service. In this way, in a matter of a few days, you will have 3-4 feedbacks on each of your gig. Then the fiverr algorithm will have a better chance of noticing you.

I personally used the above strategy and it worked. My cousin had 120+ feedbacks on one gig and she got to level 2 then. On the other hand, I had 9 gigs, all sold at least once, while three main gigs had about 10, 15, and 40 feedbacks respectively. So you see the difference?

By the way, when my brother signed up, he offered something really cheap to get the first order. And on the first day he got 10 orders from one buyer and instantly got promoted to level 1 even though he was yet to deliver on any of the orders. Sometimes Fiverr even confuses me!

Keep tuned in for more Fiverr tips!