Earn Money from Online Work

I am only familiar with Upwork and the Fiverr freelancing platforms but I am sure there are similar freelancing platforms for most countries. Online work as a job is growing and is expected to equal and even surpass real world face to face jobs in such countries as the USA.

The revenues of Upwork are growing therefore the platform is growing and so are the number of freelance jobs and applicants. If you do a bit of research online you will discover that Upwork has a tarnished reputation. This include the company itself, the job posters and the job applicants.

There would be complaints that Upwork is only concerned with profits and neglects the well being of both its job posters and applicants. There would be complaints where the job poster was cheated by the party that they have chosen to do the job for them and vice versa. I have regularly checked if these sort of complaints would disappear in Upwork.

My motivation was that these sort of complaints would die down eventually and would assure me enough to apply for a posted job myself. However in my regular checks I still encounter same complaints and I have determined that these things will not go away. This is a regular occurrence now I believe in many freelancing sites and not just Upwork.

Be sure to check the policies of Upwork regarding the mediation policies between job applicant and job poster. If you can check also the reputation of both the job applicant and job poster it would be better. The rating system for job poster and applicant can be rigged and the review process for both job applicant and job poster can get corrupted so beware.

Fiverr still has to turn a profit although investors are confident with it as shown in its stock price. The company too is growing. The number of job posters and applicants has grown. Fiverr too has introduced more services since I first visited their site a couple of years ago. They also have an affiliate program so if you are an online marketer this might interest you.

I created a profile with them several years ago to test them out but I did not pursue it long enough such that I would be able to actually find some work. Creating an account is straightforward but the not so easy part is setting up your service price rates and uploading and showcasing samples of your work.

Fiverr will send you ads regarding paid services which supposedly aims to increase your chances of getting a freelance job and to also increase your skills. I have no knowledge if these paid services can really help you find a freelance job or improve your skill. Fiverr also makes recommendation of possible job applicants you might like to hire.

This could be a turn off for some people like me who is much more concentrated on earning money first rather than spending when I joined the site. In Fiverr you are both the job applicant and poster. I would recommend that you first try to earn money before trying to spend money trying to improve your marketability in Fiverr.

One thing good with Fiverr is that you are allowed to be creative with the services you offer. There is for example a mother and daughter team which for a fee would sing for you. I do not know if there is much demand for such services but I see similar services being offered in the platform with slight variations.

As can be seen by my previous example you can offer even relatively unskilled services and even amateurs can offer their services in the platform. For example there is a service offered by clearly children from a rural area. They would sing your requests and based on their earnings they are doing well. This is one of the nicer service being offered in the platform.

The platform allowing people to be creative with the services they offer however has disadvantages too. For example there are women offering to be pretend girlfriends for a fee. This includes intimate chats that only real people in relationships do. You can see where I am going here. The client and service provider may enter into a relation that is not considered business at all.

Another thing is that there are many dubious jobs and services offered by both job posters and applicants. Dubious ones include a job applicant who will impersonate a scientist, doctor or any professional to make videos with dubious and even misleading content for money. Use your discretion in these kinds of services being offered.

This now makes me doubt the authenticity of so called experts I see in videos online. I do not know what the policy of Fiverr is regarding these kinds of services. One thing I know is that they exist and I believe they are not good for the reputation of Fiverr as a trustworthy freelancer platform.

As with all online jobs and income opportunities the competition is fierce. There may be thousands of applicants for every single job opportunity posted on these platforms. If you are thinking of going your own way by directly applying to companies then I would suggest that everytime you visit a site online check if they have a Careers or Employment feature.

I always do this and I am pleasantly surprised that many companies especially those involved in digital services usually have positions that can be done by a freelancer at home. The number of companies that are online is staggering and the more persistent you are in checking the career section of their websites the higher is the chance of you getting a job.

The best freelancers are once seasoned employees who have managed to gather contacts and turned them into clients once they become a freelancer. They get the better jobs and better clients because they have built in the social relationships over time. They do not even sometimes use online freelancing platforms to get jobs. Note this when you are about to embark on a freelancer career while still employed.

Conclusion

Using online job platforms to get jobs is getting difficult as almost everybody is using them now. The competition is fierce and unlike physical job applications online platforms are impersonal and you get treated based only on your digital persona so expect it to be a numbers game.

Taking the extra effort to research job opportunities on individual company websites could give you better and long lasting opportunities. If you intend to leave your job to pursue online jobs full-time prepare yourself by compiling a list of contacts and prospective clients which you alone know and nobody else so you built an almost monopoly of your clients.