Internet Freelancing: Be Your Own Boss
As it is said in the Holy Bible, “My people perish for lack of Knowledge”. Do you know that there are thousands of people online looking for people they could hire to carry out jobs for them and they would pay you? They do not need to see you or know you, all they are concerned about is your skill to carry out their job done at the correct price. So, if you have a computer, internet connection, instead of wasting your time on Facebook or job search sites or other useless pastimes, you can engage in Internet Freelancing and become your own boss.
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So what is freelancing or who is a Freelancer?
A freelancer is someone who performs tasks, usually for multiple employers over the course of a year. A freelancer is somewhat like an independent contractor, he or she essentially sell their services to the highest bidder – except that they usually work for more than one employer.
Freelancers may work part-time or full-time. Because they are not considered employers, freelancers are allowed to work for other employers and are usually permitted to perform tasks in their own way, so long as the work gets done to the client’s specifications.
The internet has made it possible to carry out different kinds of jobs for people whom you have never met in different parts of the world and get paid for those jobs.
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What kind of Jobs could you carryout as an Internet Freelancer?
Such jobs you could carry out on the internet with your computer at home include: copywriting, writing articles, journalism, publishing, screenwriting, photojournalism, editing, event planning, copy editing, proofreading, indexing, computer programming, web design, website development, graphic design, consulting, tour guiding, video editing, video production and translating, accounting, spread sheet, data entry, etc.
If you are skilled in any of these activities, freelancing is the most straightforward path towards being your own boss. You can succeed with freelancing, with your commitment and seriousness. You could build your brand, company or name.
If you are new to Freelancing you can start bidding on jobs at very low rates build your portfolio and as your portfolio increases you can charge higher prices.
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So what makes Internet Freelancing very appealing?
- You can work with the convenience of your own schedule
- It is easy and cheap to start, all you need is your computer connected to the internet and you can work from home or anywhere you please.
- You don’t have a boss of over you, you can work for whom ever you want and fire your own boss even you are not pleased with working for the client.
- Once you register as a professional, you get e-mails informing you of new job posts matching your skill and to enable you bid for the job
- You can get good, long terms clients who trust you and you get to carryout their jobs for years to come even without seeing them and they being in another part of the world
- You can negotiate your pay if you have a long term client.
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So How Does it Work?:
Someone is looking to get a job done; he goes to a Freelance Agency website, to post his job, different professionals who are skilled to carry out the job bid on it. The owner of the job takes a look at the different professionals who have bided. He goes through their resume and price quote and chooses whomever he feels could carry out the job at the right price.
To prevent fraud, the owner of the Job pays the Freelance Agency website the money, a percentage would be given to the professional to start the work, once the job is completed according Job owner’s specification, he or she instructs the Freelance website to pay the professional.
The Freelance website acts as a middle man to bring the professional and those looking for someone who wants to get a job done together, depending on the policy of the Freelance agency website, a small percentage is paid as commission by the owner of the job or the professional.
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How to Register:
There are several internet freelance websites you could register as a professional to make money. I would be highlighting on a few of them.
Please note, not all of them accept Nigeria, some of them receive payments exclusively via PayPal; and y PayPal does not accept Nigeria. I would recommend you concentrate on the websites that accept Nigeria and do not require Paypal to receive money.
If you need to have a US address and dedicated phone number for this business I recommend you use VTN and Graphcard. If you need to have your own PayPal account to receive money for your internet business, I could also open up one for you.
On our Membership website www.internetbusinessacademy.com.ng , we will be giving you free-books and showing you how to set up your Freelancing business in the right manner.
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Below are the top 11 freelancing websites on the internet.
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1. Elance.com – Find job. Deliver great work. Get paid for results.
Elance is one of the largest freelancing site in the internet, many biggies post projects here, the freelancers and provider companies bids on the projects and client selects from wide range of choices. There are close to 1,00,000 experts (or freelancers) in elance !! and more than 20k jobs are posted each month. This is definitely one of the best place for all wannabe freelancing newbies. There are both free and paid plans. I recommend you start with free basic account and then move on to the real battle with premium account
Allows Nigerians. Has free and paid accounts for contractors (freelancers)
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2. Guru.com – Find freelancers for hire. get your projects done.
Guru is another biggest freelancing site, with more than 1,00,000+ freelancers, Guru boasts of patent pending rating system which provides proper rating. It also boasts of escrow integration which is obviously an added + for both providors and jobposters. This site also has both free and premium membership based on categories of work which you’re willing to do. This is also one of the place you must try.
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3. ODesk – Guaranteed work. Guaranteed Payment.
This site has one of the best user friendly system i’ve ever seen. It has both hourly and fixed rate jobs, hourly jobs are guaranteed pays, and time are logged via its own odesk team software which have multiplatform support. The average of feedback of last 30 days don’t even fall beyond 4stars. There are no membership fees !! you only have to pay 10% of your final payment. This is definitely the site for new comers. This is a must try.
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4. FreelanceSwitch – Envato’s own job board.
Most of us are familiar with Envato by their top design and development blogs. FreelanceSwitch is a new site, but nevertheless its one of the most favored site by the job posters. If you have the top notch knowledge to compete with the some of best developers and designers in the world it here. The place is guaranteed to give you good payments for your hardwork.
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5. RentACoder – How software gets done.
Rent a coder is basically software development freelancing site. It has Escrow support. You can find some good projects here. It boasts of pool of more than 2,00,000+ coders, rentacoder chanrges 15% fee of final payment. Its one of the oldest freelance bidding sites.
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6. GetAFreelancer – Online freelance jobs.
GAF has both paid and nonpaid plans, Its an Australian company with over 1,00,000 verified users.
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7. GetACoder – Quick & Easy Outsourcing jobs
Most providors of this site are from India, so you should not expect high payments (war between indian developers and designers have already lowered the rates here). A good site for a startup newbie
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8. 99Designs – Leading markerplace for logo design and more…
This one is mainly a design freelancing site, with a unique idea, where contests with winning amount are posted and freelancers show their designs and the winner takes it all. This is a little risky for new freelancers but if you have that potential you can earn some good money and also win some contests.
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Another great freelancing website to lookout for. This is a very good site for starters. Jobs are regular but this is fully membership based site, membership starts at $4.69/month.
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10. CrowdSpring – Global marketplace for creative services
The average projects gets 85 to choose from!! Buyers set price, gets ridiculous amounts of selection, chooses one from it and pays the winner.
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Most of the projects here are priced at $5 and are called Gigs. Check out Fiverr.com and get inspired to start your own Gigs and earn money..
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Later on we would be going into detail on Internet Freelancing and be giving out free books on how to be a great freelancer. Make sure you sign up to our Free newsletter on InternetBusinessAcademy.com.ng to be informed.
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Samuel Oritsejimi Iyinbo has been making money online since 2003 as a website designer with over 60 clients and counting, an internet business consultant, serial entrepreneur and spiritual teacher where he disseminates spiritual messages The Roving Messenger. He founded Illumination Concepts’ E-learning Centre and Innovation Hub the Internet Business Academy Nigeria, to share his knowledge and to train people on how to make money online.