Freelance work
Just curious, I've been a front-end developer for over 3 years now and just recently transitioned into freelance. I've had a little luck on UpWork providing I apply for 3 jobs a day, everyday. What's the best approach these days, directly contacting agencies?
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Hi Baillie, send me your Upwork profile link, I can help.
https://www.upwork.com/freelancers/~01e011869e0ff2fee0 - UpWork have currently switched it to private again :o any help would be appreciated though :)
Found it! I use UpWork daily, consider a lower initial rate for some small jobs. Get some reviews and you should see work become available. I cant see your profile, but there is a lot of optimization that you can do to get work. For instance the title, is extremely important. "Front-end developer / WordPress developer"is very bad. Try something like Front-end developer with expertise on <Saas Wordpress themes>.
The optimization should be for all your profile and focus on a niche. Try a profile picture holding something that you have designed, or something that gets attention. Is very competitive but most freelancers don't take much time to look into these details that make all the difference.
Instead of spending time applying to jobs, spend time optimizing your profile until jobs come to you. Do A/B testing, and write down the data. Check your competitors. It is a niche SEO not much different from Google SEO.
Very interesting, I did exactly that at first, doing £500 jobs for next to nothing and receiving good reviews, ensuring 200% effort was put into every project regardless of the clients budget. I agree on the optimisation front, I've been invited to two jobs recently that slightly relate to my expertise, but nothing promising.
Profile picture will be getting changed to something a little more engaging, check. Competitive is an understatement, I see this as a positive more than anything although I thought the recent 'Enforcing you to buy connects' would filter out a lot of spam but there still seems to be like 50+ applications on some listings in less than 10 minutes x'D
Will do from now on, my primary speciality is bespoke WordPress themes so I'll lay more empathises into that. Then, down the line reveal my true potential with JavaScript and more modern front end technologies. I've always underestimated SEO, it's pretty powerful I guess if you do it right.
Thank you for this response, opened my eyes!
You got it! You can "hack" yourself to the top of UpWork profiles with some work. A few other things that work is to create a brand and site for yourself. When the clients ask for a reference that is what you show them. Then you can talk about the technology that you used, some javascript you optimized, etc... It is about sales and marketing for your services.
Further, think about creating a strong brand that can develop into a software agency so that you can scale this new vision. Think Bill Gates writing software vs Bill Gates starting Microsoft.
Indeed, already on it, baillieogrady.com. Got myself a YouTube channel and blog where I post fairly regularly. I always include my profile link in every proposal. Yup, damn marketing.
It's the reason why people buy nike rather than primark, same principle I guess.
Website looks good, try applying the same principles to it. You don't want "FREELANCE WEB DEVELOPER" as your title. You want niche: Finance Saas Web developer. You stop competing with all the Freelance web developers and instead focus on a niche, Finance Saas Wordpress themes. You get the idea.
Match your Upwork Profile, with the site, so it appeals to a niche for which you can deliver something your competitors can't.
Thanks, ahhh, I suppose naturally I just reserve the blanket title to not scare away potential clients but I get you, maybe be very specific and target agencies + companies of that industry, for instance finance.
Would WordPress developer be too broad?
If you have the blanket title to avoid scare away clients, the issue is not scaring your possible clients, the issue is competing with another 1000 developers offering the same at a fraction of the cost. Do you really want to compete on the market of "Wordpress developer"? or would you rater market Enterprise Wordpress theme UX specialist? Find your niche.
Very true, that's really weird as I read an article earlier and that mentioned to find your niche. I though front-end developer was niche enough but there's so many branches from it these days its unreal, your right, time to niche things up
Thanks again, great help
Upwork is the biggest waste of time ever!!!
Actually, all those freelancer platforms are a waste of time, unless you want to charge super low prices and deal with spam accounts all the time. I've been there, done that.
The older tried and trusted way of freelancing is first to try and get a company that needs some work done, best if it's a local company near you. Then after doing a good job, get another one, then word will start spreading.
Currently going through the whirlwind now and couldn't agree more. I notice other people earning a lot on the platform and I've finally built up some credibility on it but getting work is next to impossible unless like you say, you're willing to condone a super low priced job etc...
I agree, I'll start ringing some agencies local to me, it's mad when I notice poor quality code being paid a handsome price and all I want to do is code quality work for a reasonable price but I guess it's all in the marketing :p
@baillieogrady this is something we're working on at Betterlance. Would love to know what you think and if this is something you would use: https://betterlance.co/leads
I've been working freelance frontend dev for 10+ years, I was living in Australia for 8 years, it took me a while to build up clients, there are lots of digital / ad agencies there (in Melbourne) so I contacted the head's of digital and studio managers on LinkedIn and showed them my portfolio and said if they need me then please get in touch. This worked well.
I've now moved to Switzerland where I have no contacts, I tried the same tactic but it's not worked! There are a lot less agencies here, it's mostly corporate - Finance, Pharma etc. They seem to use overseas agencies because the cost is lower. I've got one client here now and a couple in London, finding it hard but luckily my wife has a perm job so I'm updating skills in between gigs.
If anyone has tips then please share :)
Thanks for the LinkedIn tip, I'll try this.
Currently learning myself, with UpWork, as you probably already know, it just a matter of constant perseverance. I believe web development should be remote work by default as all you need is any internet connection but most businesses go by the model of '2 days a week in the office', so finding contract work is difficult without committing to working locally so I understand :/