Bidding Sites. A Necessary Evil
October 30th 2010 20:12
(Fall 2010 version of my "dirty jobs" post from 2008)
Bidding sites are a lot like our stupid relatives. We love to hate them but occasionally they stop being pains in the ass long enough to do something nice for us.
Here's the list of the "best" bidding sites as of late 2010 with a short description of each.
Freelancer.com
Freelancer is one of the most heavily populated sites with work at home jobs of all sorts. There are close to 100 categories you can offer your services in but you can only choose 12-15 at a certain time. For writers I recommend writing, content writing, article writing, seo, proofreading, editing and anything else related to writing.
You'll have to browse through TONS of jobs bidding on whatever meets your criteria but it's like digging through a septic tank searching for a lost ring. You're going to have to sift through pile after pile of crap to find gold.
Here's 2 examples:
CRAP!
NATIVE ENGLISH ONLY!!
i. 150 - 300 words article based on keyword given later.
iii. Maximum bid USD45.
iv. Payment through Freelancer.com.
v. Please carefully read because if you miss something I won't consider your bid.
HAHAHAHHA. You'd make more than $45 raking up leaves door to door.
BEST JOB EVER (has been paying me $300-500/month for 3 years now)
Looking for customer support for my personal website. You will answer e-mails and support tickets in an online support system. Will probably start off slow but will increase over time.
Thanks!
Now, that second one may have been pure luck but DO NOT limit yourself to writing only. Private customer support can make you 10 times as much doing 10 times less work and they are often looking for international workers.
Elance
I haven't had a ton of luck with Elance but that's because I haven't put any effort into it. I did a few jobs years ago then kind of forgot about it. It's definitely worth your time however because the rules for bidding and such are a bit stricter than Freelancer so when you find online writing jobs you don't have quite as much competition.
Guru
Guru is another great bidding site that is a little higher class than most. The problem is you will have to get a premium membership to secure more better jobs. I won't lie, I'm a cheap bastard so don't do this. I DO get e-mails listing new jobs in my specialization categories daily which is nice but I don't follow up on many so don't get many.
Rentacoder (now vWorker)
Vworker is similar to the others and has a large base of loyal employers/employees. It's worth your time to create an engaging profile here as you'll often get personal invites. I've gotten big jobs from here and hired people I know to help me out. Good site!
There are more than this but I'll stop here for now. The rule with these sites is DON'T BID ON CRAP and if it's too good to be true, it's a scam. Make sure the money is in escrow before you start the project unless you risk working off the books with a client in which case get 50% down in Paypal.
(will add more sites to this soon)
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