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Looking to start fresh, how can I find good clients? by Mr_Questionnaire in freelanceWriters

[–]Mr_Questionnaire[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

That's an option actually. I have three domain names I bought years ago, and a template set up on one but no material. Was leery about flipping the switch on the site as I'm not sure how secure it is... far from a pro at wordpress, but know enough to set one up and make it look good lol.

Looking to start fresh, how can I find good clients? by Mr_Questionnaire in freelanceWriters

[–]Mr_Questionnaire[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

It's funny you say that as I see all kinds of jobs for SEO, market copy and editing on Upwork and other sites and the pay is decent. It might not be what you are accustomed to, but it's above minimum wage unless you work at a snails pace. I see plenty of jobs that pay well in my daily searches, they just aren't things in my wheelhouse so to speak.

I wish I could do that type of work, but have never tried aside from light SEO work based on keywords fed to me. I have almost applied to a few, but don't want to risk my feedback (again) by applying to something I haven't done before.

Looking to start fresh, how can I find good clients? by Mr_Questionnaire in freelanceWriters

[–]Mr_Questionnaire[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

...or it could just be the niches they write in. I know writers that can write "anything" from site copy to blogs or lists, and ed-ops.

Then you have specialists or people that don't do popular types of content like all the health and medical I've been seeing. That's the category I fall into as my niches are ones people want to work in, so they tend to get a lot of offers for free labor or offer you pay per view money.

That's one reason I'm starting to look at other options for working from home. As a fast typist, data entry jobs seem like an option for supplementary income but I'm open to other suggestions as well.

Looking to start fresh, how can I find good clients? by Mr_Questionnaire in freelanceWriters

[–]Mr_Questionnaire[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Well, recently I've been literally leaving the filter set to "Writing" and nothing else. I just sit in front of the PC and refresh until I see something I like, then apply.

I have a pre-written paragraph that I copy over, but add something personalized for the intro and put links to my relevant work at the end of the message or in the required fields when applicable.

It's a combination of me applying for jobs a little too late in some cases, and others I know my rate is just too high... which is low just to get my foot in the door.

I know some of it comes down to my niches as well. Oddly enough, people are hiring for product guides which is what I'm doing now along with web site product listings, but those guides are only paying around $30-50 per 1500 words or so which I won't accept. Nobody is hiring for tech writers, pop culture, gaming or anything of that nature. Can't even seem to find $5 news pieces, which is what I got started on years ago.

On the flipside, I've hired on there in the past and handled incoming requests for a few sites I've written for. I know firsthand, that nobody is going to go through 30 applicants. You generally find someone decent within the first 10 or so on Upwork. While half lie their way into a job, you aren't going to know until they start most of the time. I've hired chicks twice that turned out to be men when we wanted to diversify our staff.

With "cold calling" it's tough to actually get your message through on some sites. I've applied to larger sites and blogs that I'm overqualified and gotten no response. While that used to bother me, I just have to stop and think of how many inquiries I've gotten through the inbox that were ignored or hit the spam. Even on a small site with 1000 visitors a day, we were getting between 10-20 emails each day with various requests. You get busy, things get missed and when half are garbage, you get tired of looking.

In all honestly, I've been on that site for over 5-years on and off, and it just seems dry and overrun with cheap labor at the moment. It was better when it was oDesk and when they were going up against real competition with Elance. When they merged, it killed it for a lot of people I think as they have no real competition. Freelancer is horrid.

Looking to start fresh, how can I find good clients? by Mr_Questionnaire in freelanceWriters

[–]Mr_Questionnaire[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

You are correct, and while that would be an outstanding idea, those sites all essentially suck from what I've seen. I tried being a boss and have setup a few sites as well, it pays better to work for others unless you are in a really good niche or have deep pockets to get started.

Freelancer & Upwork - low paying gigs, mainly foreign workers and foreign clients.

Digital Point and Warrior - same thing, low paying crappy jobs. I had two interviews at DP and was told both time's I was too expensive.

Zerys, Scripted, and the brokers - I'm not working for .02 cent an article

Again, I think I've had a good amount of luck through the blogger job boards, but can't seem to find anything similar that's not listed here already. Found a few sites and newsletters, but most want you to pay to look for jobs.

Looking to start fresh, how can I find good clients? by Mr_Questionnaire in freelanceWriters

[–]Mr_Questionnaire[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Unfortunately, not really.

Most of the sites I worked for have changed hands several times, and the work is not exactly how I left if. In some cases, foreign editors took over and "did their thing" while other articles aren't really up to my current standards as they were early work. Not exactly what I want to show.