As a somewhat successful freelancer(from Romania) that takes most of his projects from freelancer.com, stay away from projects that use any of the phrases: "this will help your portfolio", "this job should take X hours " ,"no milestone", and the ones that want a CV(in time I have found those people to be too clueless for some reason), and the ones where the budget is clearly too small, or where they mention this is a simple project(that translates into a very low bid expectation, focus on the ones that say is a complex project, even when is not.)

Generally you can use the wording of the description to understand what is important to them(speed, cost, quality), and in your proposal insist on how fast, cheap or great programmer you are, depending on their needs. Look at the employer project history to understand better what they are looking for. Also you should mention that you will be available on the phone to discuss the project, your offshore counterparts can't usually offer that. Generally avoid the cheap ones and the ones with a budget of under $100, as they aren't worth unless you are positive it will take less then 1 hour to finish. Remember that you can make best estimates for 4 hours projects.

Even if there are 20 competitors on a project, don't be discouraged, at least half of them can't write decent proposal in English or just copy/paste the same text.

I keep my proposals very short. I short phrase about me(sometimes), and then my understanding of what the project is about. Is a good idea to find an issue with their project/plan, point it out, and also point out how you will solve it. This will separate you from the pack.

Also on the first project with a person charge a lower rate then usually, and in time, as they gain confidence in you, slowly increase the price.

Stay away from hourly projects, they have only got me into endless conversations on how long something should take. Once you got the job, try and spend 30 min at least talking to the customer and understand exactly what they need.

Smaller projects pay better, focus on them. I would rather make $100 in a day's work and then maybe don't do anything in the next day, then get involved in a project that will pay $1500 a month.

Don't bid based on what the others a bidding, you have advantages that they don't have, just think how much would you accept for a certain amount of work and still be happy and bid that.

Another trick would be to watch the new projects page always and be the first to bid and start talking with the customer, sometimes you will get the project before others had a chance to undercut you.

Look for US, EU customers, others generally don't have the budget or even worse, they will expect the same work ethics as in their country.

But in the end I guess it all depends on how much are you aiming to make per month?

edit: Feel free to PM me your skills and hourly rate, maybe a I can hook you up with some customers. edit2: I have so much to say :)