I wonder whats next Google… ?

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Most sites using this theory require that you purchase bids in order to participate, but this new site GoLowBids is sweeping America by storm. I’ve already won a $25.00 iTunes Gift Card for a whopping $0.13 cents! GoLowBids sets themself apart by offering free membership with a total of 5 free bids per day. And if you are looking to have an advantage over the competition there are many different subscription options for you to chose from if you would like to upgrade. If you upgrade it gives you more daily bids and the ability to keep up with Lowest Unique Bid Survival.

Anyways, it is definitely something for you to check out if you are in the United States. If you aren’t in the United States atleast take a look over the site and see what kinds of items they have, as they will be opening sites soon specifically for the UK and AU areas. GoLowBids

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I do expect to be a PR2-PR3 by the next update however, and maybe we can even make it better than tat, but we shall see. Let me give you a rundown of some of my website PR updates, even on domain names that I hardly use. Designs by Casey PR2, WP Abuse PR3, Digilized PR1, Maximize My Results PR1, Code4MySpace PR2, — A couple others I don’t rightly want to mention right now as they are in developments. 

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So yes, I have my heart set on creating a nice theme for this website that will help with visitor interaction, and as soon as I have a preview of it for you I will make a post about it. Until then, Brian Gardners theme seems to be running very smoothly and he has done some great work on this and many other themes.

However, if you yourself are looking for a custom WordPress theme to help suit your websites needs, let me know over at Designs by Casey as WordPress is what I specialize in. I have built many custom themes and I have even helped modify some pre-made themes for a few of my clients. With your ideas, my creativity and development, just about anything is possible.

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As a website development based freelancer I come across some great tools to help with my every day work. One of these tools as of late has been the use of validating cross-browser compatibility using the FREE Browser Shots website.

Browser Shots provides a very nice system to be able to see a screen shot of what your web site looks at the span of about 44 different browsers across multiple operating systems. From using the web site I have found that the web’s new style of coding is particularly not liked in IE5.5 and IE6.0 — Neither of which I use, which is why I use Browser Shots.

If you are in the design and development field, this is a great service to us developers. It is pretty important to have a cross-browser compatible website and to develop them cross-browser as I’m sure most of you know. W3C Compliance is always a plus, but you can be W3C Compliant and still not look right across many browsers.

If you’re not in the development industry but have a website that you had developed, it’s a good tool to make sure the developer did a good job. Anyways, take a visit, scan some sites with it, and let me know what you think in the comments please.

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I was a little skeptical at first to believe that google would be updating page rank this soon as I heard it wasn’t going to happen until September, but another SEO friend of mine said he thinks it will happen soon as well because Google has been doing some very intensive indexing over the last couple weeks. Well, we shall just wait and see huh?

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• Constant Content
• Helium
• Associated Content
• Go Freelance

They are freelance sites that you can register to join and write articles to supplement your income or to have an income. Freelance work is becoming more popular as people opt to stay at home and have an income based on using the computer. Since selling is not for everyone, many are trying their hand at writing.

With some sites such as Go Freelance, you have to bid on the jobs that you are best suited for and see if you have the winning bid. If you are in a hurry to get started on your freelance work, you may want to try another type of site such as Associated Content. This site has freelance tips to help you navigate their system. 

Once there you may choose your topic and if they decide to publish your work, they will pay for it. However, it is not a great deal of money unless you can write several articles a day that are within the guidelines and good enough to get them published. Once published your article will rate performance pay, which means that the more people that read your article, the more you will make.

Helium is another site if you are looking for freelance work. On this site people request articles, you write them and wait to see if they will buy yours. The articles are ranked by the writers and everyone vies for the number one spot. Some of the prices offered per article at this site are very good. Freelance tips are available if you get stuck and need a little help.

Constant Content is similar to Helium except they do not rank the articles. They either accept them for publishing or they reject them. They are a bit fussier than the other sites and they take a cut of your pay when you sell an article. They do have several forums and answer systems including freelance tips that you may utilize if you are having problems with their site or your articles.

If you decide freelance work is for you, jobs are available. You must love writing, be meticulous, and take pride in your work. The world of freelance is an exciting opportunity to do something that you enjoy and make a little money at the same time.

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UPDATE: This position has been filled.

I feel like I have let you down. I have put together this website to write articles about things that help me in my freelance career and make me as successful as I am at it. To help you, my readers make the best out of your career. I wanted to give you week starter tips on Mondays, and Tips for Tuesdays, but I was unable to keep up with it because of the amount of work I have accumulated as a freelancer.

I am so consumed in my clients that I have been unable to keep up with this site, and for that I am sorry. I know that my readers deserve better and I will try and provide better for you.

On the other hand, I am hiring! Yes thats right, hiring. Below are the specifications.

• WordPress Expertise REQUIRED
• PHP/xHTML/CSS Expertise REQUIRED
• Graphic Design is a plus, but not required
• W3C Valid Standards is REQUIRED
• Professionalism on ALL aspects
• You will not deal directly with clients
• Able to meet specified deadlines on projects
• Able to provide near bug-free products
• Ability to be paid via PayPal
• MUST RESIDE IN THE UNITED STATES

If you feel you are up to the task, I have work to keep you busy full time for a few years, and I always “go out” and get more work if it ever slows down.

Contact me at intend[.at.]google[.dot.]com, If you can’t figure out how to decipher this email address, you obviously should not be applying for the position.

– Casey

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And if you aren’t fully out of the dog house yet and are just starting out or are having a hard time getting work while freelancing, just keep reading this site and coming back for more tips and hints from a freelancer who does well. But even if you aren’t doing that well it’s still time to celebrate even if you are not in the US so get out there, grill up some burgers and have a good time with the family!

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Following this list of tips and using these tools can help you become more successful, earn repeat and referral business, as well as great reviews and a good customer base. I have been freelancing for years but just recently started making it a full time stay at home job, and let me tell you what: I love it. Freelancing allows me to be at home with the family, spend more time with my fiance and less time driving to and from work. It allows me to work when I want to, rather than what hours I am given.

Now I thought that when I would start doing this from home full time that there would be a lot of distractions, and that I wouldn’t be able to put full focus into it but I was wrong. When you live with a big family this can be hard, especially when they don’t understand that you aren’t sitting at your computer all day browsing the web and reading funny jokes, but you’re actually sitting there making money, talking to clients, and getting things accomplished.

If however, you do live with a large family, be sure to have your own office in the house if at all possible. This will certainly help with the distractions of the family being around you all the time while you are working. If it’s just you and your fiance for instance, then this should not be a problem.

All right, let’s get down to the nitty gritty. What do we do and how do we do it.

Create a portfolio website

• This is great for showing your customers work that you have done. Some freelancers think that they have to build a portfolio site that is way better than anything else they have worked on. This is not the case! Be simple, be relevant, and be suttle.
• Have a home page that displays some information about you, and what you do and offer. It might be a good idea to include a blog and talk about some work that you are doing or have done.
• Have a portfolio page that shows off some of the work you’ve done. I try to include everything that I have done in my portfolio, but sometimes when you are very busy working on multiple projects its hard to update your portfolio with every single project. Make sure to include a testimonial from that customer, if you don’t have one from them: Ask for one.
• Have a resume page setup just like a Word resume. Explain your skills, education, references, prior experience, etc. This helps show qualification and professionalism. Allowing the prospect to see that your are serious enough to get things accomplished.
• Have a support portal for your current clients. I use my support portal for clients to let me know about bugs in something I have developed for them so that I might be able to fix the issue for them. Showing that I provide quality service and I care about the quality of my development. This also helps me bring in repeat business, as most of my customers also submit new projects to me via my ticketing system.
• Have a contact form for prospective customers to send a service inquiry to you to have some work done. This is important because not all of the customers you receive will be from referrals and the like, but once you get known and start to create a buzz around your services you will get direct clients out of thin air.
• And remember: Don’t put advertisements on your portfolio site. Sure if you get large enough you may start to get some good traffic, especially if you are blogging. But your prospects don’t want to see you trying to make revenue off them visitng your website. Save the advertisements for other personal project websites if you have any.

Have a good project management system

• This is very important when managing multiple projects at one time. If you are as busy with stuff as I am then you should know that this is very important. Managing projects in the freelance business can make or break you. If you don’t manage your time and projects correctly you can easily become overwhelmed very fast and get burnt out on the work you are doing because you are always busy taking care of something.
• Things always go a lot smoother when you have everything organized in an easy to manage project system. I have found that MyIntervals works very well for time and project management. Using this system allow me to manage my projects and where I am at with each of them. It also allows me to generate time reports and send them to my clients as I am working on their projects. This helps my client understand where I am at and the timeline base for completion of their project.

Take care of your clients

• And they will take good care of you. I can’t stress this enough! Keeping my clients happy overall is my key goal when working with them. My clients bring me more business than anything else. If I create a website for a client and he loves it, he is most likely going to recommend me to anyone else he encounters than needs something done. In one of my previous posts I wrote about how Referral business is the best type of business. I wasn’t lying when I said that.
• Every now and then there will be a client who just expects you to over acheive, or do more than what the project outline says and will get upset when you request more money for more features or services. It’s extremely hard to make these clients happy when they expect the world from you. Don’t give in to their wants because they want you to do more than you’re suppose to. Just tell them how it is. Some people will get upset, and some of them will agree and pay more for the extra functionality. Thus far I have run into 1 client that expected more from me than I could deliver within his budget, after a little bit of bickering I told this client to find someone else who can complete it within his budget. Time is valuable, and if the client expect quality results, they should be willing to pay for that quality in my opinion.

Don’t over extend or overwhelm yourself

• Being one person freelancing and managing multiple projects at one time can be very time consuming. If you feel that you have enough projects lying around, don’t agree to take on more than you can chew. Let the potential client know that you would love to help them with their project, and as you try and give every client the best quality of service, it would be hard for you to start their project right away. If they still feel you are the best candidate to complete their work, they will wait for you to finish your current projects and then start theirs.
• Sometimes the client just can’t wait. And if its an easy project and would only take a day or two, go ahead and do it, but charge an emergency fee. If they want it done quickly and want you to do it, they won’t mind paying this emergency fee. If the project isn’t easy, and they can’t wait, then don’t take on the project. Refer them to another freelancer you know that could take care of their needs. You don’t want to be stressed trying to handle 20-30 projects at one time, so just let them know you can’t do it.

 Well, if you follow this guide, I’m sure that you could do well in your online freelancing business. Starting off in this business and building a customer base and exposure is always the hard part. But if you follow this guide you should be able to build that customer base in no time at all.

Just remember, quality is key.

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