Freelance for Newbies

What is freelance work? I am sure that you have heard of freelance photographers eagerly snapping photographs of movie and sports stars, and selling them at huge profits to gossip columns and entertainment magazines or websites. These photographers are not employed by any of these magazine or website owners. They work for themselves as freelancers, and decide when and where they would like to work and often sell their work to the highest bidder if a highly sought after photograph has been taken.

Taking and selling photographs is by no means the only freelance opportunities available to freelance workers. You can work as a freelancer in many different professions. You can work as a translator, design websites, create applications, optimize websites, write adverts, work as a virtual PA, write reviews, the list goes on and on. And similar to freelance photographers, you decide when you want to work, and how much work you would like to do. No more working office hours at the beck and call of your boss. You are your own boss.

It does sound wonderful, doesn’t it? Well it is not as simple as it seems, but it could be. We all have knowledge of something, a particular area where we would consider ourselves to be an expert. Why not use this knowledge by working as a freelancer, and getting paid to share your knowledge. It is much easier than you think.

Where do you go to get work as a freelancer?

Searching on Google will get you millions of possible results for potential freelance work. Proceed carefully though, as there are many scams out there. Your best bet would be to start with a reputable freelance provider. Again you can use Google to search for information on a particular site, and often you can find comments from would be freelancers, supporting or exposing these sites.

There are primarily two types of freelancer sites. The first type asks you to pay a membership fee, either monthly, or a once of payment. For someone starting with very little available resources, and no reputation, this could be a difficult option. They do have their advantages though. They tend to attract the more serious freelancers and suppliers, simply because you have to pay to join. These sites may or may not charge commission on projects completed. On the down side you can get scammed out of your hard earned cash by sites promising thousands of jobs, but once you have paid to join, you find very few opportunities available. The once off payment sites will mostly fall into this category.

The second type of freelancer sites will cost you nothing to join, and they will take a percentage of the total value of the project. The percentage is generally higher than pay to join sites, and is normally around ten percent. The advantage of this type of site is that anyone can join, but this can be a disadvantage as well, as you will get more unreliable freelancers and suppliers. If this type of site is well managed, it can be a good opportunity for new freelancers.

Before you join any of these sites though, you have to ensure that you can receive payments made to you. Most sites will offer you the option of more than one payment option, but you have to ensure that you can receive payment in your country. As an example you can not receive payments using Paypal in all countries. The last thing you would want is to complete a project and then find that you can not get your money.

To start of as a freelancer, you will have to build a good reputation. This may require you to work at much lower rates in the beginning to be able to secure projects. Consider this as your learning curve. Many freelancers take years before they can get sufficient work to be able to earn a living wage. You have to get stuck in and be unrelenting, and then you will be successful. 

Affiliate marketing for newbie’s

Affiliate marketing has exploded on the internet since Amazon launched its affiliate program in the mid nineties. Although Amazon was not the first to introduce affiliate programs, it certainly was the first to make it available to the larger internet public, and most affiliate programs are still based on the Amazon model. Today affiliate marketing has become an integral part of most online marketers’ portfolios, and affiliate sales amount to billions of dollars every year.

So what does affiliate marketing, or performance marketing as it is sometimes called, really mean. In summary it means that as an affiliate, you act as a marketer for someone else by marketing or promoting their products, mostly on your website, and getting rewarded for any sales or “leads” generated from your advertising.  Sounds simple, right! The concept is really simple, but to make a success in affiliate marketing is significantly more complex.

If you search for the term “affiliate marketing” in Google, you will get more than forty million possible sites related to your search. So where do you start if you are interested in becoming an affiliate marketer. With so much to choose from many would be affiliate marketers suffer from information overload, and never get off the ground. Pick a good affiliate program and get started.

How do I pick a good program?

Look at the pay structure. Many affiliate programs will only pay you only for the first time you refer a customer to their site and a purchase is made. The good programs will have an extended period cookie system. This means that you will get paid if the customer returns to the site, even if you did not refer him again, for any purchases made for the extended period. Some sites even offer lifetime cookies. Customers seldom make a purchase on the first visit and you will lose out if they return later.

Look at the products. When you refer a customer to a site, you must have a good chance that a sale is going to be made. A sales site with errors on the sales page, or a page that looks unprofessional will not get the deal done. When viewing the sales page simply decide for yourself, if you were interested in that product, will that page make you buy it. If not, then stay away.

It is always good to know more about the product, so if possible purchase the product. You do not want to advertise a product of poor quality. This will just lead to returns and you will not get your money, and your reputation will suffer in the long term.

Look at the affiliate support. As a bare minimum the supplier should supply you with material to market the product. Whether it is banners, or product information, or any other type of promotional material, you need material to advertise. A simple text link will not get you any business. The good affiliate programs will, in addition, supply you with training tools, FAQ’s and ways to track your sales and commissions. Good support leads to great results. At the end of the day, if you do well, they do well.

Almost any person can set up a website and advertise a few products, or an entire store full of products, but if no-one knows you exist, you will not sell anything. The main role of an affiliate is to expose a product to the market. To be able to expose your products to the market, you need to get traffic to your site. I do not plan to discuss SEO and site ranking or other marketing techniques here. That may be a future article. The point I would like to get across though, is that to be able to market your site and products, the site must be targeted to a specific audience. By having a diverse range of products you make it almost impossible to market your site, or to get a high ranking for search engines.

Your products must be related and target a specific market. You don’t want to confuse your customers with hundreds of products. They will leave your site without clicking on those all important links. Select your products well, and know who your customers are going to be.