If you are good at doing almost any type of work online, there is someone who is willing to pay you to do the work for them. This is an easy way to bring in come extra money, something which I think a lot of us could use.

This blog post is a continuation on my Happy 2010 post where I shared 4 ways to make money online this year.

If you want to work as a freelancer to get paid for doing something for someone else, here are a few jobs which people will pay you for;

• Writing articles or ebooks,
• Market research for niche keywords,
• Creating graphics for web sites,
• Link building,
• Social/Web2.0 marketing,
• Copywriting,
• Programming,
• Web site creation.

Here 6 steps to help you start your freelance carrier;

Step #1: What are you good at?

It doesn’t matter how good you think you are (or how bad), all that matters is if there is someone out there willing to pay for your work. So your first step would be to go look through some of the freelance sites to see the types of jobs being offered and the requirements needed.

For simple article writing jobs, a grade 10 level of writing is all that many people require. But if you know some programming to create software, than there can be some big requirements in order to get the job done.

Take a look at what you are able to do online and compare them with what people are paying for. Then move on to the next step.

Step #2: Sign up with the popular freelance sites.

In the first step you should have taken a look at some of the freelance job offers, so this step might need to be done at that point, but not all sites require you to join just to look around.

Below are some of the more popular freelance sites, but there are many more out there. When first starting out it is important to be regularly checking them all for possible jobs.

• Elance
• Freelancer (use to be GetAFreelancer)
• RentACoder
• Guru
• oDesk

The sites listed above are in no particular order. They each have their own way of doing things and different types of buyers and sellers go to each site. So it is important to sign up with many of them and keep a watch to see the kinds of jobs and work being posted.

You can also check out forums and marketplaces within your niche for other spots where you can advertise your freelance work.

Step #3: Get some samples ready.

This step may depend upon what you are good at doing, as it might be possible that a sample can’t really be made ahead of time. For the most part, if you write articles or make software, graphics, or do SEO, then it is very important to have some previous work or at least some samples ready to share with potential buyers.

When you first start out as a freelancer, you will not have any previous user rating at the freelance sites which means that the buyers do not know if you will do a good job or if you will scam them. Make it as easy as possible for them to say “Yes” to you.

Step #4: Start posting your bids!

On the freelance sites they usually work on a bidding process, where the sellers/freelancers bid for the jobs posted by the buyers. This means that all of the other freelancers who are good at writing articles will also see and bid on an article job. This is where samples, user rating, and your bid price become very important.

You should already have some samples or previous work ready to show, but you won’t have any user rating yet (but you will get some over time). So now your bid has to be good to grab the attention of the buyer.

Your bid shouldn’t be too high or too low. You might think that the lowest bid will be a good way to go, but in most cases that is not true. Too cheap and the buyers will think that the job won’t get done well and that the freelancer might just run off with the money. Too high and the buyers will ignore you.

Since you are new your bid should be on the low side, but make sure to state in your bid why it’s low (because you are knew and want to gain their trust). It really does depend what other bids are there and what type of work it is. But a lower bid without being the lowest and a good bid description with links to samples should help you get noticed.

Step #5: Get to work.

Once one of your bids has been accepted, it is now time to work. The great thing about being a freelancer is that you know you will get paid for the work you do, instead of just hoping you will if you write an ebook to put up for sale on some web site.

Make a good first impression by getting started on the job as soon as you can and keep in regular contact with the buyer. If the job is going to take weeks to complete, then make sure the buyer knows that and tell them how it’s going several times throughout the job.

Buyers want to know that they made a good decision to hire you, so make sure that they know that.

Once you have completed the job and have sent the files to the buyer and have been paid, make sure to rate the buyer and ask them to do the same for you. Most freelance sites have some sort of user rating.

Step #6: Repeat the process.

If you want to keep doing freelance work, then make sure to keep posting your bids. You will not get accepted to all of the jobs you bid for, probably not even half of them. There are a lot of freelancers out there. But keep at it and keep doing a good job so that you will become a highly rated user with a lot of previous work to show.

As you can see, just about anyone can start making money online as a freelancer. It doesn’t require any website of your own (although that might help) and you don’t have to go looking for traffic. You just have to go tell others what you are good at and hope they accept your bid!

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