How to earn $100+ a week using oDesk...

I may be "new" to the forum but I am not new to the ways of making money on the internet... over the years I have made thousands online and acquired skills along the way which helped to earn more money as time has gone on. Unfortunately life has took most of my time the last couple years and I dropped off making money online for at least the last 2 years but have finally jumped back on the horse and started building a name for myself once again and earning some money along the way.

Since I joined BHW I have noticed some posts asking how to make money online and I guess these folks haven't tried hard enough to make any money so this is why I am going to post this thread on how to earn at least $100 a week using oDesk with some extra time that is being used to ask how to make money online.

First to make any money on oDesk which is a freelance jobs site you must have at least one skill... doesn't even have to be a skill in which you are an expert in since many people rather pay a lower price for less experience. For example I have experience in web design / Photoshop / SEO / article writing (not the best) which I have been using to get simple jobs that earn me over $100 a week on the side when I am not working at my full-time job.

Now you are going to want to create an account on oDesk and create an attractive profile... they will not let your job proposals show if you have not taken the time to set up a decent profile. When you set up a profile you are going to want to do these main things - upload a picture of yourself that is respectful and professional, write about the skills that you have even if it is one skills. Beef that paragraph up about the skill you have so that it lures clients into wanting to use you for work. Upload some examples in your portfolio of work you have done whether it be websites that you have designed or articles that you have wrote.

After your profile is completed I know everyone is going to be eager to find a job and start making that money. What I learned is do not go for the $100+ jobs first since they take a lot more time and you are new even if you have skills behind you the client does not know this. Aim for jobs that are only for $5-10 for the first week so they are fast to complete and after the job is done the client can give you feedback which is vital on oDesk. Since these $5-10 jobs can be completed in 15-20 minutes you can rack up 10-20 client feedback ratings in the first week which will allow you to receive more jobs from clients since you have a good feedback.

So now fast forward a week after you have already been making $5-10 here and there to gain good reputable feedback on oDesk. There you have it, your first week you probably have already made $100 and you are not even bidding for decent priced jobs. Now that you have the feedback needed you can start bidding on bigger jobs and have more of chance to be interviewed and chosen to complete the job which means more money for you and the end result you can make $100+ a week using oDesk.

This method is guaranteed to work if you take the time and effort to do it right... also completing the skill tests help get you jobs also since the client can see on your profile which ones you have taken and passed. Currently I have completed 4 which 2 are in the skill I am focusing on now to earn from and 2 are just if I see a side job that I can complete that relates. Like I said as long as you are not lazy and want money for doing nothing then this is a sure fire set in stone method to earning. After just a week and a half of being on oDesk after being away from making money online I have already earned more than $250 after I work a 48 hour week at my full-time job.

Tips about oDesk / Job Proposals / Etc...

- Focus on creating a excellent profile to attract clients to your work.
- Take skill tests to show clients that you can do the work.
- When submitting a job proposal take your time and write out an excellent proposal that is professional.
- Undershoot the clients budget - Example their budget is $100 give them a proposal of $75 if you know it is worth the time to make $75 and your not cutting yourself short.
- Try to avoid submitting proposals to clients who do not have any proven funding for the job, no hires, etc. since this will take away from your proposal limit.

If you have any questions I will be more than happy to answer them in the thread. Please do not PM me since I am busy using this method myself and don't have time to personally coach everyone who PM's me.

Thank you for your tips I tried oDesk once but found other mediums more lucrative!

Thanks for the tips. What are your views about Freelancer? I have been there since 1 year.....

I completely understand the more lucrative mediums such as Elance etc.. if that is what you meant by other mediums but if not I would like to know more on where I can find some jobs to complete.

At the moment I have only been working on oDesk but plan on doing the same thing on Elance but the work and clients there are more high dollar and professional so since I am just starting to build another portfolio I will want to wait till I have a decent portfolio to post on Elance.

I forgot to mention at the moment I am focusing on article writing on oDesk which seems to vary on the pay. Some people want to get something for nothing and pay $2 per 500 words but then others are willing to pay $7 for a 400-500 word article if you are fluent in English and can produce original articles. Like I said in the original post my article writing is not the best but I can come up with decent articles but afterwards I have to have them revised and have the grammatical errors fixed which costs money but the overall earnings are much better even with paying someone else to revise the article since I can get jobs that pay $70+ for 10 articles and a couple hours of my time.

techaudible said:

Thanks for the tips. What are your views about Freelancer? I have been there since 1 year.....

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Freelancing is not the type of job that will make you get rich quick... this requires time and hard work to get jobs and satisfy clients so that you can get more jobs but if you keep at it the money will always be there as long as you do good work for the clients. I don't see freelancing ever being saturated so it is good to invest time in to make extra money.

I know black hat methods can earn you big money real quick but the downside to them is that since they are black hat how long could they realistically last? Maybe a couple years max if you found the gold mine and no one ever catches on and then your at the starting point again to find a new method to earn with.

Also you must be the first (or one of the first) in bidding.
Feedback is very important as you mentioned.

TL;DR

However, your tips at the bottom seem to be from an employer perspective than a freelancer perspective. Yes, so many proposals are crappy, but you can't change that OP.

Thank you for your advice

internet marketing and freelance is so hard. you must be genius to succeed

amirov137 said:

internet marketing and freelance is so hard. you must be genius to succeed

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Freelancing is probably the easiest way to get started for a newbie. Especially if you're a native English speaker.

This method is something that I can share with my newbie IM wannabies friends. Nice

Started Freelancing but Soon I realized it's not Worthy way to Earn. Still thanks for Tips..they are Useful for newbies.

I've been looking into oDesk so cheers for this

How does it compare to freelancer? My god I am sifting through so much rubbish these days on freelancer, so many badly written job descriptions, so many people expecting 1000000 real likes for $5 , the next big website for $50, it's not easy. So many jobs listed by un-verified employers. I spend so much time bidding against 20+ people on jobs for very little money. Also I do wonder what percentage of jobs are not awarded to anyone... I see many.
I get the feeling it's dying down a bit. I'm gonna try odesk soon.

Also I feel a lack of worker protection of freelancer. I am lucky to have continual good feedback... Most employers are reasonable but you will always find someone strange who makes your job far more difficult and you are left waiting to see if they will give a 1 star rating to severely fck up your next job bids leaving me thinking I should have bought that 25kg bag of white rice.

I do like it though for my own reasons, it has it's benefits and drawbacks.

Imagine spending all day bidding, no job offer until 10pm at night. So ye gotta take it.

you hae to be rank your self on odesk.