In the current time, since it seems like we’re staying at home for long, many of us are facing financial dilemmas that can affect their lives badly, and this makes us resort to an alternative, like work on the internet.

What does this mean?

There are many platforms on the Internet like Upwork, Freelancer, Khamsat, or many others, that have job owners from different parts of the world requiring certain services like “Writing, translation, content editing, design, video editing, data entry….) a long list of services that we can do for a decent amount of money in return, and we can receive our money on our bank accounts, or our credit cards.

In order to start, what do we need?

Two things…

The first thing is, what do we know how to do?

If we take a platform like Freelancer as an example, we’ll find that it’s classified into different categories for the required jobs, whether it’s writing, translation, editing…etc, and inside each category there are different types of work related to that category. If we take writing for example, we’ll find many types of writing that we can do, like: articles, researches, blogs, content writing, wiki writing, and even writing the terms and conditions that we find whenever we download a program or start an account on a new website.

Categories in other websites follow this same pattern; hence when we first come in contact with the platforms that provide online job opportunities we might be taken aback by the amount of the available jobs on the platform we’re using, and they all might be things we can do, but it’s better to determine what we can do professionally and what we think can earn us money in return.

The second thing is, the mighty portfolio

What’s a portfolio? Concisely, it’s everything that we’ve created that relates to the job we’re interested in doing; so if someone wants to work as a designer from home, his portfolio should contain all the designs he has made, even if they’re just experimental work that he’s done on his own and weren’t profitable, or done in high proficiency.

We can avoid including personal information or sharing sensitive ones that we wouldn’t want to share on our profiles on these websites, they wouldn’t make a huge difference to the service owner as long as you have a portfolio with work that shows all that you can do.

— A tip on the side: when you’re making your portfolio on any platform that you’ll do your online work on, always remember to highlight only one talent or profession of the ones you can do, and try to clarify to those benefiting from your services that you have mastered it as much as possible; do the right marketing for yourself —

- If your work is in designs, Behance would be a very good platform that you can share your work on.

- If your work is more related to motion graphics, video editing, or videography, you can use Mega or Vimeo.

- If your work depends on writing and content creation, you can make your portfolio on Contently.

- Finally, if you want, you can use platforms that allow you to create websites for free like Google Sites, create your own website without needing to have experience in building websites, and talk about your skills and previous work.

The Execution Phase

Now that we know what we want to do, and we have a good portfolio that we can depend on, we can start looking for some work that is suitable for us and that we can do.

The first step is choosing the project we will work on; we read its details well and in full, and we take our time in reading things like the price proposed for it, how many hours it includes, the work required from us exactly, and if this appropriate for the price and time specified… and we get more details from the party requiring the service.

The second step is to apply for the project and show what we can do; we can also discuss the monetary return specified for the project if we think we need more money, and show our portfolio and any details that relate to our previous work that might concern the job owner.

— There is nothing called a guarantee to the work we will do, or sending money to the client before starting, and never accept a job without the client you’re dealing with assuring that he’d gotten online payments activated, and you can see if he’s asked for work from other people or not. —

The third step is for the client to accept you for the job, and you start communicating. In the first stage, try to discuss all the details related to the job, also be clear with him in what you can and can’t do, and understand more everything that he needs, because this will make the job easier for you, and it wouldn’t need many modifications later on. It’s very important that you state your opinions as experienced individuals to the client, and also decide on a specific time to submit the work you’ve done, and it has to be suitable for you.

The most important step is to make sure the client has finished a thing called “Milestone Funding” after you’ve made your deal… and this means that he has put the money that you have agreed on in a way that makes it possible to get to the account that you use on the platform you are using, and as soon as the project is submitted and the client approves it.

— We can’t agree on doing any project that is offered to us without making sure that this previous step has been done, because without it there’s a possibility that our work would be stolen with nothing in return —

After we finish working on the project in the specified time limit, we can send it to the client via email by using We Transfer, or we can upload it on a cloud like Pcloud; we share the project’s link with him, or if there are small files like the ones of writing and translation, we can send them directly to the client on the platform we’re working on, and the method of delivery to the client is different from one website to the other.

If the client likes our work, he now can do a thing called Milestone Releasing, which means the money you have agreed on in the beginning will get to your account on the website.

Extra Tips

Care to know more about the project and its details from the client and discuss every detail with him, and strive to do your work in the best form.
If you execute the job in good form and quality, and deliver it on the specified time, this would elevate the chances that this client would write good feedback about you on the website, this is useful for the other jobs you will apply for later on.
Do not accept any project without making sure the Milestone Funding has been confirmed by the client, and you’ve received a message on the website or an email with that information.

Pick the number of working hours comfortable for you, and estimate the amount in return that is suitable for you, but commit to providing good and acceptable work.