Always Evaluate Long Term Relationships With Freelance Clients

When it comes to long term relationships with freelance clients, I am always of the opinion that one should continuously  evaluate that relationship and not take it for granted.

And this evaluation needs to take place, not only from the point of view of ensuring the sustenance of that freelance relationship, it also needs to take into consideration the possibility of severing such relationships, as and when the need arises.

Yes, you read that correct.

After all, there are opportune times when many freelance clients simply take freelance contractors for granted and look to "milk them" as much as they can. Essentially, they have a notion that since they have managed to find a freelance contractor who is willing to work on their terms, at their (very low) pay scales, they might as well extract as much work out of that contractor as possible.

Any freelance clients reading this should realize that when it comes to freelance contractors, while quite a few maybe outright dumb, not all are so. After a while, they can easily see through the exploitation tactic of freelance clients in question and accordingly look to move on or severe all ties that client.

While in most cases, this parting of ways may take place on very amicable terms, I have myself had situations where while there was no unpleasantness as such, I however chose to simply stop responding to the client in question. I agree that this is certainly not the most desirable strategy to follow but somehow under the given circumstances, that seemed like the best - maybe the only way ahead in terms of giving up on that client.

No doubt, this is something I would strongly advise you against - yes, you can very well learn from my mistakes.

Moreover, under no circumstances am I saying that you completely give up on any long term relationships with freelance clients. I myself have had some of the most fruitful freelance associations, both monetary and otherwise, with clients whom I worked with long term.

So don't get me wrong; I am not saying that you do not work long term with freelance clients. I am simply saying that you must evaluate the relevance as well as the importance of long term relationships with freelance clients, at all times. Bear in mind that while most such long term freelance relationships may prove really very beneficial, there are instances where such relationships do not prove beneficial. On the contrary, they end up proving detrimental since they keep you away from working with other clients who may well have yielded higher and better quality monetary rewards for you.

These are all thoughts which I summed up in a video on my freelancing specific YouTube channel, which you can also see below:

Therefore in conclusion all I would say is that do not get mesmerized by the fact that you have freelance clients whom you have built long term relationships with. Instead, always look at the value which these clients are offering you. Ask yourself:

1. Are these clients paying me well, commensurate to my qualification, my experience, and indeed my expectations?

2. Are they friendly and courteous?

3. Do they pay promptly or do you have to chase them for payments which arrive with excruciating delay?

Responses to these questions will give you a very good idea in terms of the viability of working with freelance clients on a long term basis. Wherever you notice a questionable association, I would advise you to forgo that relationship for another one that may well prove far more conducive.

What Do Clients On Freelance Sites Need Those Articles for?

This is a question which is often on the minds of a lot of freelancers in the 'Writing & Translation' category, on freelance sites like Elance, oDesk, Freelancer, etc. wherein they really wonder as to what exactly those articles are really needed for...that too by the droves?

SEO or Search Engine Optimization

One of the major reasons for which articles are needed is because they help with SEO or Search Engine Optimization. Essentially, when these articles have relevant keywords intuitively blended into them, they allow websites to rank better on search engines for the given search terms.

So for instance, if I have a website on RC radio controlled vehicles, I might want to have articles on my website as well as my blog in which I will include search terms such as "RC Airplane" or "RC Boat" and so on, which will help my website to rank better and appear in the first few search results when users search using those same (or similar) search terms.

So SEO undoubtedly plays a major part - or a major reason for which articles are sought on these freelance sites.

Affiliate Marketing

Affiliate Marketing has in turn proven to be a major reason for which articles are sought on these freelance sites. Typically, the SEO aspect remains sacrosanct with regard to these articles but at the same time, the emphasis on quality in this case is even higher.

After all, the endeavor with affiliate marketing goes beyond pleasing web spiders to convincing human readers to actually BUY products and services they are affiliates for. This is an end objective which is achieved with far greater success when there is high quality content backing the claims or assertions made on affiliate sites.

So affiliate marketing, combined with SEO endeavors, forms an integral part of the entire scheme of things as  far as article writing jobs on freelance sites is concerned.

Article Directories

Writing for article directories like EzineArticles or ArticlesBase also forms an integral part of article writing assignments on freelance sites. 

Once again, I would repeat that while the platform in this case is different, viz. an Article Directory, the end objective remains similar as already mentioned above, viz. SEO (largely). This in turn is achieved (especially) with the help of the back link(s) which these directories offer, within the Resource box, at the end of each article.

But besides SEO alone, these article directories - EzineArticles in particular, have an additional objective of establishing credibility. After all, when readers see a lot of articles published by you within a niche or set of niches, they perceive you as an expert of sorts within that niche.

So remember that articles published on these directories have a major 'credibility' aspect attached to them as well.

Having wondered about these aspects myself - in my initial days of freelancing, when I would churn out articles by the gazillions, applying little thought to WHAT those articles were really meant for, I gathered all my thoughts together in the video below, also featured on my freelancing specific YouTube channel. An amalgamation of all the experience and learning that I have had over the years, in article writing in particular, this video will give you a very good perspective in terms of the uses to which articles sought on freelance sites are typically deployed.

Google Panda Update, in the context of the above

Talking about article writing and the various uses to which these articles are put, it is pertinent that I touch upon Google Panda updates and their relevance to the entire article writing realm. Essentially, what has happened is that article directories like EzineArticles, Articlesbase as well as many others have significantly lost a lot of their value, post the Google Panda update.

Further, poor quality articles which do not read well, have copied content (an Internet SIN!), are structured poorly or simply do not offer value to readers ultimately rank poorly on search engines. 

Therefore, the emphasis very clearly has to be on creating TOP QUALITY content which not only draws in visitors but actually KEEPS THEM ENGAGED as well as provides REAL VALUE to them.

This would be as true for articles meant for article directories as would be for other platforms, including own website content, content for affiliate marketing (especially) and so on.

The Overlapping Nature of the Enlisted Purposes to which Articles are Deployed

Remember that a lot of the end objectives of article writing, as enlisted above, do tend to overlap. For instance, when you create articles for affiliate marketing, SEO still has to be a primary objective. The same is true for just about any other platform; even if you are looking to establish your credentials or credibility, you do want people to actually find your content with ease and would therefore want to invest on SEO.

Articles for Miscellaneous Other Purposes

Article writing assignments on freelance sites can ultimately be meant for other end objectives as well. Ones that I can think of are being printed in digital publications like online or electronic magazines (where the SEO value of your article could possibly be minimal and emphasis would almost entirely be on VERY high quality content), sales pages (maybe series of articles put together), articles made from audio/video transcripts and so on.

Have I missed any other purpose for which articles (specifically) are put to use, with regard to article writing assignments on freelance sites? Please feel free to drop in your comments below!

Ideal Payout For Transcription Work

Over the years, especially in recent times, I have observed the payout rates for transcription work going below what can even be considered as bargain basement wages.

As an instance, I find a lot of contractors regularly putting in bids on freelance sites where they are willing to work on say an hour of audio at JUST $10, $20 or maybe even $30.

These are simply abysmal rates in my opinion.

After all, the whole notion that transcribing an hour of audio translates to an hour of effort is just SO WRONG...transcribing an hour's worth of audio takes way more than just an hour of effort.

In my personal and honest opinion, even when the audio is crystal clear and the accent is clearly comprehensible, it still takes 3 to 4 hours to actually do a thorough job on any transcription assignment. When there are challenges such as: 

x poor quality of audio, 

x incomprehensible accents, 

x multiple speakers, 

x time stamps to be put in at regular, specific/non-specific intervals 

(example of specific = every minute ; example of non-specific = each time a particular person speaks), 

the overall effort and time involved in doing a thorough job on such a transcription assignment increases significantly, sometimes going up to as much as 5 to 6 hours or even more for an hour of audio.

To be charging as little as $10 to say $30 for an hour of audio - as has become the norm on common freelance sites, is simply appalling and abysmal. And to see American freelancers working at such rates is well....I can only shake my head in disbelief!

I had gathered these thoughts of mine together and expressed them in a video which I posted to my freelance YouTube channel, which can be seen below:

As you will see in the video, my idea of what can possibly be considered as ideal payout for transcription work would be in the range of $50 for every effort hour. So if transcribing an hour of audio takes you 4 hours, you should ideally be paid at least $200, assuming that the audio is clear and there are no other issues.

Where there are issues in the audio, akin to the ones I mentioned in bullet points above, the payout should go up incrementally in the range of at least $250 to $300.

Some may say that these are very high wages, but I disagree; at the end of the day, $200 or $300 is NOT a lot of money; even here in India, that is in the range of 10,000 to 15,000 Rupees at current exchange rates, which I am honestly telling you, is NOT a lot of money in India. Therefore, under no circumstances should $200 or $300 be construed as a lot of money.

The reason payouts for transcription work have gone down so much is because the freelancers themselves have brought the rates down by willingly (and foolishly) working at sub-par wages. If contractors / freelancers would be willing to work at such trashy rates, obviously clients would be more than happy to exploit them!

To all freelancers out there, I fervently appeal - life is NOT about working relentlessly. Rather, it is about "working" as less as possible, deriving maximum value out of it (which can only happen with quality wages) and then utilizing the time that is available for all the beautiful things that life has given around us - our family, nature, traveling, cooking, going to the movies, eating out, going on long drives, etc. etc.

If you spend all your time typing away, typing away...frantically and obstinately, when will you actually get to LIVE LIFE?

Think about these things, the next time your fingers move towards those $10 / $20 / $30 figures, when quoting for an hour's worth of audio which needs to be transcribed...

Why Bid Below Client Budgets?

Its been a BIG mystery for me - for long, as to why on Earth do many contractors on freelance sites, persistently choose to bid below even what the client has stated is his or her budget?

Please understand my point here...I am not referring to project postings where say the client may have specified a budget range of "Less than $500" or something on those lines, where a $200 bid would as much be within the client specified budget range as would be $499.

Rather, I am alluding towards those projects where the client points out - in a prized little nugget of sorts within his or her project description, that the budget for the concerned project is $100 or say $250, or any other SPECIFIC figure. 

In instances like the above, why even bid $99 or $249 respectively?

What makes you think that bidding below client budget - when the EXACT budgetary figure for the project has been specified, will help you bag that project?

Sure, for some of you, maybe the specified budgetary figure may be more than what you typically work at - or over and above what you think would be "good enough" a compensation for the time and effort involved in completing that job, but my point is - in such a scenario, does extra cash hurt?

I am very sure that it DOESN'T and that is exactly what drove me towards making a video on my freelancing channel on YouTube, where I "ranted" about precisely these aspects. You can check out the video below:

Remember that no matter where in the world you might be, prices of things around you are going only one way which is UP. If you reflect back on the prices of a certain set of items say 10 years ago, there is every likelihood that you are paying a significantly larger sum of money for those same items.

In such a scenario, where is the sense in bidding even below what the client has CLEARLY stated to be his or her budget?

DON'T DO THAT...EVER! YOUR SELF RESPECT IS AT STAKE HERE!

Why Do American Freelancers Bid SO Less On Freelance Sites?

As a freelancer from India, working on freelance sites like Elance for a considerably long period of time now, I really can't help but wonder as to why on Earth do American freelancers in particular charge so low rates for the work that they deliver on these sites?

I mean working long hours, researching and then developing content...these are all activities or processes that take up so much time. Then to be paid what I can only refer to as absolute peanuts is something which is simply beyond my ability to fathom.

This is particularly true in light of what is presumably a very high cost of living in the US. As a freelancer from India, where each Dollar gets me about 50 units of local currency (the Indian Rupee), sometimes these projects seem fairly OK for a person in my part of the world, but the same project certainly DOES NOT seem OK for an American to be working on at the same rate, or worse, at a much lower rate!

These are some thoughts which I shared in a recent video I posted to my YouTube channel that you can see below:

My primary point of contention is that when these American freelancers charge so less, freelancers in my part of the world are compelled to charge even low rates!

Further, what is the sense in charging so less when prices around the world are only going one way, which is up?? In fact, I can say with complete assertion that this whole belief that India is very inexpensive on all fronts is very wrong. For instance, the same car makes and models end up costing twice as much in India as they do in the US. Real estate is another sector where prices are much, much higher in India than in the US.

Also, another important factor that a lot of people out there seem to forget completely has to do with lifestyle choices which we individually make in our respective lives. Yes, there are many people in my country who live on $100, $200, or maybe $300 a month, but that is either a choice which they have consciously made for themselves or because of a variety of factors, like lack of education in particular, or the absence of opportunities, they are compelled to live and "manage" in so less...that is something I am neither willing or able to do.

I hope that someday a sense of reality creeps in wherein people realize that it really does not make any sense at all for American freelancers (in particular) as well as other freelancers from the "Western" world to be working at so low rates.