by Laurie Childree

Created on: August 01, 2009

Working online is increasing in popularity. There are a number of sites that allow you to work from home in various forms. Elance is a website that offers various areas for the self employed to earn money from home. Memberships come in two forms free and paid. The free membership gives you three connects per month while a $9.95 membership will give you 20.

Elance provides skills tests and various areas that people can bid against others to earn from their skills. So how do you make money on Elance? Freelance writers, web designers, and others can all bid for projects on Elance. There are skills tests available so that you can show potential clients your strong points and show yourself areas that you need to work on.

The work on Elance is posted by people that either can't perform the tasks they are seeking or don't have the time to complete the tasks. Detailed job descriptions are posted, some with the possibility for long term employment. Freelancers search the categories for projects that meet their interest. The budget set for the project will act as a guide for the bid.

Projects may be paid with Escrow where the funds are placed in an account that they are released from prior to the project. The buyer may pay upon completion of the project. The terms are agreed to prior to the project being begun. Elance takes approximately a 10% fee from the earnings as a commission.

When you bid on projects you have to not only figure the rate per article to come up with the price but you have to add 10% if you don't want the earnings you make to be reduced by the commission. When placing a bid on a project it is important to ensure that you have the ability to complete the project before you bid. You have to figure out how long each one would take you to complete prior to bidding. Including a brief summary of how you will complete the assignment and a sample or two to show the potential buyer the quality of your work is also a good idea.

Once you win your bid you want to be sure to provide the buyer with the highest quality possible. Editing your work prior to delivery to ensure that there are no typos and that you have followed the guidelines you were given will help to increase your chances of a positive review. The more positive reviews the more work you can get. You will find that the clients you met through Elance will sometimes return for repeat business even if the initial job wasn't designed to be long term.

Making money online with Elance isn't that difficult if you devote yourself to working from home. The initial $9.95 isn't that much to come up with, and in time you'll be earning enough that it can come out of what you make there.

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