Is Freelancing too competitive for people that live in the United States?

I don't know what people would be willing to pay when it comes to backlinking but if you want to make more money than the others, you need to give potential customers more value than they do.

Are there complaints about the other services? Can you address those complaints with your service?

Just some thoughts,
Tina

I've been paid 5 times that for a 500 word article. There are people here on the WF who get paid 50 bucks or more per article.

Let me try to explain:

There's a market for shoddy content that gets churned out in 5 minutes and gets put on MFA sites and article directories. This market will pay 5 bucks per page as an absolute maximum.

There is also a market for quality, well researched writing - for highly respected blogs, for example - and this market will pay much more, and demand much more in return.

Work at building up a reputation for both the quality of your writing and your customer service, and you will build your appeal to this second market.



I have no experience with linkbuilding, but I would imagine you can command a much higher price by offering a full SEO package with lots of bells and whistles, and committing to customer service.

If you are writing articles on any and every subject then you'll
command less than if you specialize in a particular area. I
only write articles in areas that I'm comfortable writing in
and do get $150 per article. But again, compared to copywriting
or writing my own ebooks, that's a drop in the bucket.

But, no doubt about it, the internet has leveled the playing field
so that freelancing is a lot tougher (and easier at the same time)
than a few years ago. Lou Dobbs may be able to explain why.

-Ray Edwards

It all depends on your ability to market your services a certain way. Usually the markets you are dealing with want something different. Someone who wants to mass submit articles for article marketing may be trying to make a few affiliate sales. They may not be willing to spend so much, it also would not make economical sense for them to do so. Or someone who is building an adsense blog. But for someone hoping to use it as a complete marketing plan to build a list, and put their name behind their stuff, these people will pay more and be happy for it. You just have to understand the needs of the markets you cater to.

I think that the problem is that there are a lot of indians on the market providing link building services and their rates are VERY low. So, it's hard to compete. You can only rely on their weaknesses (irresponsibility, poor English and spammy technics) and replace them with your strengths. Try to explain your potential client the benefits of working with you and common problems when working with somebody from a foreign country who has extremely low rates.

If you're trying to sell your freelance services to one-person startups or micro biz, you need to *take away a lot of pain* before they'll pay you a decent amount. Money they pay you is money they don't spend on a brochure, or on that trade show they wanted to go to. The freelance computer techie who charges $100 an hour for onsite emergency calls can do so because he's removing pain -- and typically that's the only way small and micro biz owners are willing to pay a decent (living wage) amount, because that's when they can justify spending more than a few odd dollars. Find a way to assure them that you're removing a pain (even if it isn't one they realized they had).

Selling to venture-funded startups, larger established biz, and so on isn't as much about removing pain as it is about making the employee who finds/hires/recommends you look good to their boss. Those folks have to trust that you can solve the problem that's listed on their to-do list...solving the pain isn't enough, they have to know that you won't flake out or "get a real job" and vanish on them. They see the word "freelance" and think "dangerous" so make sure you have a solid, stable, and defined business identity to reassure them. Take away their pain, but also take away their fear.