Being Out Priced By Third World Countries

I don't know where you've already looked for work, but try IT Outsourcing Eastern Europe | Freelancers and Freelance Jobs if you haven't already. That's a service that enforces a $3/hour minimum (shrugging shoulders over that!), and it appears to market to a US, UK, etc. clientele. It also appears to service a European freelancer workforce only.

I would be aiming to get clients offline who know nothing of cheap freelancing sites. Give them a top quality service and you may get referrals and be able to charge a decent rate.

You could also put together a team of cheap workers to do some of the work and outsource them to others.

There's a guy on this forum who grosses about a million dollars a year selling SEO services. How do you suppose he competes with the cheapies? In fact, there are thousands of SEO folks earning excellent money at it. What are they doing? The same goes for graphics, writing, Web design, product creation, etc.

Why not make a study of people in the top end of the fields rather than ranting about the competition? Then do what they're doing. Good luck.

Sadly we live in strange times I'm afraid. I would recommend the site nm5419 recommended, at least a minimum of $3.00 per hour is better than the ludicrous $1.00 per hour.

One factor you should always think of is how good is the work that these people do? If the answer is every $1.00 per hour job is not good enough, then you may well get the job as people will be willing to pay for results.

Just my twopennorth.

Rob.

Agreed. You can't.

But, with respect, you're the one choosing to market your services in such an international (i.e. low priced) market, you know?

Living in the West (and in one of the very most expensive parts of the whole of the "West"), as you do, you're never going to be well paid by doing piecemeal bits of SEO work which people on Fiverr (or wherever) are also offering. It's just not a valuable skill, in an international market.

The long-term answer is not to scratch around here, there and everywhere in desperate search of clients willing to pay $3/$4 per hour instead of $1: it's to acquire and develop a more valuable skill set.

Similarly, it's no good for a writer complaining that people won't pay more than $5 for an "article". Those wanting to earn money from article-writing need to develop the skill set needed to sell "niche syndication articles" for $100, rather than "article directory articles" for $5. Or they need to start training to be copywriters, or whatever. There's no future in selling $5 articles because the customers don't know how to use them, anyway, and their own businesses usually don't survive enough for them to come back for more and pay $10.

The "annoying nuisance" of which you (understandably) complain is only ever going to get "worse" (of course, for many people in the Philippines it's actually "better"), rather than better. I'm "just saying".

In all honesty, you are not competing for the same customers. I used to worry about people who charge $2 for a 500 word article. The reality is, people who write for those rates typically produce low-quality work that does not convert very well. Eventually, people who are serious about their Internet marketing will either 1) quit and complain to everyone who listens that Internet marketing doesn't work or 2) realize they need better quality content and will pay the higher price for a quality writer.

It's the same with SEO and the other myriad services offered online. Many (not all!) will do low quality work for those prices and the people who paid for them will either go away or pay for higher quality work.

In any case, you are going after the wrong clientele. Look for and try to attract clientele who realizes that if they want results, they need to pay for a true expert and not waste (yes waste!) money learning the hard way that cheap rates gets cheap results.

You shouldn't be anywhere near $3 an hour, lol... if you think you need to compete with them, you need to re-look at your business model. Focus on quality services, attract the right clientele (and freelance sites may not be the right location to find them if everyone there is looking at price alone)... definitely start looking for clients in your local area - the offline forum on here offers some excellent advice for that (and many local business keywords are easier to rank for too). If you've got a track record already, you're ahead of the game... don't be afraid to charge what you're worth (and then add more too it because you're probably still under charging).

As a programmer I have faced pretty much the same dilemma. So most of my contract work has come from offline local clients. If you don't have the offline option then start out charging low, provide a better quality service, and build up your reputation. With a reputation for quality work you will of course be able to charge more.

@simplybeastz, you might want to create an account at vWorker as well. At least there, you can filter out low paying jobs and interact with clients who pay over a specified amount. That includes both fixed-fee and per-hour jobs.

Like others mentioned, select the right buyers. For example people write articles for 5$, I'm fine with that because I can go on constant content and in half an hour write an article that sells for 30$... That guy who writes articles for 5$ will be paid 5$ for the rest of his life... I can charge more and get contracts which will cut out the commission constant content takes...

Good luck,
Vlad

simplybeastz, are you selling SEO services or articles???

I'm going to get all philosophical and metaphysical on you right now. Here goes. Ralph Waldo Emmerson said: The only thing that can grow is the thing you give energy to. Thirteen words. Thirteen very powerful words when strung together the way they are.

Here's another one. You can seek walls or you can seek bridges. I don't know if I heard that somewhere of if I came up with it myself.

One more from Earl Nightingale, co-founder of one of the largest personal publ;ishers in the world. You become what you think about most of the time. A lot of people claim to have said that first but it was Earl.

So... whatcha gonna do? Rant or be successful?

I can understand your concern, however you must accept 2 things.

1) The USD compared to other currencies. In some countries with $100 USD they can feed their family for months with that kind of money. So even if they are on FIVERR and do a few gigs a day they can live very comfortably.


2) People get what they pay for normally. They know it costs more to get a decent job done. A company I know here in oz pays $5k a month for SEO but they are getting much more than someon who pays say $100 a month.


Do not worry just offer a good service, and make sure you are offering plenty of value, then you will not lose really.

I would suggest you go for higher end clients and pitch your work as being superior. I say this because I once spent $30 dollars at once on Fiverr (had to paid some punk kid 6 times) and he ended up using xrummer to send out spammy backlinks to porn sites all over the world.

This was a costly mistake to one of my sites - one that I will never do gain. Now I much rather pay a lot more to get better service with people that know what the heck they are doing.

creating any business that competes mainly on price only is very tough, much less a service oriented business that competes for customers largely on price.

i would suggest looking for ways to increase the perceived value of your services to a point which makes customers pay a fair wage for your services.

but at the end of the day, you must realize that you will lose some jobs to people who use cut rate bidding to get jobs. there will always be people who only look for the cheapest price, there is nothing you can do about that.

and speaking as someone who has done business online a long time, more often than not, you really dont want the jobs from those bottom of the barrel clients. they usually complain more, and dont really understand why how business works, which leads to all sorts of troubles.

You can be better than that kid. But even that can be tough.

You'll need to customize your offer so it will give more value and you'll have a reason for higher price.
Get regular customers by over bringing and giving as much value as you can.

There is good, effective, SEO and not-so-good, ineffective, SEO. It's almost become a bit of a marketing catch word that everyone has jumped onto the bandwagon of--even people who have never had success in SEO before in their lives, want to suddenly sell products regarding it. GOOD SEO is worth more than $1/hour, no matter the country, however, it's up to you to prove your worth somehow. As recommended, look at what others are doing, and learn from them.

Prove that you can make me $100 a day, and I'll gladly pay you $10-$50/day. Even $75 would be a bargain.

If you cannot provide something of additional value than those charging such a low amount then you are looking in the wrong place for business. The day that every business owner realises they can get next-to-nothing labour from such sites is the day the West runs out of money and we all starve. Either prove you're worth the extra, which isn't difficult, or look elsewhere for work. The best advice I ever heard was "raise your prices to raise your income". It is far easier to find 1/10 businesses willing to pay $20 an hour than it would be to find 10/10 willing to pay $1 hr if you look in the right place.

SimplyBeastz, just keep finding ways to get better and better at what you do and before you know it you'll break through that threshold when you least expect it.

As my Nan used to say "good things ain't cheap and cheap things ain't good"

Jason

In these scenarios, once they see your reputation and a list of satisfied customers, they usually stick with the trusted guys than someone offering a very cheap rate, but it takes time to build such a reputation

Don't compete. By that I mean add more value to your service. Also, if you're doing seo for offline businesses they've already been burned once by cheap seo. Position yourself as the seo expert who can actually get the job done right.

There's always a market for expensive vintage French wines, just as there's always a market for cheap California wines.

Same goes for anything in the market, including SEO.

Yes you definitely move..haha

Now we live in a global village where we connect each other
That's why you need to focus Offline marketing methods to target more local customers. They are the group who pay enough amount that depends on the location.

Stop! - would lend the keys to your Mercedes to a "kid who works for $1 hr"?

Think about it this way - most people who post a job on the freelancer boards are considering placing one of their most prized possessions in the hands of a person they've never met.
I recently posted a gig on Elance for some coding work on my main money site, there's no way I'd give my passwords to some kid who offers services for $1.00/hr - no matter where he lives.

I want a professional, well written proposal, from a USA based company with a good Elance reputation. The hourly rate is inconsequential - I'm placing my livelihood in the hands of someone I've never met - if they crash my site, even for 24 hrs, what will that cost me?

I'd say it's even more important with SEO than with coding. Broken code can be fixed, or a backup restored. Bad SEO is hard to undo.

Why not let the client know via your quote that you're of the highest integrity, you stand by your work, you have a great reputation and you are HERE in the USA and ready to work for a sensible rate.

Just a thought.