Find Freelance Work Online

If you don't have good freelance contacts, what do you do? Make your own! This is where the Internet is such an incredible business tool. There are subscription websites out there where you can find contracts-all you have to do is put yourself out there.

These websites connect work "buyers" with work "sellers"-projects matched with consultants. You log into the site, do a search for projects that match your interests and skills, bid on the project, and wait to see if the client accepts your bid.

The idea is deceptively simple. And it works. Thousands of projects, each day, are posted on these sites-and thousands of consultants and businesses pick up work. Let's take a look at these three sites, and how each works:

Elance: Elance offers consultants a feast of work in areas such as Writing and Translation, Personal Assistants, Data Entry, Software and Technology, and more. Consultants create accounts and pay a fee (anywhere from $20 on up per month, depending on your membership level) to view available projects. Consultants create a profile-a portfolio of sorts, for potential clients to view-and then search for projects they want.

Consultants bid by describing how they would meet the project requirements, and how much they would charge. Most projects are available for 3-7 days to view, and at the end of the "auction" the buyer (project owner) chooses a consultant for the contract.

Elance charges a 8.75% transaction fee to the consultant, but future business with the same client only costs 4.75%. To learn more, go to Elance.com-it's worth it.

Guru: Like Elance, Guru.com connects clients with consultants. Guru is less expensive than Elance (free at the basic level), but offers a wide range of projects as well. While Elance lets sellers see how much others are bidding, Guru hides the bid amounts-which is a positive or a negative, depending on your view of auctions. Many projects appear on Guru that are not on Elance-a consultant trying to reach a wide range of clients would do well to sign up for both services, for maximum coverage.