If you can, skip the gig sites and make your own for your services

[Grant]

If you're new to online work, but have a talent you want to promote, don't do it in the many gig sites. If you have a talent that you can monetize, skip the gig sites and make your own to promote your services. This way you get all of the money and you can have more control of what your services offer. Gig sites are great as a jumping off point, but if you can, make a website and find ways of offering your services from there instead.

 

[Nomad]

Actually, I left Upwork to focus my own freelancing career by selling my services through social sites and my own website. IN the beginning I was receiving a lot of contracts but suddenly new contracts started dropping and there was a day when I no longer had any contracts. When I went back to upwork, I was back to square one.

 

[Grant]

Actually, I left Upwork to focus my own freelancing career by selling my services through social sites and my own website. IN the beginning I was receiving a lot of contracts but suddenly new contracts started dropping and there was a day when I no longer had any contracts. When I went back to upwork, I was back to square one.

That's always a risk you take, but if you build a good customer base at a site like upwork, you could potentially have clients already available to you. Reach out to people you worked for in the past and see if they would like to work with you again. Ask if they may have other work in mind, or even ask if they have other people in mind who could maybe use your services.

A site like upwork will help you get some interest, but I think starting your own site is ideal to take all the money you earn and not have to take less of a cut because the site may take a cut as well.