Are you one of those freelancers who bid on low paying gigs and yet don’t get accepted? Or do you simply find it difficult to find work? If you are guilty conscious of one of the above two, then read on, I will be guiding you on how to use effectively use forums to get freelance gigs. I find it’s a more personal approach than using job boards. Without further ado, let me take you to the art of getting freelance work using forums.

Finding The Right Forums

First and foremost you should choose the forums in which you want to sell your service. You can sell your services in any forum provided you don’t spam. Since there are many forums out there, you have to be careful and chose the ones that have a lot of members, that are related to your niche and that lets you put links in your signature. Also the forum should be very active.

Attractive Signature

Your signature gets posted under every forum post you make. In these couple of lines you should be able to sell yourself and your services or at least make people want to click through and visit your site. If you are a freelance writer, I would suggest something like this:

“Need a quality freelance writer who can write digg-able content? I can do that!”

Don’t forget that sometimes being active in forums that are not necessarily related to your niche (for as long as you’re interested in the topics discussed there) can be good. For instance if you’re a designer, SitePoint, LogoPond, and Your Design Forums are good starting points, but you signature really has to stand out and you have to be a very active member in order to get work since almost everyone posting on these discussion boards are, you guessed it: designers.

Become A Trusted Member

This is the most important part. Becoming a trusted member is not easy. But once you become a trusted member, you can sell almost anything to the members over at the forum. So how do you become a trusted member? Introduce yourself first as a freelancer, there is usually an ‘introduce yourself‘ thread where you can tell people a little about yourself. Help the people in the forum by answering their questions and also by offering good advices. If you have freebies to give in the forum, go ahead, be it a free ebook, graphics, brushes, free css designs. Most important rule: never ever spam. If you think what you’re about to post could be considered spam by other members, simply contact the board admins and ask, they’re there to help.

Offer Your Service Once For Free

This is to get testimonials from the senior and highly respected members of the forum. If you are a freelance writer, offer to write an article for free to a couple of senior members. Their testimonials can be very effective, especially in the forum. Since they are experienced members, they might even use you in their next project or recommend you to their clients.

By having a very good signature and a “trusted member” title or rank, it definitely increases your chances of people contacting you. If you have some testimonials from senior members or experts in your niche, a lot of people will want to visit your forum profile and then they may visit your own site (and hire you!).

Good luck in getting freelance work using forums. Do let me know if and what works for you. Which forums are you active on? Do you find clients through these forums? How do you do it?

Ram

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Ramkarthik is an 18 year old blogger and freelance writer. You can check out his blog at Blogging Tune where he gives tips on blogging. He is for hire.

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Image in this post: Star Dust