IntegrityLance Blog

In theory, posting a project on a freelance site should gather a wide amount of attention and bids by freelancers; why then do some projects not receive any bids, or only a handful?

Here are 5 reasons why, and what you can do to make sure your next project receives serious freelance bids.

1. Your Budget Range is too Low

Yes, you can find freelancers wishing to work for a low hourly wage or fixed fee, but you need to be sure that you are being reasonable. For example lets consider that you want to get 25 articles at 300 words per article, written for your website. You have heard that some people have at times receive bids of $3 to $5 per article. So you create a project and set your budget to $4 – $100. This would mean a freelancer would have to be bidding anywhere between $4 to $5 an article to even stand a chance of getting under the $100 budget maximum. If you find that there really isn’t a lot of people bidding, consider changing your project to be a $100+, Undisclosed or Unsure at least this way you probably will find that more freelancers are more likely to place a bid as while you might occasionally find someone who will do your articles for $5 and under. There is a good chance the quality of them won’t be as high. If your not getting anyone biting… Raise the price a little more

2. Your Description is Unclear

Sometimes it’s not your budget range that is putting freelancers off, it’s your Project description. If you are too vague, and not specific enough.. chances are freelancers are going to be less likely to place a bid, because they don’t want to end up being awarded a project only to find out that you had 10 other things you wanted them to do, and shouldn’t it have been obvious.! No, Spell it out. Take time writing your description. Think about some of the many things you should include such as;

Colors
Sizes
File formats
Programming languages
Styles and layout
Provide some examples of other sites, programs etc..

Even create a screen capture video if you need to, this can really help the freelance hear and see exactly what you are envisioning.

3. You have filtered out other Countries

Understandably at times you will only want to receive bids from specific countries. Yet this can work against you as it minimizes the size of the net of freelancers that you can work with. Really consider if this is the best route to go before you place it online.

4. You have your acceptable rating criteria too high

Again it makes sense to select people that have a great rating, lots of feedback and an extensive history of successful projects behind them, yet by having your next project setup so that it can only allow freelancers who have a 3 or high rating will most definately decrease the chances of you receiving more bids. It’s just a thought, reconsider lowering it to a 1 or 2, or not having it at all. It is an option.

5. You have set the period of receiving bids to Low.

Your in a hurry and you want the project done yesterday, so you place a project online with a 1 day bidding limit. This one is pretty self explanatory. Increasing the amount of days you receive bids on your job, will increase the number of bids you are likely to get. When in doubt.. give yourself a few more days.

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