First off, I want to be clear that I’m in no way an “expert” on selling services through elance. I have, however, gotten a few contracts and made a few thousand there, so I feel qualified to give some tips to help you do the same.

What is elance?

Elance is a site where freelancers and those needing work can find each other. Elance provides message boards, escrow services, rating systems, etc. and take a percentage of the project’s fees in payment. As a freelancer, you’ll bid for projects and buyers will choose who they want. If the two of you can come to an agreement on payment and terms, you’ll be awarded the contract.

Tips to succeed

1. You’ll need to put together your portfolio, but don’t spend weeks perfecting it. It’s all too easy to get bogged down in that process and never get on to bidding for projects.
2. Low bid doesn’t always win! Some projects have private bidding and others are public. You’ll soon find that some projects will attract dozens of extremely low bids. What you’d ask $500 to do, many will do for $50. Don’t get discouraged, and don’t relent and underbid what you’d need to make the project profitable.
3. I’ll say that again, because I know that most people will be tempted to bid next to nothing for jobs in order to get a contract. Don’t. It doesn’t work that way.In my experience, I usually get projects when I’m not the low bidder.
4. Emphasize the fact that you don’t subcontract the work. Many of the low-bidders you see are actually outsourcing the work for even less money and skimming a bit off the top as profit. That may sound great, but the reality is that the quality of the work is poor.
5. If you don’t have an elance portfolio, don’t worry. Use your sites outside elance as examples of your work. Your blog can be excellent for this if it’s well written and appropriate to what you’re bidding on.
6. Be selective in your bids. Bidding on dozens of projects that are only remotely related to your abilities is a waste of time. Instead, focus on putting together great bids for projects that you’re perfect for.
7. Use a custom bid. I’ve seen providers copy/paste the same text into dozens of projects. If you can’t give the time to write a custom bid, then why would the buyer think you’ll take time to do a good job once you have the bid?
8. Be generic in your bid; clarify in private discussion afterward. For example, someone may ask for five articles, and you bid $200 for the project. If the provider contacts you, then you can specify how much research you’ll do, word count, etc.
9. Be honest! Don’t try to sneak in extra charges or change the terms of the contract after the fact. You’ll just earn a bad reputation.