No orders since December, but still hopeful

[fivestarwriter1]

Okay, the title says it all. I have read a lot of inspiring stories on this forum, so I’m putting this thread up as a reference point. I’ll update every time I reach a new level.

[fonthaunt]

I took a glance at your gigs and I have one bit of advice for you which you can take or leave. 🙂 First, write a few articles as practice, and write things that you would be proud to post on your own blog. Second, take a portion of each (perhaps the beginning of one, the middle of a couple of others) and take nice neat screen shots of the text that are clear. Put those up as gig images in your extra image slots.

If you have a .pdf slot, use that too and put up some more sample work. You can add even more by making an attractive slideshow with short writing samples and save it as a video which you can upload to your gig. By doing all of this with only partial articles it makes it hard for anyone to “steal” your work and use the freebies.

Buyers will be more comfortable if they can see how you write before they contact you, and especially before they order. By putting the samples right on your gig, buyers will find them easily and won’t have to ask you for unauthorized links or free sample work. I hope that helps!

[cyaxrex]

I agree with fonthaunt on this one. Another good idea might me to write and sumbit some articles to sites like ezine and wikihow. These sites don’t pay but are hugely popular and if you can get a few articles published on these platforms you can wow potential clients by boasting about the fact.

Also, definitely think about adding video to your gigs. This did me wonders.

Good luck & don’t lose faith, If you are determined and have real talent you can succeed.

[jamesbulls]

What are you doing to promote yourself outside of Fiverr? Fiverr isn’t a an end, but a means to an end. It’s like a point-of-sale machine for processing credit / debit cards. Just because you have PoS machine doesn’t mean people are going to buy. You have to advertise and market yourself. So if you’re not doing anything to promote yourself outside of Fiverr, then there’s the reason you’re not making any sales.

[misscrystal]

Since you say you have samples of your writing why not put the URL of your blogger (you can easily make a blog there) in the gig description and in your profile and have the samples there so people can see your writing?

That way people don’t have to message you to see them and can go directly to the link to them. This is allowed by fiverr as long as it is on blogger (aka blogspot).

[freelancemm]

I would say add videos to your gigs, do keyword research to try out different keywords, and try to carve out a unique service outside of content writing but still relevant so you can rank well for that, then bring that exposure back into your other gigs.

[fivestarwriter1]

Thanks a lot everyone. I really appreciate all the advice and encouragement and I’ll definitely be implementing all of them as soon as I can.

Meanwhile, I got two orders yesterday. There were three actually, but one tried to rip me off. I would still have done the work for the very low price, but his initial attempts at deception made me suspect things would not end well, regardless. Canceled order 01 :-(.

The other two buyers were awesome. I submitted their work this morning and one has given me a five star rating with a great review. I’m still waiting on the other.

In all, I am very, very happy. Thanks again to everyone who has contributed to this thread.

[fivestarwriter1]

Unfortunately, my impressions are abysmally low on both gigs. I have no idea why.

[fivestarwriter1]

So, the second buyer completed the order and left me a glowing 5 star review. Awesome!

[freelancemm]

Low impressions aren’t necessarily a bad thing. I have one gig that gets thousands upon thousands of views, but gets barely any orders a month, then I have another gig that gets just a few thousand or so views that gets nearly 3x as many orders. Both are very clear in what they offer. Side note: Impressions on Fiverr can be very buggy so I wouldn’t necessarily rely on what they say.