Fiverr, along with Upwork, are the two biggest Freelance platforms on the Internet. There’s no official data about the number of users registered, but in 2015 almost 100.000.000 messages were sent among buyers and sellers. In this Fiverr Review, we will see what you need to do to become successful in this platform!

Fiverr Review

Index

1. What’s Fiverr
2. Why You Should Sell There
3. How to Get in as a Seller
4. How to Build a Great Seller Profile
5. Fiverr Review: How to Work with Clients
6. Three Strategies to Increase Your Freelance Business
7. Five Things You Should ALWAYS DO in Fiverr
8. Five Things You Should NEVER DO in Fiverr

1. What’s Fiverr

One of the main difference that Fiverr has in regards with other marketplaces (e.g., Google Play, Apple App Store) is the fact that you are buying/selling services instead than digital products (e.g., Apps, Software)

This means that you need to communicate with other users on daily basis in order to complete orders. As we will see, this has Pros and Cons, along with some particularities that are worth mentioning. So, don’t miss the rest of our Ultimate Fiverr Review!

2. Why You Should Sell There

If you want to make money as a Freelancer, Fiverr is probably one of the best options out there. The main reason for this is the number of buyers that use the marketplace every day. We are talking about hundreds of thousands of people looking to spend their hard-gained money on diverse GIGs.

Another important reason to get in as soon as possible is the current trend in this sort of platforms of setting up a mandatory approval step for new users. Fiverr is one of the few where still is possible to register without going through this tedious process. Having said that, it’s quite probable that this changes soon, so if I were you I would definitely enroll today.

Finally, it also depends on the type of service that you would like to offer, but if your thing is designing logos, making voice-over or building websites, you will feel like home in Fiverr. Not in vain, the platform highlights these categories in its front-page.

3. How to Get in as a Seller

The process to get in is pretty easy. Just go to Fiverr and click on “Sign Up”. After you fill in all the forms, you should receive a confirmation email with information about your account.

The next important step will be creating the GIGs that you would like to offer to buyers. If I were you, I would start by creating only 1 or 2, to see how is the demand for that particular area. For example, if you receive messages from people, that’s a good indication that people are interested in what you are offering. However, if after some time nobody is contacting you, maybe it’s time to change your services (e.g., improve description, reduce prices…)

4. How to Build a Great Seller Profile

Building a good profile is vital to start getting jobs. If you need to remember only one thing from this Fiverr Review, is that. It doesn’t matter whether you are offering low prices, nobody will hire you if your profile doesn’t have a professional look.

I recommend spending at least one full day going through both your profile and GIGs, over and over. It happens to me, all the time, that after the third or fourth time I go through a specific text, I discover better ways to write down a particular idea or concept. Another advice would be to involve another person in the process. A new pair of eyes always tends to see the world slightly differently.

Alright, but what are the most important ingredients to buield of a successful profile?:

• Profile photo: This is incredibly important. Please spend time (and money) getting a professional photo. You are competing with thousands of other freelancers; you need to stand out.
• Profile description: Write a meaningful paragraph about yourself. Not many people will read it, but it’s a “must-have” to display credibility.
• Spoken languages: Write down all the languages you use. If you speak more than one language, you will have better chances to receive jobs, as buyers tend to prefer communicating with sellers in their mother tongue.

Now, what about the GIGs? what should you focus on when creating it?

• GIG name: Don’t pick the first name you think about. Search in Fiverr for successful “freelancers” and pick a popular GIG name that offers a similar service. Of course, don’t replicate it word by word, you should slightly change it to stand out.
• GIG photos or video: This is probably one of the most important factors in whether a buyer will contact you or not. It must be absolutely professional. If you don’t know how to build a professional composition, I strongly recommend you to hire a Freelancer to do it for you. Videos are also a very good option here, but it’s even more important for it to be extremely well done, otherwise it might even affect you negatively.
• GIG description: Should be quite clear and go straight to the point. Check your “competitors” for ideas, although the final text should be unique.
• GIG prices: My advice here would be to start asking for low-cost prices until you have positive reviews in your account. You need to be realistic here. You cannot ask for the same price that a person who has 100+ reviews in his/her profile.

5. Fiverr Review: How to Work with Clients

Alright, let’s assume that everything goes fine and you start receiving your first messages from buyers (if you don’t, please go back to the previous point and do some changes to your profile, it’s a trial an error process). You might be wondering… how should I talk to them? Should I negotiate or just refer them to my prices?

Well, the first thing you should keep in mind is that Fiverr is not really forgiving with two metrics: Cancellations and Bad reviews. I want to be really clear in this Fiverr Review, those two metrics are going to be your main enemies in the platform.

This means that you should do almost the impossible to avoid having an unhappy buyer. I’m not saying you should do more work than the agreed, but you should definitely treat them extremely good, by having daily communications with them and asking a myriad of questions to clarify every single aspect of the job.

As time progresses, you will encounter a customer that is impossible to satisfy, but even in that case, you should always be kind and patient. Having a cancellation or bad review is certainly not the end of the world, but is something that will definitely affect your future earnings.

6. Three Strategies to Increase Your Freelance Business

Asking for a Review at the End of each Order

Having positive reviews is crucially important to your success in Fiverr. For this reason, at the end of each order, you should always politely ask your customer to rate you. This needs to be done really delicately as nobody likes to feel pressured. Also, if the order didn’t go as smooth as you expected, it might not be the best idea to ask for a review (the buyer can still leave it, but at least you didn’t encourage it)

Please keep in mind that asking for a certain rating (e.g., 5 stars) goes against the Terms and conditions, so don’t do that.

Upselling

Upselling an “extra service” is the best way to make additional money in Fiverr.  Likewise, you can use a similar approach to sell other related GIGs.

So let’s say that you finish an Order and you would like to sell another GIG that you created a few days ago. What you can do is, at the end of the Order, thank the Buyer for the opportunity and offer this new GIG for an exclusive and time-limited price (e.g., 50% discount)

In my experience, if the new GIG is both useful and related to old GIG, the Buyer is most likely going to accept the offer.

Creating Your Own Sales

You should aim to do sales every 1 or 2 months. People love to get products or services at a discounted rate. For this reason, you should see increments of sales of around 80% during this period.

One thing to keep in mind though is only to do significant discounts (50% Off) two or three times per year; otherwise, your discounts will lose importance.

7. Five Things You Should ALWAYS DO in Fiverr

One of my main goals from this Fiverr Review is to give you some hints about what to do every time you use the platform. Here come a few points that I believe are really important to you success:

1. Use “Custom Offers”: They are useful when negotiating rates per project. As there’re no two projects which are the same, it doesn’t make sense to have only 3 different prices.
2. Get back to your customers: If after giving a quote you stopped getting replies, get back to them by either adding a new service on top of the previous offer or giving them an extra Bonus (e.g., FREE eBook). It won’t cost you much and you might gain a customer.
3. Be nice: We all have bad days. For this reason, try to be always kind to your customers. This will definitely make you increase your earnings and will give you numerous positive reviews. Also, due to the lack of “face-to-face” interaction, I find extremely useful to add emoticons from time to time to better communicate your message.
4. Be realistic: Buyers prefer Sellers who are clear about what they can and cannot do. If the Seller is asking for a task that you don’t feel comfortable doing, it’s always preferable to politely decline the opportunity.
5. Build rapport: This one is tricky because Fiverr has some restrictions on how to communicate with Buyers. However, I find useful to ask customers about details of the task and how are they going to use what you are building for them. Not only you will learn more about the task at hand, but you will be developing a professional relationship with them that might grant you future jobs.

8. Five Things You Should NEVER DO in Fiverr

Likewise, this Fiverr Review wouldn’t be completed if I didn’t give you advices about what you should NEVER do in the platform:

1. Overpromise: This is one of the most common mistakes that new Freelancers do. Never promise something that you cannot accomplish in the agreed time. It will affect both the customer’s satisfaction and your overall rating.
2. Poor communication: It might sound obvious, but buyers are paying you money. When you pay someone you expect a certain level of communication, otherwise, you might start feeling scammed. Keep this always in mind. Send constant messages to let your customers know the current status of the task.
3. Being “smart”: Nobody likes people who feel superior when talking to them. It doesn’t matter if you are an expert in your field, try to be humble and be ready to clarify any questions your buyers might have.
4. Asking for more money: If the customer is not asking for extra services, you should never ask for more money than the initially agreed amount. It feels extremely unprofessional and it’s a red flag. If while doing a task you think that you asked for too little, just keep it in mind for the next task, but you must honor your current order.
5. Talking bad about previous customers:  It doesn’t matter whether you had really bad experiences in the past, nobody likes to hear how the freelancer you are currently working with is talking badly about an old customer. Be professional and respectful.

Want to read more? Check out our article Sites Like Upwork: Top Alternatives!