Why To Avoid Freelance Websites Like Fiverr & Upwork

A very common question I receive goes something like this, "I've been signed up with the websites Fiverr, Upwork and Voice123 for almost 6 months and haven't gotten on gig, is there some secret to this?"

There's no secret. Unless you got signed up in the early stages when these websites were launched (and there are a lot of them out there now), you'll most likely never see any work from joining them. And you'll never even appear in their search results when clients come looking through the available voice actor listings. Let me get into why to avoid freelance websites like Fiverr & Upwork. First off, I have tested this theory by signing up with several of these sites to see what would happen. As a successful voice actor of twenty-plus years with an impressive resume and professional demo reels, I never got one gig in eight months, nor did I ever show up in any search results. Here's what happens when someone comes to Fiverr looking for a male voice actor. Let's say they select "male voice over". As of the writing of this article that search yielded what Fiverr showed as 6,600+ results. This resulted in 20 pages of search results, with an average of 52 profiles per page. That's 1,040 posted profiles. So what happened to the other 5,560+ members of the search result? They never . . ever . . show up. So, keep in mind that when you sign up, you go right to the end of the line. Not only that, but after about 3 months I noticed that my gig listing was "paused", meaning it wasn't even active for anyone to see (nit that anyone would have seen it even if it was active). So I contacted Fiverr and inquired about all of this, asking them how anyone is supposed to get gigs if they don't ever show up in the 20 pages of search results, and why was my gig paused? (not like many, if any, prospective clients would even get beyond 5-10 pages of profiles before finding a suitable candidate anyway even if I was listed in later profiles). Their response was: "Thank you for contact Fiverr. We are sorry to hear that you have been experiencing difficulties with your Fiverr seller's account. In order to provide clients with the most suitable candidates our algorithm bases search result on the most highly-rated candidates. These candidates have shown a proven track record for consistent completed gigs combined with positive-reviews. To improve your work history with such compatible statistics we suggest the following: 1. Make yourself visible across social media sites to promote your services and direct potential clients to your Fiverr profile link. 2. Network with other professionals in your respective domain, such as attending trade shows, symposiums, clinics and other such group conferences where you can interact with people in your industry and provide them with your Fiverr profile link. 3. Utilize direct email campaigns to promote your services and be sure to include your Fiverr profile link. 4. Post your services to job boards and other publicly-accessible listings that link to your Fiverr profile. The more people you are able to reach, the more activity you will receive here at your Fiverr account, which will result in more gigs and eventually better rankings within our algorithm. Regarding you inquiry relating to your profile being paused, this is due to inactivity and usually occurs after 60 to 90 days of profile inactivity. Simply reactivate your profile and you be placed back into the search results. Thank you for trusting your career endeavors to Fiverr. If you have any other questions please feel free to contact us anytime." So what's the short version of this ridiculous response? Fiverr wants YOU to do all the marketing and legwork that directs people to your Fiverr profile, so that Fiverr can make money off the percentage they take from every gig. Other than that, you're shit out of luck on Fiverr. And it's the same with all other freelance sites where you sign up, develop a profile, and sit around waiting while no work comes in for you.

To add insult to injury, these sites offer paid subscriptions that supposedly offer you more benefits and better opportunity to attract clients, but this is complete bullshit and I highly discourage you from throwing your money away on what amounts to nothing more than shattered opportunities that capitalize on people's dreams.

The bottom line is that such sites are only concerned with making money, and they want you to drive your own traffic to your account, so that they can make money from the commissions they take. They don't promote you at all. The folks that you see in their search results are the ones that have brought them the most commissions over time. Period. And THAT'S why they consistently show up in the search results. If you are going to spend time, money and energy working to drive traffic anywhere, it should be to your own website where you get to keep one hundred percent of the income not driving traffic to freelance sites that host your account, but don't do anything to help you be discovered.

Other than that, find yourself a good agent and pursue your own leads through marketing yourself directly with potential clients that will at least know you exist in order to make a decision on whether to utilize your services.

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