The best websites for freelancers in 2019
Building a great team is essential for your business. After all, you can’t do everything by yourself. Among the first few important tasks that you need to get done with before you can even start thinking about launching your business is hiring a professional web developer and graphic designer. If you think that you can do without them, then think again. Now it is no mystery that hiring the right people is not only difficult but also quite time-consuming. The fact that you need to get those individuals on board that have the expertise and are also trustworthy at the same time makes things even more cumbersome. However, look on the positive side. Once you are done with hiring the ‘right’ freelance website designer and graphic designer you can take a sigh of relief. Why? Because now you can focus on other even more important aspects of your business and invest your time as well as energy on growth.
So, the question remains, “Where can you exactly find professional freelance website designers, website developers, and graphic designers?” The answer is simple: From online job portals. Have no idea about them? Don’t worry, we have got you covered. Following are the top websites that you can use to build a successful team:
Upwork
www.upwork.com, which was previously known as Elance-oDesk is a freelancing platform popular worldwide. Through it, businesses looking to hire individuals can easily connect with freelancers. One can find all sorts of freelancers covering a variety of fields such as photography, web development, and design, content marketing, and even personal assistants.
With Upwork’s user-friendly system you can easily get accustomed to it. Browsing for a few minutes will help you locate and identify the various functions that the portal offers such as the option to release payment, fund one’s account, and find the active projects – all at one place.
At Upwork, all the discussions, documents, and images that are shared between two parties are held as a record at one particular place. In case you require them down the line, you can easily locate them specifically within minutes.
The time-tracking tool that Upwork offers is quite amazing. Given that freelancers are mostly paid by the hour, through Upwork’s time tracking tool the exact amount of time that the freelancers take to do the work can be measured. It ensures accountability. All the freelancers have to do is, log onto their Upwork account and activate the time tracker for the particular project they are working on. The time tracking tool will take screenshots after regular intervals and note down the total time taken. It ensures that clients are only billed for the actual time taken to work on the projects. This tool is especially useful when new freelancers are used and the chances for disputes are higher. Once both parties begin to trust each other and are comfortable then you can even avoid using it.
Another feature of Upwork that makes it stand out is its payment tool. By creating a number of milestones for a particular project, the clients can not only keep a check on the progress that is being made and give their input in a timely manner but the payments can also be released automatically to the freelancers for each milestone they accomplish. This serves two purposes. Firstly, it updates the buyer about the progress on each project by depicting that work is being done and secondly, it gives the freelancer the peace of mind that they are being paid for the work they are doing.
One other feature of Upwork that makes it preferable for clients is that there are skill-testing tools for freelancers for almost all the field. So, if someone wants to offer for instance website development and design services then they will have to first clear the related tests. This ensures that only skillful freelancers are operating on the website.
All in all, Upwork is a secure platform for both the buyers as well as the sellers. It is home to freelancers of all kinds and it makes hiring and managing freelancers very easy. Do take a look.
Fiverr
www.fiverr.com, as the name suggests, offers services of all kinds for as low as $5. While it’s characterized as the ultimate platform for buyers that want smaller projects done at a very affordable rate, you might be surprised by the number of high-end complicated projects that are completed by freelancers on Fiverr.
Fiverr is a global freelancing marketplace that ensures coordination and collaboration between buyers and sellers. There are two ways that buyers and sellers connect with each other. One is the traditional method in which buyers can post the details of their projects and wait for the proposals of the freelancers. The other one works as an online shopping cart. The buyer’s type in the Fiverr search engine anything related to the job that they want to be completed. For instance, a buyer may type “graphic designing” and there comes an almost endless list of freelancer offering that particular service. The buyer can then browse, look around at the portfolio, ratings, level, background, and other details of freelancers, and even get in touch with them. This way they can place their orders directly just as they would do at Amazon.
Fiverr is indeed a safe and secure platform for all. Although it does not have project management tools such as the time-tracking and milestone setting tools but it’s quite effective and efficient nonetheless. It has recently started offering sellers the option to upgrade their skills by taking online courses as well as tests through which it can rate the skills of freelancers and give buyers a complete overview of what can and cannot be expected from a seller. In any case, it is very convenient to use and can help you get in touch with quite a few real pros.
Freelancer
www.freelancer.com is another online website where you can get anything done. As a buyer all you need to do is give relevant details of the project and freelancers will do it for you at a bargain price. Again, there are two methods of hiring. Either the buyer can post the project so that the freelancers can bid on it and the project will be awarded to whoever the buyers think can do it well or the buyers can simply browse through the website, look for freelancers, and place their order directly. At freelancer.com there’s also the milestone payment system which is mutually beneficial for both the buyer and the seller.
In short, it’s another safe platform from where one can get their work done cheaper, faster, and better.
99 Designs
As a buyer looking for graphic designers, there is nothing better for you than www.99designs.com. This is not only because this online platform is home to only professional graphic designers who can satisfy all your needs from logo designing to advertising banners but also because as a buyer you have ultimate power on this power. In short, the buyer is the king. Why? Because once you post the project that you want to be completed, a number of sellers will design upfront for you and all you have to do is opt for the one you want and pay for only that. You might think that it is too good to be true but it really is true. This eliminates all risks from the perspective of the buyer. On the other hand, you still can use the search engine of 99 Designs to look for a relevant seller. In addition to this, 99 Designs offers a pro-service for buyers who require regular graphic designing services and advisory services for those looking for someone to guide them. So, what have you got to lose? Try it out.
Shopify experts
Gone are the days when programmers were needed to set up websites and online stores. Now anyone can simply use Shopify as it is one of the easiest to use e-commerce builder going around today.
Even though you can set up your online store yourself but once your business becomes big enough you might need the services of experts to perform tasks such as integrating any third-party to your store, optimizing your store even further, and marketing your brand. Shopify has even catered to that. It has a team of experts at its beck and call whose services you can avail. Given that hiring the right people for the job is the very task that’s difficult, Shopify has solved that problem by pre-screening experts and selecting the very best ones. So you can use its marketplace to hire the best freelancers out there with full confidence.
Squarespace
www.squarespace.com is one of the least known yet effective website for website development and design. It basically is a drag and drop website builder where you can pretty much use one of the many impeccable design templates available for your own website. There’s absolutely no need to code at all and that’s a big relief.
There also an array of options to customize one’s website and one can even hire from the panel of Squarespace experts if one wants any help in the customization process. It’s highly recommended given that customization can greatly help in making the website unique and by personalizing the website according to one’s brand one can really appeal to the online visitors and get their message across. It must be noted that there are no project management tools, rating system, or a payment platform on Squarespace.
The Conclusion
The bottom line is that if you know where to look then assembling a great team is not at all difficult. Surely, there will be frustrating moments that will cause you to question everything and even pull your hair out but in the end, it will all be worth it.
You need to understand that website design, as well as development and graphic designing, are not everyone’s cup of cake. Hiring professionals is the right way to go about it. Plus, it will make things really easy for you by allowing you to utilize your time more efficiently. Now given that you can hire pros at affordable prices makes it even more sensible to hire freelancers. So, what are you waiting for? Now there are no excuses for you to not build a perfect team that can take your business to the next level. Visit any of the above-mentioned websites and start making the perfect team for your business today.
