Posted in Starting Out as a Freelance Consultant, General Freelance Info at 8:38 pm by andy

Freelancers love what they do.  What many of them don’t love is two things: selling and accounting.  Both are necessary… but they don’t have to be evil.  Or feel like they’re a chore.

We’ve written a bunch about marketing your freelance services, but nothing about how to manage your company.  So let’s do a little Finance 101.

When setting up your business you want to separate your business finances from your personal finances.  Many freelancers when they first start out, just take what they earn and dump it into their personal account.

The problem comes when you want to start seeing exactly how much money you’re making and how much you’re spending on things that help you run your business.  Read more…

Posted in FreelanceLocalTech Chronicles at 3:56 pm by andy

The next step in our international expansion is now online: we added support for Australian freelancers to the site!  

Welcome Australian Freelancers and businesses!! 

Because Australia is so vast with lots of spaces between the larger cities (our directory only includes cities with more than 10,000 people), if your postal code isn’t close enough to one of the larger cities, spend a few minutes with Google finding a good zip code in a larger city that’s closest to you and use that instead.  The rules are the same as with other countries: you can create a free freelancer listing that shows in any city within 30 miles.  If you want a larger territory, you can purchase an inexpensive territory upgrade.

However, until November 15, you don’t need to!  We’re giving away 2-month 60-mile upgrades to ALL Australian freelancers who sign up between now and November 15.  Just register, create an approved freelancer listing, and we’ll give your listing a free upgrade!  Upgraded listings get more views and more clicks, because it’ll show in more cities where potential clients are looking for freelancers like you.  More clicks mean more business for you!

Remember that referrals are rewarded with upgrades, so please tell any Australian freelancers you know about FreelanceLocalTech using our handy Refer a Friend link at the bottom of the site pages.

This change required several adjustments to the way states and cities are organized, so if you spot something that doesn’t seem right, let us know!

Posted in FreelanceLocalTech Chronicles at 6:03 am by admin

We brought the Canadian provinces online this morning as the first step in our international expansion.  All provinces except Nunavut are represented by at least one city.  For those of you not familiar with Nunavut, the territory is the size of Western Europe with a total population of about 26,000 people.

Remember that referrals are rewarded with upgrades, so please tell any Canadian freelancers you know about FreelanceLocalTech using our handy Refer a Friend link at the bottom of the site pages.

This change required a lot of adjustments to site verbiage and code, so if you spot something that doesn’t seem right, let us know!

Posted in FreelanceLocalTech Chronicles at 9:33 pm by andy

We added another category this evening: SEO/Marketing!

How does SEO/Marketing differ from a web designer?  Web designers build the site, but may not know how to effectively increase the site’s visibility amongst your target audience.  SEO/Marketing folks can tune a client’s site for improved search engine results, set up effective pay-per-click advertising campaigns, engage in viral and social networking, and use other techniques that bring traffic to your web site.

We’re also busy coding the changes and getting the geocoding information so that we can add Canadian consultants by the end of the month.  Stay tuned!