A couple of months back, I decided it was time to expand my digital presence and explore new avenues of finding potential clients. It didn’t take long before I found myself scrolling through the hundreds of beautifully crafted thumbnails on one of the world’s largest freelancing platforms Fiverr.
I did some quick competitor research to see what was being offered in my area of expertise, quickly threw together a profile, and posted my first gigs. Then, wearing a fancy pair of rose colored glasses, I waited…then I waited some more… Three weeks later, I almost jumped out of my chair from excitement when I opened my inbox to see I had made my first sale! Fast forward to the end of the month and I had a whopping $5 sitting in my account.
Incredible, right?
Even though my earnings were "less than desirable" during those first 30 days, I picked up some valuable lessons that allowed me to increase my sales by 1200% and land my first custom order client before hitting the 60 day mark.
Taking from what I learned, here are a few tips to help you survive your first month on Fiverr.
Set Realistic Expectations
Fiverr is a [highly] saturated marketplace which makes it increasingly difficult to earn your mark as a new seller. At any one time, you’ll see top rated sellers with thousands of 5-star reviews and dozens of orders in cue. Do the math and you’ll quickly see that these guys are making a solid haul. It’s easy to fall into the trap of browsing through gigs posted by established sellers and start thinking you’ll be making $1000s in the blink of an eye, but you need to be realistic and avoid this temptation unless you’re prepared to deal with major disappointment.
The money will come — trust me on this one! While selling a quality product or service is absolutely crucial, it’s only a small part of the battle of finding success on this platform. Unfortunately, the game being played on Fiverr revolves around your understanding of their algorithm.
And this doesn’t happen overnight. So what can you do?
Focus on what you can control
Getting your gig to appear on the coveted first page of popular categories is no easy task, but there are some simple strategies you can start using right away!
Your first goal should be to create professional looking thumbnails for your gigs. Think of these thumbnails as a ‘display window’ for your online store. If you have dark, distorted, or unrelated images, potential buyers will never click on your gigs to read their descriptions. No clicks = no sales.
Take a look at the thumbnail I uploaded on day one versus the thumbnail I have currently.
If you picked the one on the right, you’re correct! It’s clean, professional, and 100% relevant to what I’m selling.
When creating your thumbnails, I highly recommend using photofeeler.com to figure out what photos will perform best. Setting up an account is completely free, and other users will be able to cast votes on how they perceive your photo. Do a few test runs with different angles, clothing, and backgrounds to see what works best.
After you’ve taken care of the visuals, it’s time to turn your attention to your gig descriptions. Buyers need to have a clear idea as to what your gig includes, and be convinced that you offer a solution to their problem. It should also go without saying that your gig must be free of grammar, spelling, and punctuation mistakes.
If English is not your native language, or writing isn’t your strong suit, I would highly recommend hiring someone to lend a hand with this step. A few bucks upfront is a small investment in comparison to the potential payoff.
Once you’ve taken care of the basics, now comes the hard part...
Be patient
Buyers will come when buyers are ready to come. While it’s fun to daydream of waking up to dozens of orders the night after whipping up your first gig, this is just not realistic for most new sellers. If you have social media channels such as YouTube, Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, or a blog, this is a great place to start sharing your gig and get the word out. Just don’t be spammy!
Nobody likes spam and if you share your gig more than once or twice without finding a way to naturally slide in a link, you’re not going to succeed in anything more than offending your loyal followers. While you’re anxiously waiting for that first sale to come along, feel free to continue improving aspects of your Fiverr profile such as rewriting descriptions to include more SEO keywords, adding explainer videos, uploading portfolio pieces, and publishing new gigs. Since the Fiverr platform relies heavily on social proof, hopefully your first buyers will leave you 5 star reviews. Once you have a few of these on your profile, things start to become easier. But try not to get discouraged if you make a few sales without getting any feedback:
This happened to me and I managed to survive!
Lastly, if you find yourself stuck at any point along the way you should...
Go to the forums
The Fiverr forum is honestly one of the best resources I’ve found for learning the ins and outs of this website — and this is coming from a guy that hates forums!
Here, you can ask the community for advice on how to troubleshoot difficult clients, find ways to improve your gigs, or simply chat with other users about your experience on the website. If you post a new topic, it will typically receive activity within the first half hour - much faster than trying to wait for a response from customer service!
Pro tip: When you set up your profile on the forum, you have the option to include a website link that will appear when users click on your avatar. Paste the link to your Fiverr seller profile.
Every time you make a comment in the forum, that conversation is moved to the top of the ‘most recent’ feed and users will see your avatar.
The more active you are in the forums (providing quality responses of course), the more other users will see your avatar, and the more likely they are to click through to your Fiverr profile to see what you have to offer!
Expanding your online business or putting yourself out in the freelance marketplace for the very first time is challenging, but it’s not impossible as long as you have the right mindset. With realistic expectations, a good strategy, and a little patience, I have no doubt that you’ll be able to find the road to success!
Have you got any tips on how to survive your first month on Fiverr? Comment down below!