How I earned $110 on Fiverr in the first 50 days, as a writer with zero work experience.
By: Ranveer Mohite
Tags: Writing, Content Writing, Fiverr, Fiverr Gig, Freelancing

Photo by Ewan Robertson on Unsplash

One day while having a conversation with my friend, he told me about this freelancing website known as Fiverr. He said he had published a gig & encouraged me to do the same. At first, I was dismissive about it. One day, while I was browsing through the web, I decided to take my friend’s advice seriously.

So I joined Fiverr in October. And after 50 days, I had made $110 on Fiverr as a freelance content and copywriter. It may not be a lot, but when you consider how much effort I actually put in for the job, it looks fair.

In this article, I want to share my journey of how I earned $110 as a writer on Fiverr. In the process, you will find valuable insights which may help you get started as a freelance writer on Fiverr.

How you can get started on Fiverr?

First, you have to fill out the gig descriptions & include relevant search tags. Since I was just starting out, I chose the most generic search tags & uploaded basic information about myself & my gig package.

I priced my services at $5, $10, $25 respectively. The pricing didn’t make a lot of sense if you look at it logically. But hey, at this point, I needed to get started.

Stop worrying about being perfect. Get the ball rolling.

Gig Picture and Portfolio is important

Then one has to include a gig picture and portfolio. Since I already had a self-hosted travel blog, I decided to pick my best articles from there & publish it on Fiverr. In hindsight, this was the best decision I took in my opinion.

Don’t include links, but include pictures of your portfolio like jpg(jpeg) files of how the blog article looks like. It’s as simple as taking a screenshot.

White papers may work as well but avoid it if you have a solid blog article hosted somewhere(even Medium should be fine).

Why this is important?

The client sees your work first and then can judge if you are a good fit for his project or not. In my opinion, it sets you apart from the sea of generic sellers who photoshop a nice looking image of themselves with the basic services they offer.

In fact, all the orders that I received were when the screenshot of my best work was directly visible to the client. Whenever I removed the screenshot of my best work & replaced it with a custom image designed from Canva, I hardly got any clicks.

Publish and go live

Once I finished my gig, I hit the publish button. It was time to go live.

A lot of people don’t receive orders in the first week. In fact most of them don’t.

Even Mike Nardi, a level 2 seller on Fiverr had to wait 2 months before he got his order on Fiverr.

I consider myself to be amongst the fortunate few who received their first order on Fiverr within 24 hours.

That’s right, I had my first Fiverr order within the first 24 hours after publishing my gig. The best part? I didn’t advertise about it anywhere. Even my mom didn’t know about it.

It’s very difficult to pinpoint the exact reason behind this. But I guess showing your best work as the gig image and a little help from the Fiverr algorithm helped me to get my first client so fast.

As a new seller, I suspect Fiverr promotes you in the first few days. Make use of it and put your best foot forward.

The first client I worked with needed a blogpost for his website. After going back and forth with him, he accepted my offer for $25.

It was a custom offer. A custom offer is when a buyer has special requirements which don’t fit the gig package. The seller understands the requirements and offers a rate based on that.

Whenever someone messages you, chances are they’ve special requirements and are looking for a custom offer.

I worked very hard to finish the blogpost. It took a day to research the field and finish the work.

Quality work & review

He was impressed with the writing. And that’s how I had my first Fiverr review — 5 stars and a comment describing my how pleased he was with my work.

Very soon, he issued another custom order to write more blogposts for him. Similar process and we closed at the same price point again. This time though, my writing quality suffered a bit. The client was unhappy with the work and he expressed his displeasure. However, he didn’t leave a bad rating. Maybe I was lucky?

After approximately a month, another client messaged me and asked for a custom offer. The client was based out of my own country, so I guess I had a small competitive advantage over other Fiverr sellers.

As a buyer, you can filter out what the kind of freelancers you want to work with. This includes local sellers, online sellers etc.

After going back and forth on messages, the client placed the first order with me. This time again, like with the previous client, the client was happy with my work. Soon another order followed and I am working to deliver it.

The quality of the work you produce matters.

How much total time it took me to finish the work?

In total, it took me around 6 days to complete the actual work. In the process, I gained invaluable experience under my belt.

In reality though, I spent more than 6 days on Fiverr, scrolling through the sea of buyers and trying different things. As a beginner it can be very easy to get addicted to the platform if you don’t set up a limit.

Here’s what you can take away from short journey on Fiverr -

Have a skill and a little portfolio

If it weren’t for my travel blog where I learned about content writing, web development, I doubt if I could have got any clients at all. Before you start on Fiverr make sure you have a skill which you can monetize.

For me, it was writing. I’m a chess player and I’ve spent countless hours mastering chess & have zero experience in office. It was only after the pandemic that I learned about content and copy writing. You can do that too and you don’t necessarily need a college degree. But, you have to learn and put in the effort.

Set your best sample as the gig picture

The client is interested in what you can do for them. So why not show them what your best work is? This way, the client will decide whether you are fit for the job or not.

In this case, if they decide to message you, your chances of closing them are higher because in their mind, they know your best work is along the lines of what they’re looking for.

However this may not apply to each and every field. I also know people who haven’t put their best work as their gig picture but still manage to get orders. I personally haven’t had any success with that. So I think the strategy of showcasing my best work, works incredibly well for me.

Quality of work matters

Like I mentioned before, one of my client stopped working with me because the quality of my work suffered. From an objective point of view, the quality wasn’t very bad, but it didn’t meet the client’s requirements.

You also run the risk of receiving a poor rating if the client is unhappy with your work. Remember the Fiverr algorithm will turn hostile towards you if your rating drops.

So please choose work which you are capable of completing and exceed the client’s requirements.

Under promise. Over deliver.

Client Ghosting

Nobody loves to be ghosted. If you are a new Fiverr seller, chances are some clients will ghost you. This usually happens when either you exceed their expectations or fail their expectations. If your work is too good, they just trust you to finish the job and don’t worry about opening the app.

If your work suffers, the client may express his displeasure or simply start to ignore your messages. From my very limited experience, I may be wrong as well. But it’s something which can happen and you should be mentally prepared for it.

Break down a big order into smaller chunks

Often times, a client will come with you with a larger order, especially if you are a content/copywriter. In that case, it’s better to breakdown the order into digestible bits rather than taking the entire project head on.

Why?

Because it helps both — your client and you. If you accept a larger order at once, and you do 70% excellent and 30% average job. How do you think a client is going to rate you? In my opinion, it’s likely that they will dissatisfied because you couldn’t deliver 100% excellent work.

By breaking down the order, you also reduce the client’s risk. In the worst case if you meet the client’s expectations, at least the client isn’t losing money. It’s a win-win situation for both.

By breaking down a large order into smaller orders, you are insuring yourself and your client against failure. Sure you may earn more with a one time project, but that also means there’s a higher risk of getting a bad review if you perform poorly.

Be prepared to not receive orders for weeks or months

After my first two weeks, I didn’t receive any orders for the next two weeks.

Even a level two seller like Mike struggles to get orders on his gig especially after 2–3 days. In one video, after he published his new gig, he got an order for it after 2 long months!

Unless you are a superstar outside of Fiverr, I think it’s difficult to receive orders on your gig. Or maybe you just need to be lucky.

If a Level Two Fiverr Seller with a 5 star rating struggles to get orders for two months, one can imagine how difficult things can be for a beginner.

Be patient. After a certain point, the algorithm will start promoting your gig. It happened in my case that after a few days. The number of impressions on my gig increased.

If you want to get order quickly, you can share your gig on social media. I don’t know how effective it is because I haven’t tried it. But it may work if you post your gig in the right groups.