If we are in one of our busy periods and can not help you with editing your site or installing a program (this is not very often). Then you can use a service called “Freelancer” to find a professional to work on your site.
IMPORTANT!!!!
Read this entire page before using Freelancer
Freelancer is basically an auction site for the services of professional programmers, designers and web professionals.
How it works is simple. Let’s say for example you need your site editing and do not know how to perform the edit yourself. You would go to Freelancer, log in, and post details of the work you need to be done.
Then all the programmers and designers registered with Freelancer will be informed that you need work done, they will go and read the description of what you want to do and place a bid for the work and the timescale they can complete the work in.
You can specify how long you want your listing to run and at any time you can select a bidder to perform the work on your site.
We will tell you how to sign up for Freelancer in a moment signing up is free. If you use any of the links on this page you will also get £15 towards your first job post.
Most freelancers before starting a job will want to see funds deposited to freelancers’ safe pay system before they will begin their work. This is nothing to worry about because the payment will not be released to the programmer until you are satisfied with the work.
Each programmer that bids for your work will have their own reviews section, this is where other people they have worked for left reviews on the service they received. We recommend you ALWAYS read these reviews before selecting a programmer. The cheapest is not always the best.
Before you employ the services of any designer or programmer at Freelancer MAKE SURE you read our guidelines on using Freelancer there is a step by step guide to using the service below.
Step By Step Guide On Using Freelancer
Here are our recommendations for using Freelancer.
Before posting any project at Freelancer make sure you have a current backup of your site and databases. See the backups section of the knowledgebase for help.
Posting your project
- Visit Freelancer by clicking this link Post A Project At Freelancer (this link opens in a new window so you do not lose this page)
- Click “Post a Project” This will take you to the post-project page which is also the signup page.
- Now simply work your way through the form and submit your project.
Deciding who to choose
After your project is posted you should receive email notifications as professionals bid on your job. You can go and read these bids some of them may leave private messages or ask questions you can read and respond to those too. This is a little work as some of the bids will be made by auto-replies, you should dismiss those. If they cannot be bothered to reply to a specific job we would not trust them to work on our sites and neither should you. It is pretty easy to spot these when you read them as they do not mention the specifics of the job and just post lots of links to sites they have allegedly built in the past.
Important!!!
Before selecting a programmer read their reviews, that way you will find out what other employers say about their work and if they can be trusted. Pay particular attention to their completion rate and how often they deliver on time.
Remember when you select a programmer, that cheapest is not always best. We will also advise don’t let just one or two bad reviews put you off a programmer. There are always people who post projects and then keep asking for more changes than originally posted in the job listing and they then get angry when the programmer refuses. The world has plenty of negative people. Read all the reviews and go with the majority.
We also recommend that if you are considering using a programmer from a non-English speaking country you communicate with them via the message board first, make sure their English is excellent communication difficulties can increase the time a project takes and cause a lot of frustration.
When you see a bid and a programmer you like select their bid.
What now?
Once you select a programmer they will be informed of your choice and contact you requesting access to your site to do the work.
REALLY IMPORTANT before you give them access to your hosting control panel, WordPress site or FTP create SEPARATE accounts just for the programmer/freelancer. Once they complete the work delete their accounts to remove access to your site. You should NEVER leave an outside programmer with access to your site.
Now let them complete the work and pay them when you are happy.
Job Done!