Isn’t this the loaded post? With the downturn on the economy, hordes of displaced workers have turned to the Internet to find income streams. Web and computer savvy individuals everywhere are taking their MySpace, Facebook, and professional skills online to eek out a living to supplement their income. Many are finding that it’s not as easy as it sounds including yours truly. Building an online presence and brand is hard work. Online workers often put in more hours than one might at a conventional job. Working online has its perks like working in your pajamas or working anytime from anywhere with an Internet connection.

The thing that almost everyone wants to know though, is where to find freelance jobs and clients. This is the biggest challenge of working at home. You are your own boss, marketing department, IT department, secretary, etc. It sounds great in so many ways, but it is a very big challenge without a plan and resources. I’m going to list some tips and resources to help you find freelance jobs. You may know some of them, and others may have never occurred to you. Hopefully, this will help you advance your freelance career.

• Friends and family – Talk to your friends and family about your online endeavors and gain their support. This is how you begin growing your network.
• Online friends – Starting spreading the news of your intentions through your social interactions on the web.
• Get a website/blog – It’s easier than it sounds. If you don’t know how to go about it, chances are that one of your friends does. Research online how to go about it.
• Email – Put a link your site in your email signature. Each time you apply for a job whether on or offline, your website outlining your skills goes out with that email.
• Polish your resume – Make it shine and put a PDF version for download on your website. Don’t forget to remove your address and phone number if you don’t want the entire world to have it. Leave your email.
• Keywords – Figure out what they are and how to use them right down to the domain name your choose for you site.
• Marketing – Learn how to go about it on and offline.
• Social Media – Learn what it is and how to use it to your advantage.

If you’re not already plugged in all over the web, you have a lot of accounts to create. Visit these resources, learn from them, and learn how to use them.

• Digital Point – Digital Point is the largest webmaster forum on the Internet. It is packed with information about everything you need to know to create and maintain a website/blog.
• Twitter – If you haven’t heard of Twitter, you must have been under a rock for the last couple years. Create an account. Download TweetDeck. It’s a client for use with Twitter. Create a new column with keyword search terms pertaining to your niche. For example, I have a column that updates anytime someone tweets about “freelance writing”.
• Facebook – Get an account and start adding friends. Post your skills and information. Post links to your website. Post when you update your blog. Who knows, you may find your long lost high school buddies.
• Craigslist – Craigslist has job classifieds. Check them out. Don’t forget the “gigs” section directly under the job listings.
• Delicious – Delicious is a social bookmarking site. You can keep all of your bookmarks online so you can access them from any computer. You can add friends and browse their bookmarks to find additional resources. Look for freelance job listings.
• Google – If you are not Googling what ARE you doing? Google is the best search engine on the Internet. If Google can’t find it, no one can. Type in search terms and look for job listings.
• YouTube – And you thought YouTube was just for entertainment! Create an account. You may think you’ll never make videos, but you’ll learn that you can convert all kinds of things to video like still images and PowerPoint presentations. Upload them to YouTube with a link to your site and take advantage of the millions of YouTube users daily.
• StumbleUpon – StumbleUpon is a nifty add-on for your browser. Hit the “Stumble” button and discover unique websites. StumbleUpon is also a traffic tool. By “Stumbling” your site, you submit it to StumbleUpon for others to discover as well.
• Digg – Digg is another social bookmarking site, but it works a little differently from Delicious. Submit important website and blog posts to Digg to get traffic to your website.
• Entrecard – Entrecard is a networking tool for bloggers. It can be time-consuming and will bring traffic to your website. The problem is that most of that traffic isn’t there to see your site. However, the networking power and small amount of genuine traffic generated by Entrecard does have its benefits.
• Work Place Like Home – WPLH is a forums that lists legitimate work at homes jobs including virtual assistant, phone representatives and writers.
• Index of Legitimate Work From Home Jobs – This is…well, an index of legitimate work from home jobs.
• GenuineJobs.com – An online job site with no fees and no bidding!
• AuthenticJobs.com – Job listings for web, design and creative professionals.
• FreelanceSwitch.com – Articles and job listings for freelancers.

For Writers:

You know I had to have a special section just for writers. Writers, heed all below in addition to the above tips and resources.

• Demand Studios – Demand Media owns the likes of sites such as LiveStrong.com, AnswerBag.com and eHow.com and they are constantly looking for writers, editors and videographers.The pay ranges from $3 for a simple 50 word article up to $30 for more intense writing.
• Break Studios – Break Studios runs several sites that target men such as Break.com, MadeMen.com and Chickipedia.com.They hire writers and editors to fill their sites with relevant content. The pay once a month, but I’m unsure of the amount per article.
• About.com – About.com hires guides and contributing writers to their various categories of pages. The pay is decent and their demands aren’t too rigorous. It’s pretty hard to break in and get your foot in the door though.
• AllFreelanceWriting – AllFreelanceWriting.com is and excellent resource for anyone considering freelance writing as a career. The site is contributed to by several freelancers willing to relay their experiences and provide helpful tips.
• PoeWar.com – A writing career site with job listings.
• BloggerJobs – Jobs for those who want to blog only.
• FreelanceWritingJobs – Check out freelance jobs and read some informative posts. FreelanceWritingJobs has some of both.
• Be A Writer for MakeUseOf – A freelance writing opportunity with a decent payment structure.
• FreelanceWriting.com – Articles and job listings for freelance writers. FreelanceWriting aggregates all the writing jobs from sources like Indeed.com, SimplyHired.com and Craigslist.org in one spot for easy searching.

Bidding Sites:

• WritingBids.com – WritingBids.com is a large freelance writing side with hundreds of projects.
• Scriptlance.com – Scriptlance has a large amount of listings for writers, designers, programmers and more. The site is free as opposed to many other bidding sites, but you’ll have to wait 30 days for your first payment.
• GetAFreelancer.com – Another bidding site.
• Elance.com – Aaaaand….another one.

Resource Sites (Articles and Information):

• Freelance Water Cooler – A resource for freelancers of all types.
• How to Make Money on the Internet – An eHow article with a lot of ideas.
• A List of Resources from The Freelance Rant – The Freelance Rant’s list of resources for freelancers.
• 85+ Tools for Freelancers – I don’t like Mashable for personal reasons, but they do have good info.
• The Freelance Forum – A message board. This board isn’t really active yet, but it’s worth a join if you’re a freelancer.

This should give you a good start and quite a bit of reading and research to help get you started. You will find pretty much everything you need at the sites provided here to launch into a successful freelance career.