Where to start and how to advertise yourself as a webmaster?

Question

Freelance

I am still studying at an educational institution, and this summer I decided to spend time promoting myself, my works and services on the Internet with the aim, of course, of making money. Recently, through word of mouth, I made a turnkey website for one person, in general, I realized that I can already deal with more or less serious projects. Having visited several freelance projects, I realized that, firstly, it is advisable to use premium accounts, which firstly filter a large number of freelancers, thereby reducing competition, but still it remains and the chance to get an order is still quite small for beginner project participants.
Now I have a budget in the region of 2000 rubles, which I can invest in some freelance project (website) or in advertising myself.
In order not to learn from your mistakes once again, it would be interesting to find out if there are more or less successful freelancers on this service and find out their ways of promoting their person.

• Which sites to choose for freelancing by web component, popular or not?
  
• Is it worth investing in buying premium accounts on such sites and will they pay off?
  
• Do I need to promote myself in contextual advertising, VK groups for money?
  
• How long did your promotion take, and how many orders do you have now?
  
• Which development environment is best for you? (I own mac, windows and ubuntu right away)
  

Answer 1

Start with word of mouth. Write about your services in your social networks. Ask for feedback on your work, which you also post on social networks. Post links to your work here. All this does not require a lot of time and money.
Later, make your own website with a description of your work, working conditions with you, prices for your work. Remember - freelance exchanges are not the only place where you can find a client.
Good luck!

Answer 2

To get started, fill out your profile in the toaster.
No, really, I asked. I stuck my head in - but about you there is no answer or greetings. This is not the beginning. It's still a bazaar-station.
And make a portfolio website and a personal blog. People will see that there is something sensible - you will have a chance. No one will, believing the words and going to an empty profile, give you an order.
Get into Bitrix (any other cms) and make an addon or theme (free) for it. This will allow you to gain a foothold in a niche (choose a niche). Then there you can add a line to your site - here's an advertisement for you. Make a premium version of this plugin or theme - that's your start and an application about yourself. Start selling your solutions. This is success, not freelancing.
Freelancing is summer rain. Maybe, maybe not. And passive income is much more pleasant. You will say later - here I am, frying a barbecue and relaxing, and someone buys my decisions and money drips.
I'm a little offtopic here - but freelancing - this should not be the goal in life. He is dull and boring.

Answer 3

• I tried premium account for three months. He didn't redeem himself. Since it did not bring at least some kind of effect.
  
• But a good portfolio and work in a direction with low competition is effective. (for example, for the layout of hundreds of applications and for the development of a video chat unit)
  
• I also get orders from my open source project. But if it wasn't my hobby for me, it would be the most unsustainable investment in self-promotion.
  
• In my personal experience, searching for orders on VKontakte is not effective, since there are no serious customers there. For that, there are a lot of mothers on maternity leave who, at most, may need an online store on WordPress
  

Answer 4

I'm not a developer myself, I do contextual advertising and often look for them :)
Actually, a very effective way when making websites is to put a link to yourself from below, supposedly developed by that. Usually customers don't mind.
In freelancing, there is generally horror in terms of competition for layout, so I would advise developing a page on a social network, posting cases, passing courses, links to created sites.
Your own lang + direct will not give you a special result, no one will trust you just like that. There is an envelope for studios with a huge website and a portfolio from cold traffic of about 1% ...
Therefore, a sundress is best. From experience I can say that if you do it normally, then you will simply scatter like a sundress in an instant, because. there are always not enough normal responsible specialists and they are cherished like the apple of an eye.
Right now, if I need not just layout, but programming, I'm looking for performers not on fucking freelance, but on djinni.co
Good luck !

Answer 5

put examples of work and code in your portfolio, apply for applications or projects on any exchange yourself, this is the only way you can get initial attention, then the rating will help

Answer 6

For starters, stop calling yourself a "webmaster". This is a term from the 90s, and personally I have a suspicion that a person owns the technologies of that particular period. Today there is a fashionable term full-stack developer. However, the concept of full-stack is not very good to pull on yourself now. For the one who does only one thing (front, back, etc.), as a rule, pumps skills to higher levels than an enikey player who can do a little of everything. And although it is necessary to be able to do everything in our field, there must be a focus. It is the focus on one thing that leads to working on good projects with good budgets. Over time, naturally. Experience is everything.
Further, if you are not learning English yet, then it's time to start. Yesterday. Without English, you will always have a ceiling that you hit very quickly.
Now for the questions:
Upwork
If you are going to work there full time and for a long time - yes and yes.
I don't think. Although, if your target audience is there, then yes. But no.
It is difficult to say where and when the moment came when the "advance" was achieved, well, or how else to formulate it. I'd rather say this - I've been in this field since 1997, and I'm still "advancing". Because point B as such is missing. This is an eternal process of moving up, sagging down in some places, plateauing in some places, up again in some places ... Further, the number of orders is not so important. Their quality, budgets are important, and, as a result, the ratio of quantity to budgets. Roughly speaking, you can make one project with a budget of $10-30-50k in 6 months, or you can cut 20 projects for $500 all these 6 months.
In principle, it is not important, "it does not affect the speed." For me personally - mac, well, ubuntu/debian/centos/freebsd on servers.

Answer 7

A strange question about whether spending on a premium account will pay off.
It seems that the level of your professionalism is known to everyone here, once you ask such a question.