What should i do to get more jobs and reviews?

[Gazanfer]

Hello. I'm kind of new here, but i'm doing freelance work locally for like 3 years.

I have 2 reviews for now, and i need to get more to get more jobs. But there is a problem. I must lower my rate to get more jobs, but i also do not want to lower it under a certain value, because this is about how i value my work. Also, regardless of how much i lower it, there will always be a cheaper one. To make long story short: I do not want to compete on price, but quality.

But most of the webmasters are so clueless about what and how we done, always the one with the bid "Hello sir/madam, we have 4000 developers working just for you, and we work 40 hours a day, Choose us and..." wins. Eventually their reviews are increased with $5 jobs completed in 10 days, and those like me are still looking for a job.

I do not want to lie to webmasters, i will never gonna say them "yeah yeah, we will make all, all of them, yes", instead i'm telling them what they should do/use to increase performance, what can not be done with what, etc. But i really wonder how long can i go on like that...

Any ideas? How do you people get more jobs without completing $5 jobs? Am i thinking wrong?

I know, we are all competing here, and i don't want you to tell me your tricks. I just need to know if there are anyone like me.

[Varelse]

COMMUNICATION :)
Talk to webmaster, describe him how You're going to approach to his project, show him Your similar previous works, let him know that You understand what he wants. He has to know You are talking to HIM, not putting Your standard copy/pasted company introduction.
You wouldn't believe how many webmasters appreciate good communication as much as good price. If You present Yourself well, there is a huge chance of winning the project even when there are cheaper offers. But this requires some time spent on writing such a proposal and communicating with a webmaster.

[alecs]

First of all, like Varelse sad: Talk to webmaster, describe him how You're going to approach to his project.

Check the project description, and if it's a simple code/script try to make a live demo and show it in the MPB section. In most cases, you already got some code on simple projects like: forms, login systems, etc.

Demos or mockups make the difference between getting selected in the first place or not getting the job.

Of course, this is just my opinion.

Alecs

[techcode]

I agree with previosly stated.

I would also like to add what worked for me (a bit of luck I guess). I got into working with same webmasters for several projects. It's good for me because I dont have to compete with others in biding. And I guess it's good for them because they allready know me, how I work ...etc.

So even if there are still bids on those projects saying something like "only for techcode" (private option was recently implemented) that were quite low - and that seemed ok to me (no copy/paste bids and such) I got the projects.

But it did started as smaller $25 or so (testing ground) projects. And after a couple of those moved to bigger ones ($100, $200 ...). And as I study it's enough for me at the moment. BTW. In Serbia, one with monthly wage of $300 is considered as better paid one, of course taxes take about the same from the employer - no such thing in freelancing.

Of course there are other options that question etique ...