3. Write about your work, what you are doing, how you are doing it etc.
4. Go to local meetups, find people in businesses who have problems and try to offer them to solve it for them. Do this offline in person if possible.
5. Write more online about your stuff.
6. Be part of open source community and try to make contributions to projects that interest you.
Pro tip: Odesk/Elance etc are great if you want to compete with low cost programmers from all over the world and there is a reason for it. You are not really showing anything special to a prospective client other than your "portfolio" which is very similar to most other freelancers on those sites. Of course, there are some gems to find but very rare. Any good freelancer will have their own setup, own website, own blog, own showcase etc. Again, it takes time to do this.
This takes effort but doing this will increase your chances significantly.There is no magic wand to this really. The best freelancers/contractors are those who do most of the above steps on a regular basis. It takes effort to show you want know AND build a reputation for how good you are. But people will never know unless you show them.
I will give you an example. Whenever I am searching for a technical issue on google and if I come across someone's blog/github explaining those issues, I immediately have them in mind as potential freelancers who could help me in future. Doesn't matter if they are in NY or Maldives.
2. Share that something on your website/blog etc
3. Write about your work, what you are doing, how you are doing it etc.
4. Go to local meetups, find people in businesses who have problems and try to offer them to solve it for them. Do this offline in person if possible.
5. Write more online about your stuff.
6. Be part of open source community and try to make contributions to projects that interest you.
Pro tip: Odesk/Elance etc are great if you want to compete with low cost programmers from all over the world and there is a reason for it. You are not really showing anything special to a prospective client other than your "portfolio" which is very similar to most other freelancers on those sites. Of course, there are some gems to find but very rare. Any good freelancer will have their own setup, own website, own blog, own showcase etc. Again, it takes time to do this.
This takes effort but doing this will increase your chances significantly.There is no magic wand to this really. The best freelancers/contractors are those who do most of the above steps on a regular basis. It takes effort to show you want know AND build a reputation for how good you are. But people will never know unless you show them.
I will give you an example. Whenever I am searching for a technical issue on google and if I come across someone's blog/github explaining those issues, I immediately have them in mind as potential freelancers who could help me in future. Doesn't matter if they are in NY or Maldives.