The basic things you will need for earning on Fiverr as a musician is a recording setup at home. This will include a laptop/desktop, a sound card, DAW to work with and of course your instrument.
When you join Fiverr, you will first need to list down your services (known as gigs on Fiverr). Below are a list of guidelines, tips and tricks that you should use to promote these gigs for maximizing your earning on Fiverr.
1. Use the correct keywords and tags
Searching on Fiverr is the same as searching on any other search engine. If you are not using the correct keywords then people will not be able find you! When you are making a new gig you will need to search for and use the correct keywords in both the title and the description.
Lets see how you can do this. Lets say you are a guitarist, then open the Fiverr site and search for the term guitar. While you are typing you will see several other keywords show in the search and in the tab below the search bar.
These keywords show you exactly what people are searching for. Now use these exact words to in your gig title and in your description. Try to use as many of them and as often as possible in the description.
Fiverr also allows up to 5 tags for every gig. Other than these keywords you can also check profiles of people who rank on the first page to understand what tags they are using. See picture below:
2. Increase number of gigs
I have found that for most sellers the majority of their earnings on Fiverr are on a single gig but they post more, at least in the beginning to drive any traffic they can to their profiles. The number of gigs you can post are limited in the beginning and will increase once you start increasing in level.
There may be more ways but what worked for me to drive traffic was making one main, relatively general gig, and several other specific gigs. For example you can have on gig saying: “I will play Awesome guitars on your song” and then several other gigs targeting specific genres or styles for example “I will play finger style guitar on your track” or “I will play guitar on your Metal song”.
3. Make a great video and thumbnail
MAKE SURE YOUR PROFILE LOOKS PROFESSIONAL!
Don’t just make a quick phone video of you playing your instrument. Think of what you can deliver, what genres you can play, how you are better and put it effectively in the video. Put some time and effort into making sure your video and thumbnail are perfect.
Whats great is that you can find people to help you at a very competitive rate on Fiverr itself.
4. First few sales and reviews
The first few sales and reviews are extremely important for earning on Fiverr. You need to get these as soon as you can.
Routing all your current work through Fiverr can really help in this regard. Its true you will lose out 20% of the income but that is a small price to pay if you can get your gig to rank higher which will bring in more orders and more than cover up for the initial expenses.
Fiverr bumps up new gigs to the first page many times if they get orders fast so make sure you get all your first purchases to write a review for you. Nothing can work as well as a buyer review in building trust.
5. Saved / favorite gigs [Favorite exchange]
On your gig page do you see that heart icon on the top right along with the number on it. That shows how many times your gig has been saved and it helps you rank your gig higher and boost your earning on Fiverr.
Aside from asking your friends and families you can also turn to Facebook groups. There are a ton of groups like this one where the sole purpose is for members to exchange reviews and likes. You like someone else’s gigs, they do the same for you and you both get a boost.
6. Response rate
You response rate is also a metric that’s heavily taken into account by Fiverr. You can see every sellers response time when you open their profile. Fiverr wants sellers who are replying promptly to prospective customers and not ones who are taking hours and hours.
Best way to do it – download their app and you can reply as soon as you get a message.
7. Be online
A lot of buyers prefer to message sellers who are available when they are searching. You online status shows on the site and a buyer can filter results to show only sellers who are online at the time. If you are on the app then within the seller mode you can select the online status and keep the app running in the background.
7. Do not cancel
Absolutely do not cancel orders!
If you don’t have capacity, then do not take more orders or ask in your description for people to message before they buy if you are unsure of your technical ability to complete orders.
A cancelled order means a dissatisfied customer who may never return to Fiverr again and Fiverr absolutely hates that. This is sure shot way to get your ranking kicked down hard.
8. Buyer requests
Fiverr has a buyer requests section where buyers can post what service they are looking for along with their budget. Make sure to go through this and send a request wherever you can.
9. Correct pricing
Pricing your gigs to the market rate is an absolute must. If others are selling at $25 for a 4 min track and you price it at$50, you won’t make any sales.
Go through all your competitors on the first page and see how they have structured their pricing and gigs.
If you believe your service is better than every other competitor then do go ahead and price higher than market but that difference in quality should be visible and properly conveyed to the customer through your profile and video.
10. Upsell
Fiverr gives you the ability to add extras with your gig packages. Make sure you utilize these and let your customers know about them. With the increase in your average order rate your total earning on Fiverr can go up considerably. Do you think you can mix and master their song as well or maybe you can create a video of you playing their track. Explore competitors and see what you can offer as well.
Earning on Fiverr can be a great side income and the above tips will definitely help you on your journey on this platform !
The Author, Naman Sachdev, is a metal drummer and owner of Whack Studio.
