Make Money on Fiverr: 17 Advanced Tips to Optimize & Promote Your Fiverr Gigs

How Fiverr Works For Sellers (Hint: It's All About Quality Signals)

How is it that some Fiverr gigs have endless orders queued up, while other, almost identical gigs can go months without getting a single sale?

The answer is visibility.

Fiverr has hundreds of thousands of gigs listed on their site, with hundreds more being added every day.Let's face it, it's 2018 and this "Fiverr" thing isn't getting any easier.

You spend hours setting up your gigs, days waiting for orders to roll in, and weeks trying to hustle your first few sales.

And then.... crickets.

I know, because I've been there myself. I did the research. I put in the long hours. I took consistent action. And I gave up... multiple times.

Any of this sound familiar?

This is my gigs: https://www.fiverr.com/share/xZAd4

The good news is, Fiverr isn't a lottery, and your ability to make money on this platform rests largely on strategy... not luck.

What you're about to read isn't just another half-assed, rehashed Fiverr optimization post. In fact, most of what you'll learn here isn't even been taught anywhere else online.

So, when someone does a search, Fiverr has to decide which gigs to show on page 1, and which gigs belong page on 100. (In other words, it's a search engine, just like Google.)

It's pretty obvious when you think about it, but it's easy to forget that appearing on any page other than the first will drastically reduce your gigs visibility.

And this principle even applies at the page-level to some degree...

So how does it actually work?

Well, the ranking process is handled by Fiverr's proprietary algorithm, which looks at different "quality signals" in order to determine which gigs deserve visibility over others.

(I know, that was a mouthful. But stick with me.)

While there's no public record of what this algorithm looks at, most established Fiverr sellers would agree that it boils down to fourfundamental signals.

Your ability to...

• Attract ​​visitors
• Engage prospects
• Convert leads
• Fulfill: orders

Everything I'm about to share with you feeds into at least one of these quality signals, whether directly or indirectly.

17 Advanced Fiverr Strategies You Can Start Using Today

Now that we've covered Fiverr's quality signals and how they impact your visibility on the platform...

...let's get into the actionable stuff. 

1. Hack Your Gig Title To Get A More Sharable URL

Ever looked at your Fiverr gig URL?

For 99% of sellers, it'll probably look something like this:

This URL is actually generated from your gig title the moment you hit publish on a new gig. It can also never be changed.

If you want something shorter and more memorable — which always helps with promoting your gig outside of Fiverr's platform — you'll need to use a little hack when you first create your gigs.

In the gig title field, write as few words as possible (minimum is 4) that accurately describes your gig.

Here's an example:

The "I will" part won't be included in the URL, so in this case, the end result will end up looking like this:

Now isn't that a more a favorable URL?

As soon as you publish your gig, you can then go back in and edit your gig title to something more appropriate.

It's such a seemingly small difference but it adds another level professionalism to your approach that the overwhelming majority of Fiverr sellers are still oblivious to.​

Note: You can also generate a shortened "social" URL through your Fiverr seller dashboard, but I still like to do this since you can't count on every person to use and share your social link.

2. Use Keyword Modifiers To Get More Exposure On New Gigs

I'm a strong believer that when it comes to naming your gigs... shorter, punchier gig titles are the way to go.

In the early weeks (and sometimes months) of a new gig, however, you'll likely struggle to get much visibility as Fiverr slowly gathers data on your gigs performance.

One way around this problem is to use keyword modifiers as they tend to be FAR less competitive than the obvious head terms.

Let me explain:

If someone types "modern logo" into Fiverr's search box, the search algorithm has to decide which of the 3,951 results to show on the results page.

That's gonna be a tight squeeze for a brand new, unproven gig.

On the other hand, if someone types "modern logo 24 hrs" into the search box, you're only competing against 986 results, which gives you a MUCH better chance of actually making the cut.

The great thing about this approach is that you can STILL rank for those head terms because they still a part of your gig title, so you only stand to gain.

Here are a list of other gig modifiers you can experiment with:

• "24 hours"
• "fast"
• "unique"
• "custom"
• "bespoke"
• "2018"
• "using illustrator"
• "using photoshop"
• "with after effects"

One more thing:

These are very niche specific so it's worth doing the research (like I did in the screenshots above) to see which modifiers narrow down your competition, as not all of them will.

3. Eliminate Competition By Niching Down Your Gigs (The Right Way!)

This might seem like another angle on the last tip, but it's different in the sense that it actually changes your gig's fundamental offer.

Most people understand the idea of niching down — in that you're targeting a smaller subset of a bigger market — but few people (especially on Fiverr) seem to execute on this properly.

I'll explain this one using the "Article & Blog Posts" subcategory.

The screenshot above conveniently highlights one of the first mistakes I see people making on this platform — assuming that Fiverr's subcategories areniches.

News flash: they're not.

The truth is, these subcategories contain thousands, if not tens ofthousands of listings, and so creating a gig that offers "article & blog writing services" will put you up against 100% of the sellers in that subcategory. 

That's a guaranteed way to #fail on Fiverr.

Instead, you need to go deeper into a subcategory to identify where clients are really spending their money — and this another area I consistently see Fiverr sellers drop the ball.

The idea isn't to guess your way into a profitable niche, but to identify top selling gigs by looking at the correlating data. In the case of Fiverr, the closest data we have is the number of reviews a gig has.

Note: From my experience, around 60% of clients who order on Fiverr will leave a review, so you can almost double the number of reviews to get a rough idea of how many orders a specific gig has amassed.

There's no magic formula for this, it's simply a case of navigating into your chosen subcategory and noting down (or favoriting) any gigs with a significant number of reviews.

The more pages you sift through, the bigger your sample size and the better your understanding will be of what actually SELLS.

4. Leverage Your Fiverr Username For A Boost In Search Visibility

If you haven't already started your Fiverr account, or you plan to create a new one for whatever reason, this one's for you.

(If you do have an existing account, just skip ahead.)

As you've probably guessed by now, Fiverr is heavily reliant on keywords to understand the nature of a gig, whether these words appear in your gig title, description, or tags.

What you may not know about this, is that Fiverr caps the number of times you can mention your keyword in your gig.

This restriction is likely in place to protect the user-experience, since sellers will naturally start spamming the f*ck out of their gig description in an attempt to rank higher in the search results.

There is, however, one sneaky workaround you can leverage if you're just starting out on Fiverr.

By putting a relevant keyword — as in, a keyword that sums up the majority of your gigs — into your username, you can squeeze a little bit of extra relevancy onto each of your gig pages.

Here are some other examples I just made up:

• "CopywritingNinja" — offers copywriting services
• "LogoDesignChick" — offers logo design services
• "MrDataEntry" — offers data entry services
• DrSnuggles — Offers cuddles (okay, scratch that one)
• You get the point...

If ranking higher wasn't incentive enough to do this, it also helps your conversions since potential buyers will view you as an expert in that field.

5. Move Away From $5 Gigs & Raise All Your Package Prices By At Least 50%

If there's one counter-intuitive truth I've learned from my time as a freelancer, it's that charging more money doesn't necessarily cost you sales.

In fact, from many of my own "experiments", I've actually found the opposite to be true. Yep, sales increased when I raised my rates.

(I've written about this phenomenon before in my Upwork pricing post, and the same principles apply on Fiverr.)

Here's the thing:

While you can technically charge as little as $5 for your services, Fiverr has been actively moving away from the $5 marketplace model, and most buyers today will only expect to see that as an absolute minimum.

And there's probably more to it than you think.

Not only can it be easier get clients with a premium price-tag, but the clients themselves tend to be MUCH nicer to work with.

They're friendlier, they know what they want, they communicate clearly, they're less picky, and, most importantly, they're happy to pay extra for quality.

In fact, it's clients who actively seek out these $5 bargains that give the platform a bad name. When you cater your services to these kinds of people, you're just asking for trouble.

And believe me, I get it.

Raising your prices is a hard a barrier to overcome for many freelancers, but it's something you NEED to get comfortable with if you wanna start making some serious cheddar on Fiverr.

Note: The only exception is at the very beginning when you're trying to get your first few sales and reviews, but even then, charging less isn't always the way to go. Don't be afraid to test.

6. Encourage People To Favorite & Share Your Gigs For A Cheeky Boost In Rankings

You can favorite any gig with a click of a button, either from the search results page or the gig page itself.

(As a side note, I actually use this a lot when I'm doing gig research, so I can quickly refer back to gigs I'd like to emulate myself.)

The fact that there's a counter on this metric indicates to me that Fiverr uses this as a quality signal, so always encourage people to favorite your gigs... even if they don't place an order.

At the very least, a high number of favorites contributes to your social proof which will also help conversions, so it's a win-win.

If you want to be really sneaky, you can participate in some of the "favorite exhange" groups on Facebook:

And yes... Fiverr HATES this kind of group manipulation, so abusing it could result in you getting your account banned.

Basically, ifyou're going to do it, do it in moderation.

(And don't even think about crying to me via email me if you get into trouble. You were warned.)

7. Create A Gig-Network To Multiply Your Customer Lifetime Value

Did you know it takes anywhere from 4x to 10x the time, money and energy to acquire new client as opposed to retaining an existing one?

(Nope, I didn't pull that out of my ass.)

It's easy to sit back and wait for Fiverr to send you new leads all day, but with the right strategy you can effectively double or triple the value of your existing leads through the power of a gig-network.

A gig-network IS that strategy, and it's essentially just a series of gigs that offer a logical next step for your clients; a natural progression from one purchase to the next.

This usually requires a more holistic approach to Fiverr that most people never even stop to consider.

Essentially, it means no longer creating services from individual gigs, but using individual gigs to create a single, unified service.

Need an example?

Ok, let's say I was an expert on YouTube (for the record, I'm not), I might create a gig-network like this:

• Gig #1: Set up your channel & optimize keywords
• Gig #2: Create your channel cover art
• Gig #3: Write your YouTube channel or video description
• Gig #4: Optimize your video title, description & tags
• Gig #5: Create your video thumbnail art
• Gig #6: Share your video on social media
• And so on...

As you can see, there's a clear, natural progression.

A client could realistically order my YouTube gigs in sequential order to have everything covered, and that's EXACTLY what you want to achieve.

8. Incentivize Referrals By Bribing Your Existing & Past Clients

This little nugget is something that almost nobody is taking advantage of on Fiverr; referral marketing.

There's no better person on the planet to recommend your service than someone who's just had an amazing experience with your service. (Sounds obvious when you read it, right?).

Often times, people just need a little nudge (or incentive) to actually fire off an email to a colleague, or inbox a friend on Facebook.

Here's some ideas you can experiment with:

• An improvement on what they just received, whether that's an upgrade on the actual deliverable, or something extra to enhance it
• Double up on the deliverable (such as 2 logo concepts instead of 1)
• A free order for every person they refer to you

Once you have your incentive nailed down, it's just a case of messaging your clients after they've left a 5-star review.

Here's a script you can use:

"Hey [client name], thanks again for your order!

Just wanted to let you know that I'm offering [incentive] in exchange for referrals. If you could mention me to anyone in your circle who might be interested in what I do, I think we could both benefit from it.

Either way, stay awesome!
[your name]"

9. Prevent Negative Feedback With This (Almost) Bulletproof Script

Not so long ago, refunding a client would automatically remove any feedback left by that client, including a negative review.

While this was a reasonable trade-off for sellers to maintain ratings on their profile, it didn't exactly leave buyers with an accurate/reliable scoring system.

In 2017, Fiverr put an end to all that.

The update meant that once a review is left by a client, it cannot be changed or removed unless it breaks terms of service or the client is willing to modify it  — even if you issue a refund.

(Personally, I don't think this is the direction Fiverr should be taking to solve the issue, but I digress...)

In response to the change, Fiverr sellers now need to be a lot more proactive when it comes to client satisfaction.

The trick is to set the right expectations in your delivery message. (As in, the message you send with your attached deliverable.)

Here's another script you can use:

"Hey [client name], please see the attached [deliverable].

Before leaving feedback, please let me know if you have ANY issues with your [deliverable] and I'll do everything in my power to correct it for you at no additional charge.

I want you to be 100% satisfied with my work, otherwise I insist that you ask me for a full refund. No hard feelings.

​Thank you,
[your name]"

In 98% of cases, even the most disgruntled clients will play nice after reading this message.

Reason being, even if they're not satisfied with the deliverable, you've already presented them with not one, but TWO easy resolutions.

And the other 2%? Well, unfortunately, there are some people in this world who would rather hurt your credibility (and ultimately your income) than accept their money back.

In these cases, there's very little you can do to fight it (which is exactly why I don't agree with the change, but heigh-ho.)

10. Inject New Gigs With Targeted Traffic To Generate Engagement

As you know, engagement is one of the fundamental quality signals that determine which gigs rank where on Fiverr.

Engagement being anything from:

• Favorites
• Social shares
• Direct messages
• Sales

(Basically, anything that pulls someone out of "browsing mode" and gets them to take a specific action.)

The only way to generate these engagement signals is to start sending traffic to your gig, because without them, Fiverr will be reluctant to send you some of their own traffic.

You're basically saying to Fiverr:

"Hey, look guys, I'm sending all these people to my gig and they clearly like it, you should give me some credit here."

Make sense?

Of course, your gig needs to be on point if you want that traffic to actually resonate and engage with your gig. This doesn't work without a quality offering in the first place.

So the question is, how do you actually send traffic to your gigs?

My favourite strategy is to use highly-targeted Facebook groups along with something I call the "feedback technique".

If I were promoting a video editing gig, for example, I'd join a YouTube community, integrate myself a little, and then make a post.

Here's yet another script you can use:

Hey guys, I'd really appreciate some feedback.

I'm a freelance video editor and I've recently been trying to drum up more leads for my business. (Don't worry, I know better than to pitch you here.)

I've just set up a gig on Fiverr, and since nothing is really happening I was hoping I could get some feedback from this community.

Here's the gig: [insert URL]

Any ideas why it's not converting? Any help is appreciated.

Unlike most peoples attempt to blatantly self-promote, this approach actually encourages members of the group to get on your side.

Better yet, you'll get genuine feedback on your gig from the very people who will likely buy it.

Win-win, baby!

11. Capture More Sales By Creating Multiple Variations Of Your Own Successful Gigs

The Pareto Principle (also called the 80/20 rule) is something everybodyshould be aware of by now.

It states that 20% of the invested input is responsible for 80% of the results obtained. (Read more about it here.)

How is this relevant?

Well, you can see evidence of this principle at work by looking at the gig sales (or reviews) of any popular Fiverr profile.

I can't fit them all into the screenshot above, but this seller has 23 total gigs with top 3 making up around 80% of their total review count.

Surprised? I'm not.

Thanks to the Pareto Principle, there will always be a small handful of gigs that outperform the rest, and ultimately account for the majority of money you make on Fiverr. Period.

Here's where the magic happens:

Once you identify these gigs, and it may take some time, you can make similar versions of the same gig in order to target related, but also morespecific keywords.

Looking at the example above, you can see that the best selling gig focuses on product label design.

And if you look even closer, you'll notice the seller has already started to capitalise on this information by creating a version for bottle labels.

I'd go even further...

A bit of research shows me that people are also interested in product boxes, packages, bags and even gift box designs.

Why is this important?

Because those keywords don't appear in the sellers product label gig, which means Fiverr probably NEVER show it for these search terms.

You have to treat the algorithm like a baby. Assume that it can't associate words with one another and feed it with those variations.

12. Create Gig-Specific Bonuses To Boost Client Satisfaction On A Budget

If all you take away from this article is to give an unexpected bonus on every order you get, it'll be worth the weeks I spent writing it.

Seriously, this is one of the easiest ways to overdeliver and get clients singing about your services.

The reason most people don't do it, however, is that it can be too expensive and time consuming to come up with a bonus for every new order — especially when you're only making a few bucks on it.

(Plus... people are lazy.)

​The good news? You don't have to. In fact, I advise against it.

The secret is to have something relevant enough to be genuinely useful to the client, but not so relevant that it can't be given to other clients who order the same gig.

In other words, instead of creating bonuses that are order-specific, you need to create bonuses that are gig-specific.

To give you an example, let's imagine I have a logo gig offering clients 1 logo concept for $20.

Which bonus would be better?

• Bonus #1: An extra logo concept on every order
• Bonus #2: A video showing how to edit one of my logos

While the first option is good, it requires infinitely more work to deliver vs the second option, which can recycled for every order without any additional production time.

THIS is how you should be approaching your free bonuses, and you can apply this kind of logic to pretty much any type of gig.

Here's some other ideas for you to chew on:

1. A checklist
2. A cheat sheet
3. A PDF guide
4. Course access
5. Community access

13. Offer High-Value Gig Packages To Instantly Increase Revenue

Gig packages.

If you're not using these on ALL your gigs, you're leaving money on the table. No question about it.

Here's an example of gig packages in action:

Not only do packages allow you to charge more for your services, but it also opens up another opportunity.

A BIG ONE.

The ability to directly influence how much people spend on your product, simply by offering them a choice.

This isn't theory I'm spewing here.

Plenty of experiments (like the one below) have been carried out to prove that this psychological phenomenon exists.

"People were offered 2 kinds of beer: premium beer for $2.50 and bargain beer for $1.80. Around 80% chose the more expensive beer.

Now a third beer was introduced, a super bargain beer for $1.60 in addition to the previous two. Now 80% bought the $1.80 beer and the rest bought the $2.50 beer. Nobody went for the cheapest option.

Third time around, they removed the $1.60 beer and replaced with a super premium $3.40 beer. Most people chose the $2.50 beer, a small number chose the $1.80 beer and around 10% opted for the most expensive $3.40 beer."

To sum up, when people are presented with a 3-way choice:

• Most tend to go for the middle option
• Some will always go for the most expensive option

So, by only offering a single price, you remove the ability for those people to give you more money for a more premium service.

You want more monies, don't you?

I recently put this theory to the test by adding a $300 high-end gig package to one of my existing gigs.

And within a week... BOOM....

If you're not taking advantage of high-value gig packages, you're literally leaving money on the table.

Get it done.

14. Use An AFK Message Template To Maintain A Stellar Response Time 

Average Response Time is a big deal on Fiverr.

If you've ever browsed the platform as a client, you've almost certainly looked at average response time before pulling the trigger.

Not only would I consider this a direct ranking factor, but a stellar response time will also encourage engagement and sales.

In other words, it MATTERS.

The problem for anyone with a semblance of a social life, however, is that being on call at all hours of the day, every day, is simply an unrealistic to run a business — and I couldn't a agree more.

So how do you keep this little metric in tip-top shape?

Well, the first thing you should know is that Fiverr only measures the time difference between a clients message and your first reply.

That means all interaction (or lack thereof) between you and the client after your first reply isn't counted towards your Average Response Time.

Here's how you take advantage of that:

By using a generic AFK—or 'away from keyboard' message—you can immediately reply to any message, politely let the client know when to expect a personal reply, AND maintain your response time.

I like to add a template using quick-responses, which I can then quickly insert through the website or mobile app. (And yes, you should definitelyhave the mobile app installed.)

You can add a new response right from the inbox:

This way, no matter how busy you are, you can always take 20 seconds to open up your laptop (or whip out your phone) to insert your AFK quick response.

You didn't think I'd leave you hanging on a script, did you?

"Hey there,

Thanks for your message. 

Unfortunately, I'm currently away from my computer so it's a little difficult for me to properly respond your query at this time.

Give me a few hours and I'll personally get back to you on this. Sorry for any inconvenience caused.

Cheers,

[Your name]"

15. Strategically Plant Keywords In Your Client Reviews

We've talked a LOT about keywords already, but I couldn't end this post without giving you the heads up on this ninja tactic.

You already know that gig reviews are a big deal on Fiverr. That's old news.

Bu with all the hype surrounding reviews, it's easy to forget that Fiverr also gives YOU (the freelancer) an opportunity to review your client.

You NEED to be actively doing this.

Not only does it show Fiverr and potential customers that you're responsive, but it also gives you an opportunity to reinforce your gig's keywords.

When writing a client review, take note of which gig it relates to and strategically work in your core keywords.

Okay, example time.

If I was responding to a review on my (hypothetical) 'Facebook ads consulting' gig, I might say something like:

"Thank you so much for ordering my Facebook ads consulting gig!
[NAME] was amazing to work with and I hope to have many more clients like him/her in future."

And don't just say the same thing for every review, though.

You should take the opportunity to mix things up, and even hit other keywords potential clients could be searching for.

For example, the next one might be:

"I enjoyed working on [NAME]'s Facebook ad strategy, and we were able to work together to create several profitable ad campaigns. AMAZING."

16. Leverage Gig Authority To Break Out Of Your Niche & Skyrocket Your Sales

I talked earlier about the importance on niching down on Fiverr, but some savvy-eyed folks are quick to point out the obvious.

If you look hard enough, you'll find there are plenty of Fiverr sellers still crushing it with generic gigs, like this guy:

This broadly-targeted gig not only has an impressive 499 reviews, but it's also consistently bringing in new orders with 7 currently in queue.

Gigs like this encourage newbies (and even sometimes experienced sellers) to set up their own generic gigs, but in the vast majority of cases, they're left scratching their head as to why nobody's buying.

So what's their secret?

Two words; gig authority.

The more authoritative a gig is — as in, the more sales and positive reviews it has — the more exposure it is ultimately given in Fiverr's search results.

If we look closely at the URL of this gig, you can start to get an idea of what it actually started out as:

As you can see, this used to be a gig offering article rewrites to pass an online plagiarism service, called Copyscape.

This was the "foot-in-the-door", so to speak.

With only a handful of other sellers to compete with, this guy was able to consistently generate sales and reviews over time.

Once he managed to build up enough authority (and ultimately ranking power) on this gig, he was then able broaden and "rebrand" the service in order to sell to a larger audience.

But it gets better.

While this trick is mostly used to tap into a larger market, it can also be used to transform a service-based gig into a product-based gig.

Easy when you know how, right?

17. Build Up Your Profile Authority To Lift Your Entire Gig Portfolio

This one follows the same principle as the last... with a key twist.

While gig authority represents the overall "ranking power" of a gig, profile authority applies at the account-level.

It represents your ability to not only get people clicking the buy button, but to also deliver a quality service, on-time and to each and every clients unwavering satisfaction.

Fiverr gauges this through the same quality signals I've been banging on about throughout this entire article.

There's no official metric for it, and there's no r​​​​​eal way to actually measure the "authority" of your Fiverr profile.

But I we do have the next best thing.

Of course, I'm talking about what Fiverr refers to as 'Seller Levels' — where freelancers are essentially "promoted".

Why is this important?

You know what they say, a rising tide lifts all boats.

If there's one thing I've seen from my time on Fiverr, it's that promoted accounts get more visibility on ALL of their gigs — old and new.

#fact

So here's what you need to do make it happen:

1. ALWAYS focus on those quality signals
2. Stay within the rules (read the reqs here)
3. Be consistent, and be patient. Fiverr takes time.

I hate to end on such a dampening note, but this is perhaps the single most important tip to take away from this post.

Fiverr is a marathon, not a sprint.

Give it the time and attention it needs, and soon enough, you'll have an asset that can easily generate thousands of dollars in revenue each month.

Wrapping It Up...

If you want to start making money on Fiverr, you need to finally ditch the post-and-pray approach.

It doesn't work, and it never will.

Fiverr's algorithm runs on a set of principles that, once understood, allow you to turn this once low-level platform into a powerful sales engine for your freelance business.

Feed it with the same quality signals I've outlined here, and I guarantee you'll see an amazing shift in the way Fiverr treats your gigs.

If you have any questions or you have an advanced Fiverr strategy that I haven't covered here, please let me know in the comments.

Happy selling. 

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