Sydney, AUSTRALIA ( PRESS RELEASE )
Content is very much still king in response to Google algorithm updates- new, high quality content delivered regularly; the new breed of agile entrepreneurs are outsourcing everything- except Tom Friedman’s ‘that spark of an idea’, and open source platforms Prestashop, OpenCart, Drupal and Joomla fall out of favour as modern competitors come into the market.
The Freelancer.com Fast 50 charts the top 50 fastest growing job types or most influential movements in the online labour market on a quarter-by-quarter basis, providing a continuous measure of job activity and trends in the online economy.
An analysis of more than 279,000 jobs posted in Q2 2017 (up 5% from Q1), reveals that there’s a back to basics approach from SME’s using the Freelancer.com website. Increasingly, SMEs are turning to external support for core business functions and finding the answer in freelancers around the world.
“The Freelancer Fast 50 data is the leading forward indicator of trends in online jobs related to industries, technologies, products, and companies”, said Chief Executive Matt Barrie. “Tom Friedman said ‘If I just have the spark of an idea now, I can get a designer in Taiwan to design it. I can get a factory in China to produce a prototype. I can get a factory in Vietnam to mass manufacture it. I can use Amazon.com to handle fulfillment. I can use freelancer.com to find someone to do my logo and manage my backroom. And I can do all this at incredibly low prices. The one thing that is not a commodity and never will be is that spark of an idea’. This quarter’s results demonstrate that the new wave of lean entrepreneurs are increasingly leveraging freelancers throughout all aspects of the business to turn that idea into reality from business plan writing, through to product design & modeling, website design, supplier & component sourcing through to marketing and sales.”
Google has had a tough time with criticism of fact checking within its algorithm in the wake of the US elections and recently responded with its updated Google News service^. Also getting a refresh has been the algorithm for how sites are ranked, which hit the web on June 25th 2017^^. With 93% of online experiences beginning with search {source. Vimeo} and 91% of users never clicking past page one of search results, entrepreneurs are doubling down on Google’s update to SERPs.
For today’s entrepreneurs, the need for regular original content has never been greater, so it’s not surprising to find skills in ‘Word’ (up 32.3% from 3,151) and ‘Copy Typing’ (up 30.3% from 4,118) so popular this quarter. Content has always been a critical feature to define your brand. To craft individuality and stand out from the crowd. However, as online audiences have become more sophisticated, and the proliferation of content sources has made information less trustworthy, readers are getting better at discerning between substantial and meaningful content from “fake news” or “clickbait”.
Once you’ve attracted that audience, giving them new content regularly remains key. With stories of engineers being turned into bloggers achieving more than 50,000 views^^^, it’s not too surprising to find Blog Install (up 18.8% from 2,888 jobs) as a top 10 fast growing job area. This area includes users wanting to set up their own blog, customised to their personal style and audience. India has seen many turn this hobby into a profession with 60% of bloggers saying they’re full time*. It’s commercially good news too, with 97% of those surveyed welcoming an approach from brands. A blog gives both individuals and companies a chance to provide usefulness to the audience visiting their site. Not to mention helping to build a following, impart learnings and gain authority in the eyes of their readers.
Freelancers are not only powering content updates, they are powering business models.
Savvy entrepreneurs are turning to freelancers not just to power their content strategy, they are using them to develop their Business Plan (up 17.9% from 2,206 jobs).Recent examples on Freelancer.com include a business plan for a Virtual Reality arcade where the entrepreneur had a sketched out idea but needed help making it investor-ready, the business plan for a 200 bed hospital in Nigeria with centres of excellence in eye surgery, cardiothoracic surgeries and haemodialysis, a plan for a new assisted-living facility in Jacksonville, USA and a study into the feasibility of setting up a new large passenger aircraft manufacturer in the United Kingdom.
Startup veteran and Stanford lecturer Steve Blank, speaks on the power of the lean startup. Now we’re seeing a mainstream wave of the new generation of lean entrepreneurs. The inaugural Entrepreneur Survey found that almost 80% of businesses in the US have less than 10 employees**. This lean and nimble approach keeps full time staff low and outsources many key elements of the business. Whether it’s Supplier Sourcing (up 20.7% from 1,312) to find components that go into making of finished products, Script Installation (up 35.4% to 1,435 jobs) as part of maintaining backend servers, Data Processing (up 23.2% from 9,919), such as using freelancers to generate competitive intelligence on competitor pricing, or Customer Support (up 14.4% from 1,712), freelancers are providing their expertise across all backend functions, no matter whether the business is a startup, SME or large enterprise.
With the rise of modern platforms such as Medium and Shopify (up 5.11% to 2,530 jobs), open source solutions such as Prestashop (down 23.7%, to 1,243 jobs) and Open Cart (down 23.3% to 904 jobs) for e-commerce, Drupal (down 21% to 1,115 jobs) and Joomla (down 19.8% to 2,298 jobs) for content management fell out of favour this quarter.