In order to post a project, you must have at least $5 in your GAF account. GAF will take this money as a refundable FEE. That is: at the time you post a new project, GAF will deduct a refundable FEE of $5 from your account. After you close the project or award it to anyone, GAF will then give back $5.

Posting projects at GAF is totally FREE but you do need to have $5 in your account as GAF will take this money as a refundable FEE. You will always get back this refundable FEE.

You can also open a featured project. It is not free to open a featured project.

In order to post a project at GAF, you need to click on “Post Project” link that you can see on the top menu at GAF.

After clicking on the link, a new page will open, where you will see many different fields that combine to create a form that one needs to fill in order to open a new project.

The first field is the Project Name:

Some people think that project name is just a simple field which is not very much important. But in reality,, this is not true. The project name is a very crucial factor for posting an attractive project.

We need to make our project, the most visible and attractive, so that we can get lot of service providers, bidding on that project.

The best way to write a title for a project at GAF, is to use Word Capitalization. That is: we should write titles like this:

A Title For a Project At GAF

The above format for a project title is the best and it is the most attractive one.

Here are few formats which are not good:

A TITLE FOR ANOTHER PROJECT:

Some people write titles in upper case. This format is the worst format for writing a title for a project at GAF.

a title for one more project

This kind of format for project title is also very bad. Such titles look so unprofessional.

A tile for gaf project

Or

A Project for gaf Site

Or

A Project TO POST AT GAF

All of these formats are not good compared to the best one, which is mentioned above. You have to capitalize all the words in an title to make it look perfect. That way, you will get the most bids being placed on your project.

Job Type:

You can choose maximum 5 job types. Some people think that choosing multiple job types will be beneficial, as they will get more bids that way. This is not true [most of the time].

For example:

I need to hire a writer, to write some articles. I choose in the job type: Copywriting, data entry etc.

Choosing copywriting is the right thing to do but if I also choose data entry as a category for my project, then that is not the right thing to do. There are many reasons why doing such thing can create problems.

First of all: in the data entry jobs category, most people have no particular skill like programming etc. Many people cannot even write proper English. When you will put a copywriting project in data entry category, then expect to get lot of bids but most of them will come from service providers with zero freelance experience plus zero English writing skills.

Most of the new service providers do not realize one basic and most important rule. That is: they should place a bid on a project if, and only if they can complete the project 100%. Many newcomers just place bids on projects even without reading the project description. They are only interested in wining project, so that they can earn some money.

So, only choose the category where your project fits the most.

In case your project involve more than one area of expertise: for example: if you want someone to make a website plus you need someone to add content in the website too, then you will have to choose two or more categories and that is the right thing to do.

Also, if you are not sure about the field of expertise: for example: you want to make a website, but you are not sure which language you want to use, then the best thing is to choose all the available programming related categories for your project.

Database and Operating System:

Using these two options is not a must thing to do. You can leave these two options unchanged. Only use them if you know what data base you want and what operating system you want to use for your project.

Description:

This option is the heart of projects. You must concentrate and write good detailed project descriptions.

You have to write all the main points about your project in the description. What you need, when you need, how you need the work to be done: you have to write about all things in details.

Write all the terms and conditions, which you want to impose for the project in the description.

What will be the benefits of writing good descriptions?

Writing good descriptions will help a lot. Service providers will bid, if they accepts your terms and conditions and if they can do the work, which you need. In case you add little information in the project description and tell the service providers that you will give the details via PM ,then you will waste lot of time as people finding your terms and conditions unacceptable will refuse to work or if they cannot complete the job, then they will refuse. This will bring no good and your valuable time will be wasted.

Upload Files:

Only use this option, if you want to show an example in a file, to service providers or if you need to show something that cannot be included in project description: for example: you may want to include a picture of a website to tell service providers, how you want your website to look like or you can include PDF files etc.

I suggest you do not write project description in a file and then attaching it to your projects. You need to include all the project details in project description field.

If you write all the project details in a file and then you ask the service providers to read the file in order to know about the details of the project, then that will affect the number of bids on your project and it will also affect the quality of bids on your project in a negative way.

Number of bids will be low, as some people are not interested in reading descriptions in a separate file. And some people will place a bid without even reading the file for the details.

Budget Range:

Wisely choose the right budget range. Budget range should be accurate.

If you want someone to write 10 articles, then you will choose the minimum budget range [at the moment, the minimum budget range is $30 to $250]. If you choose the second budget range, then that will not be correct.

I know no one is going to choose such a wrong budget range for a project, where one only need 10 articles: the above is just a extreme example of choosing a totally wrong budget range.

Time Period or the number of days you want to give for the project:

You can choose the number of days, that you want the project to be open for bidding. Choosing long time period will not help a lot. Once a project bury deep in the category list, it stops receiving good bids.

So choose a reasonable amount of days for which your project should stay open.

Four Check Boxes:

The first check box is to choose if you want your project to be a featured project or not.

BE CAREFUL.

There are many buyers who check this box without knowing the fact that, featured projects are not free to post. At the moment, opening a featured project costs $29.

Only check this box if you know what, a featured project is and that you want your project to be a featured one.

The second check box is used if you want to hide the bids of one service provider from the others. That is: only you will be able to see the bids that service providers have placed and service providers will be able to see their own bid and not others bids.

I personally think that we should not use this option. This sometimes, limits the number of bids on a project.

The third check box is used if you want only the gold members to place a bid on your project.

I think choosing this option will not bring much good. It can decrease the number of good bids on a project as, there are some excellent service providers who are not gold members.

The fourth option is to make your project non public. Such projects can only be seen by site members and these projects are prevented from being displayed in search engines.

For normal projects, this option is not used. In case you want to open a project where you need some privacy, then you can consider checking this box.