September is here, and for many that means kids back in school, days getting shorter and vacations in the rear view mirror. In other words, time to get back to work, or better yet, time to get some help getting your work done.

This month’s Elance Work Index, the Web’s leading indicator on contract hiring trends, provides insight into the minds of business managers everywhere as they look to accelerate their businesses and enter the coming decade with wind in their sails.

Notable trends from this month’s Index include:
 

• Increase Your Attendance. Why pay for visitors when they can find you? Article Writing, Content Writing and Search Engine Optimization are all popping this month as companies strive for that elusive “Page 1” placement in search results. And with new entrant Social Media Marketing entering the conversation, well, you might agree we can see an emerging trend here.
   
• “C’s” Are Above Average. According to new stats from BlackDuck, C is the first programming language to exceed 1 billion lines of code. No surprise that C and its cousins C++ and C# have vaulted into the Index joining the juggernauts that are Java and JavaScript. We give C an A+.
   

Now that you’ve learned the ropes around the Elance Work System, it’s time for you to push the pedal to the metal, crank up the volume, and get awarded more jobs than ever before.

After personally spending quite a bit of time studying the Elance universe, I’ve learned that there are a few ways that you, as a provider, can stand out and shine from the rest. So before you jump the gun and send off your next proposal, familiarize yourself with the following tips.

1. Keep Your Profile Up To Date: Your Profile page is one of the most important assets for any provider on Elance to maintain. Having a well-written, fully-completed, typo-free page shows your potential client that you will take meticulous care of their work, similar to your profile page. Additionally, take the time to fill out the Summary and Keywords sections in detail as these are two key areas that attract the eyes of many employers. DongoDevTeam and Yourtravelgirl are examples of great profiles.

2. Write Awesome Proposals: Making a great first impression is key. Proposals are a lot of times the very first communication your potential client will see from you, so be sure to spend some time preparing your proposal. Aside from replying with just, “I can do this in one week,” ask thoughtful, poignant, and relevant questions, prepare a detailed timeline, establish a standard communication channel and frequency, and spec out your milestones. This will clearly state to your potential client that you mean business. You’ll show that you have put serious consideration and thought into the job as well as understand the requirements and have foresight into the project. For more on proposals, check out our this blog post: Make Every Proposal Count.

3. Take Skill Tests: If you’re debating on investing the time in Skill Tests, consider this: A recent Elance survey identifies that 77 percent of prospective clients found that Skill Tests and Verified Credentials to be important factors when making the hiring decisions on Elance. That’s nearly four out of every five employers on Elance! If you’re still debating on taking Skill Tests, remember, you aren’t playing the odds, my friend.

4. Join Groups: By joining an Elance Group, you are showcasing your talent and professional skill that is officially recognized by a sponsoring company – for example, Adobe Photoshop or Microsoft Excel. Talk about real street cred. Your Group affiliation is prominently displayed on your profile page as well, which helps employers quickly identify the cream of the crop of a specific skill and expertise in no time.

The first step to creating a blog for personal or business use is the obvious: Get the thing up and running in one piece. However, it doesn’t (and shouldn’t) stop there, as there are tons of widgets, plug-ins, add-ons, and more that not only increase the functionality of your blog but can also help you retain users, bring new ones, and monetize more efficiently.

Here’s my shortlist of blog must-have elements:

Social Media Integration: If you take a look at the right side of the very blog you’re reading this post on, you’ll notice that we’ve incorporated the “Facebook Fan Box” widget as well as an aggregated Twitter feed. The benefits of integrating social media elements is two fold. First, you’ll be providing an easy way for readers to engage your online communities by joining your Facebook Fan Page as well as follow you on Twitter. Secondly, on the flipside, by posting your content on to various social media channels, you’ll be adding supplemental traffic to your site. Who would say no to that?

Most Viewed: Let’s say you published a link to your article on Twitter, and lo-and-behold, you nab yourself a visitor. Now, once your reader has finished digesting your article in its entirety (as they should), the absolute last thing you’d want them to do is simply leave and go off to Google land. The Most Viewed widget placed strategically on your page will give your visitors that have landed on your page additional dynamic content for them to click through to, thus retaining readers on the site and turning more page views. These widgets also surface your best content to readers with statistics to back them up. Since these types of widgets are usually automated, they’re very low maintenance but can make a huge impact in terms of page views.

Recent Comments: This is another fantastic feature. One of the fastest ways to increase your readership is to entice users with ways to voice their opinion and hold discussions with each other in your comments section. A Recent Comments section gives your readers a hint of the action with one quick glimpse – they’ll be able to quickly see what topics and posts are all the rage on your blog right now and will be enticed to jump in and share their opinion. Yahoo! Shine has great examples of both this and the "Most Viewed" module on their front page.