As we all know, experience is key to work online, but positive reviews are key to build-up a good reputation.  Online, people have to build-up trust and demonstrate their skills in clear and applied ways so that potential employers can get to know you when they are choosing their programmer.  An employer that trusts you will be willing to pay more for the same work, since he will feel more in confidence, and will therefore have less risk of his project not being delivered on time or not meeting its requirements.

As a freelancer, how do you build that reputation so you can start to get selected for jobs?  You should really consider working for open-source software projects, where you can contribute your special skills and then ask for a review to be posted on your online work site.  For example, Firefox and Open Office are two open source projects that require volunteers to contribute. They need programmers, testers, writers and others as well.  Check their site for what volunteers they need.  You can then mention the fact that you work there to gain experience and good reviews.  Post that in your profile, or post comments on your wall after you complete a small project there.

Vwork.com allows already allows you to post external profile username to your profile, but are you using that feature already?