I've been contracting, consulting & freelancing for the last 10 years (5 years completely remote). My advice is to avoid "searching contract work", but reverse the situation completely: make your new clients find you instead. I wrote about this in depth here: https://www.wisecashhq.com/blog/how-to-have-clients-find-you....

Sites /can/ work (I know people who make a good living off certain sites), but nothing will beat self-managed marketing on the long run.

Feel free to email me (see profile) if you have specific questions.

Good luck!