12 million freelancers are on Upwork, so making sure that you’ve got a profile that stands out from the crowd is critical to your success.
Even if you’re on Upwork right now, you could always smash that glass ceiling and earn more.
There’s always room for improvement and growth.
Before we dive into how you’re going to create that stellar Upwork profile, lets talk about the mistakes freelancers make.
Don’t forget to check out these resources that helps you get clients fast on freelancing sites, social media, or cold pitching
5 Mistakes people make on their Upwork profile
Most of the common mistakes that freelancers make on Upwork can be fixed and I’m here to help you fix them.
Becoming a high-paid successful freelancer that allows you to live life on your own terms is an extremely difficult thing to accomplish.
Although is you don’t make any of these mistakes in your Upwork profile, then your road to becoming a successful freelancer is easier than you may think.
Lets dive straight into the mistakes so you prevent them from happening.
Endlessly complaining gets you nowhere
If you really want to create a life of freedom and making tons of freelance money then stop complaining now.
You’re holding yourself back.
Our human instinct is to complain about things.
All this ever achieves is adding negativity to your life and draining your energy.
Freelancers blame Upwork for their lack of success.
What they really need is to be looking in the mirror and realize the truth.
The truth that the person that’s looking back at them is the only person responsible for their success or lack of it.
Instead, eliminate complaining from your life and the faster that you’ll grow on Upwork.
Putting in minimal effort
When you’re putting in minimal effort into your freelancing business, you’ll get minimal results.
If you’ve put minimal effort into your
- Upwork profile
- Profile picture
- Projects
- Proposals & cover letters
Then you’re simply going to get minimal results.
However if you put the time and effort into your Upwork profile and really become client centric, then you’ll reap the rewards.
To get the results you desire actually start working on something to move your freelance business forward and eliminate distractions.
Having a selfish mindset
Are you thinking of yourself or your client first?
If you want all those things which freelancers do want, then you need to start thinking of the client’s needs first.
Money is the consequence of helping people get what they want you can have everything you want as long as you help other people get what they want.
Most freelancers only do the minimal work required to get by and check the boxes off.
Thinking about the client first applies to all aspects of freelancing on Upwork.
Your Upwork profile needs to be client centric and showcase how you can help clients.
When an Upwork client views your profile they should easily be able to see what problems that you can solve for them.
Being impatient
Don’t make the mistake that afterf just taking one online course, you’re ready to start charging clients £100 an hour.
Sadly this is just not the case or the platforms would be even more saturated.
When you see freelancers charging higher rates, what you don’t see is how long they’ve been working in their niche or even how they started.
Work hard at building your reputation and play the long game, in 5 – 10 years you’ll be charging higher rates.
Change your mindset today, grow in your niche, and you’ll be thanking yourself.
Making excuses
You’ll always find an excuse why you’re not winning jobs on Upwork.
Look hard enough and you can always come up with excuses why other people are successful and you’re not.
Either have excuses or results.
Making a big life change is definitely scary but you know what’s scarier regret.
Don’t have regrets.
Starting today, audit how you’re spending your time, and find times you could be growing instead of being busy doing nothing.
To help motivate you, put on one of these podcasts that’ll boost your productivity and get it done.
5 Secrets to Create an Upwork Profile that Converts
Now you know what mistakes you should be avoiding, here’s the 5 secrets to build an amazing Upwork profile that’ll get you clients.
Your profile picture
What does your Upwork profile picture look like?
Are you smiling, groomed, and look like a friendly person to work with?
How’s the lighting?
Answer these questions honestly or ask a friend the same questions and take in their feedback.
When I started out, my profile picture was so bad.
Mainly bad because it had very bad lighting.
So bad you couldn’t see me properly.
But when I made a profile picture with the correct lighting and filters, I got more clients.
Yes, a profile picture can literally make or break your success on Upwork.
When a client is looking through a list of people to work with on their project, that client on Upwork doesn’t care about you.
Sorry to say!
Let’s focus on what’s most important, your headshot.
You don’t need glamor shots.
This is a profile photo, just do a photo!
To do a good profile picture, you do need
- Good lighting
- Look at the camera
- Stand in front of a white wall, smile, and take that photo
Professional photos are nice but they’re not required.
It’s simple, look like a professional and you’ll get hired more.
What’s in it for me?
Assume that the only thing that an Upwork client cares about is ‘what’s in it for me?’.
They don’t care about your current job, your career, what your pet’s name is, or anything like that.
All they care about is what can you do for them today?
Tailor your whole strategy around that and you’ll do exceedingly well.
Do your keyword research
What do clients want exactly?
Unless you’re a mindreader, you’re never going to know this without doing keyword research.
Keyword research for terms the people use when typing words into the Upwork search bar and finding freelancers that can complete their project.
If you’re a virtual assistant and are a whizz at spreadsheets.
Terms like ‘spreadsheet’ and ‘Excel’ will be used.
Just head to the search bar and start typing in what your ideal clients are seeking.
Write down the ones that just keep coming up in your space.
Remember when you’re doing this research, it’s not about the work that you do. It’s about the results that your clients get from it.
Understand Your Clients
When you understand your clients you can write an Upwork profile and proposal that speaks to their pains and dreams.
Not sure if you do, answer these questions:
- Who is your ideal client
- What’s their dream result?
- What are they frustrated by?
Test your assumptions by writing down the specific search terms that keep popping up.
Mark down the ones that are really that good.
Create your headline and description
Armed with data from your research, we’re actually going to dive in to creating your description, headline, and constructing the rest of the profile.
First, we look at your headline.
Your headline needs to be punchy, and tells the client straightaway who you are and what you do.
Next is the description.
Your description is two sentences below your headline.
These two sentences are their to really entice the client to click through to your profile and learn more about you.
Hurray! You’ve now go them over to your Upwork profile and are intrigued to learn more about you.
You’ve got a lot of room on your profile to add lots of information.
Information including:
- Long description
- Work history
- Portfolio
- Skills
- Project Catalog
We’ll discuss the portfolio and projects catalog in blog posts coming soon, but for now we’ll discuss the long description.
You need to refer back to all of that research you did earlier about the client and what you can do for them.
Tell a story in more depth about
- Who you are
- What you do
- Why you’re different
- Results you deliver your clients
Always remember to entwine the research with the story.
Include frustrations, motivations, and benefits.
What are the benefits that they are going to get by working with you?
You’re description doesn’t have to be a long essay.
But it should be a short concise story that tells the client about you and how you help people to achieve their dream results.
In A Nutshell,
Use these Upwork profile secrets to land clients either you first or next. Don’t forget to check out these resources that helps you get clients fast on freelancing sites, social media, or cold pitching
