Optimizing your freelance profile
You’ve made an Upwork profile and are ready to start bidding on freelance jobs. Wait a moment. Have you optimized your profile to make a great first impression on job posters?
Profiles are not like traditional resumes, so throw what you know out the window while reading.
Upwork Profile Optimization: The Basics
In this section, we’ll cover the main things you need to get your profile going strong: title, photo, and profile overview.
Before we start, let’s talk about how clients view freelancers on Upwork because it usually starts with a profile.
In fact, it usually looks something like this — it’s a random search results screen:
Job Titles
You might be thinking, “oh this is easy”, and say that you’re a graphic designer, digital marketer, or Social Media Manager. Just a heads up, there are 100,000 other freelancers with the same generic job title.
Use your job title as a tool to differentiate your skills from others or solidify your expertise in a certain industry.
What both of these profiles demonstrate in their job titles is that they are not only virtual assistants, but they also specialize in a certain skill or industry.
Yarid focuses her skillsets on presentations & infographic design and April wants those in the medical industry to know that she will come in already having a firm grasp on their industry.
You get the point. Demonstrate what you bring to the table right when clients see your profile. Btw… Did I mention no lieing ;)
Profile Pics
A basic element to your profile that can often go overlooked.
The recipe I recommend when taking a profile picture is that you need to make it genuine. Don’t feel pressured to put on your nicest suit and dawn an uncomfortable smile.
Being yourself involves wearing clothes you normally wear, taking a clear close-up shot of your head, and wearing a genuine smile.
Overview/Description
If a client has gotten as far as seeing your entire description, make sure not to lose them here. As someone who has been on the client-side of hiring freelancers, the profile description will be the difference between getting the job or not.
Here is the framework that I recommend:
Twitter Pitch: In one to two sentences, sum up what you do and what makes you special.
//Do Not Write a Novel! If you can’t tweet it, don’t write it.//
Body: List out the relevant skills you have available
Outro: Close the deal by giving writing a small paragraph going over things about you that might shed light on your credentials, work ethic, or even personality. Half the battle is getting clients interested in your skillset, the other half is getting them to like you.
How to go the extra mile
1. List your skills
Sounds obvious but use this section to highlight all of your skills. Now don’t go wild and say you’re a social media ads expert when you’ve promoted only one Facebook post, but let clients know that you can see the whole picture of what your work will be supporting.
2. Add an introduction video
UpWork gives you the option to connect a youtube video to your profile.
Remember what I said previously about getting clients to like you?
Half of the battle in getting remote jobs is to make clients like you. Videos offer clients a glimpse at your personality as well as gives you a more personal way to articulate why you’re a superstar at what you do.
3. Create Personalized Profiles Views
Maybe you’re a graphic designing, animation making, Facebook ads unicorn. If you are, you’ll have no trouble getting an UpWork job.
Your biggest struggle will be articulating each skill you have without sounding like a master of none.
That’s why you should take advantage of UpWork’s specialized profile pages.
They allow you to create special profile views so that you showcase your relevant skills/work for each role you might need to fill.
4. Complete Certifications
f you’re just starting to get into digital marketing and learning skills that are transferable for a remote job, you might want to invest in getting certified in a few skills.
Don’t worry, you don’t need to take out a loan to apply to these certification courses — in fact; most of them are FREE!
Place these certifications on your UpWork profile as a way to demonstrate an understanding and practical knowledge of the skills you are offering.
Below is a link to a list of certification courses that I’ve either taken or have heard amazing things about.
(Click me if you’re ready to learn)
What should you do now?
- Take a moment after reading this to look at your own profile and apply what you’ve learned in this article
- Please look through certifications if you’re just starting out. They offer so much value and can open up doors for you to shine in the remote working scene (Click me if you’re ready to learn)
- Text me at this number if you have any questions or would like me to review your profile-> 918-205-7851
- Read the next section of this guide to learn how to get your first online gig
