How to Write a Great UpWork Profile

In the previous lessons, we have covered a lot of ground about building your first freelance writing business and getting your first income streams.  The more places you establish a presence, the faster you can start to hit massive income numbers.  Approaching UpWork correctly is the difference between getting those 5-figure jobs and getting left in the dust…

Your Profile is a Sales Page

A lot of people slack of when it comes to putting together a profile on UpWork.  I have seen accounts with just two sentences of broken English and nothing in the portfolio.

If you don’t take your profile seriously, nobody else will.

Your profile should be designed to showcase why you are awesome and why someone should hire you.

What do you think a prospective employer is more likely to respond to?

1. A profile that lists your skills and links to past projects
2. A profile that explains how you can help their business make more money

The only proof of your skills will come from your portfolio and cover letter.  Don’t waste your time listing skills, because that’s BORING.

Always think about copywriting.

Convince anyone who reads your profile that you are a champion and that you can change their business.

UpWork Profile Headline

I did a quick search for ghostwriters and here are the first few results:

Just looking at these profiles, which headline grabs your attention the most?

“Your mission is your message. Make it shine.”

That sure got my attention.

Other factors such as job success rate and experience can all grow over time as you get more jobs, but a good headline gets people to open and read your profile.

It’s a way to stand out from the boring competition who just list their skills in their headlines.

Hourly Rate

Almost no jobs on UpWork are paid hourly – every project I’ve ever done was fixed price.

I pay to get a job done, and I don’t care if it takes one hour or twenty.

Performance-based pay is the norm on most freelancing platforms.

Choose a number that people will take seriously and is a little higher than what you think you should charge.

If you want to charge $15 per hour, then put down $20.

The purpose here is to increase your income and with the click of a button you just gave yourself a 25% raise.

For every job you take, you will be negotiating a fixed-price contract, so starting from a higher position means they can negotiate you down and you still get paid what you wanted in the first place.

The UpWork Profile Overview

Don’t waste time modeling another profile here.

Instead, search the Internet for someone who is WAY better than you and WAY more expensive.

Find their sales letter and model it.

Don’t steal sentences, but follow the structure and write something similar.

Find the web page of someone great and look for a link that says something like “work with me.”

This is where you will find their sales page.

If you can’t find a great sales letter to model this way, just go to WarriorForum and find a great writing letter there.

I showed you exactly how to do this in https://servenomaster.com/get-more-freelance-jobs/

The Call to Action

This is absolutely the most important part of any website, profile or sales letter.

You tell the reader exactly what you want them to do when they finish reading your profile.

I spent the last twenty minutes trying to find a decent one for you on UpWork, but I failed.

So I’ll just create one for you right now.

[thrive_text_block color=”blue” headline=”A Good UpWork Call to Action”]

Here’s what I want you to do next:

You’re interested in hiring an amazing ghostwriter to make your vision come to life.

The next step is to message me so we can begin the conversation about your next project.

There’s no obligation and no hard sell – I’m a writer, not a car salesman.

We just want to see if we are a good fit and will enjoy working together.

If we are a good fit, you can look forward to fantastic writing that captivates your readers and creates incredible levels of engagement.

Sounds great, right?

To take the first step on the path, just click the big green “Hire Now” button at the top right of this page.

[/thrive_text_block]

The hire now button is white with green writing now, but who gets inspired to hit a WHITE button?

Feel free to use this as a template, but please rewrite this, so it appears at least a little original. 😉

Your Upwork Portfolio

Presentation is everything.

And understanding how UpWork shows your portfolio to prospective clients is critical.

Never make assumptions.

Here are some portfolios that I found on UpWork just now:

These are four random portfolios from ghostwriters.

Which of these gets your attention?

The majority of writing portfolios are text only, and they look like the top left image – dry, boring and forgettable.

The other three all use some images, but which one grabs your eye?

If you’re honest, it’s the bottom left.

We all know that boobs grab the eye.

Now you don’t have to use breasts in your portfolio, but the more engaging your images are, the better.

If you write an article for a client and they use dull images on their website, you can use your own, better images when you upload to UpWork.

Use engaging, professional graphics to impress potential clients.

If I see an ebook with a bad cover, I just assume that the writing will be bad too.

You can hire a Fiverr worker to create a fantastic 3D book or magazine cover to use in your portfolio.

Spend twenty bucks, and you’ll have a killer portfolio.

In short, you want images that engage and are also the correct dimensions.

Your graphic should use a ratio of 4:3 and when UpWork resizes, it will still look great and not get cropped off.

As you can see, tall images end up getting chopped and look strange.

Next – How to Write a Great Job Proposal