Common Upwork Profile Mistakes & How To Fix Them

An incomplete Upwork profile is a crime but then having your Upwork profile just reach that 100% complete mark isn’t the point either.

Social media has habituated us to complete the profile in bits and pieces. We add education details as for when Facebook or LinkedIn asks for but the same approach will not work on sites like Upwork.

You have to Upwork profile as equivalent to writing your resume. So take the time out to complete your Upwork profile. If you don’t give the time and love your Upwork profile deserves, there are high chances that you may not see much success on Upwork.

Here are some of the common mistakes among new freelancers when crafting their Upwork profile and surely they leak clients big time.

Showing Too Many Expertise

Less is more. If you tend to show too many expertise, you often end up showing none. This small article by Seth Godin says it all – say one thing at a time.

In the above example, SQL is no way related to the testing but just because there is an option to select 10, freelancer adds it. As you grow your expertise, 10 may be too few but if you are just starting, there is no harm in having less than 10.

Filling Up the Title Textbox

In the above profile, you can see that the title has been filled with everything that he can do rather that what he is good at.

If you aren’t sure of what expertise you should be writing, search for a profile who wins jobs that you want to be doing and see what is his or her title. Try copying it or if it isn’t your expertise, rewrite it to your expertise keeping his title in the back of your mind.

Wrongly Written Overview

An overview is the most important part of your Upwork profile and I see most of the new freelancer gets this completely wrong. The overview should be written from a client’s point of view where one should share benefits that client gets when they hire you and not what you offer.

What you offer are features but what client gets are benefits. Let me show this with a very common example:

I have more than 7 years of web development experience.

If you turn the table and put this from the point of view of the client, it should be

Rest assured your website is with good developer who has 7 years of web development experience.

First one speaks about what you offer as a freelancer but the second one focuses on what client may get the benefit.

The overview should be short but it should be niche focus with relevant keywords.

My overview, you will see I have XenForo and vBulletin the CMS I work for my clients and focus on my niche of forum development instead of writing more generic as web development or PHP development.

Marketing as We

The right grammar is very important and you should always have Grammarly Installed on your browser so you can do a quick fix of the grammar errors.

Grammarly can’t correct the semantic error in your grammar.

If you’re an individual profile on Upwork, you should never write as we. It breaches the trust of potential client and may create a wrong first impression about you. A difficult person to trust will have a hard time to get clients.

Even if you are getting the job done by a team or if you are working as a team behind the scene, you should address clients with an I and not we.

Missing Keywords

Clients do look for freelancers to invite them on their project and so if you don’t use the keywords in your Skills or in profile overview, clients will not be able to find you.

Try to be more niche in your keywords because remember it is better to rank higher for one keyword than to rank lower for many keywords.

Ignoring Tests

It is always good to take tests in Upwork to showcase your knowledge in your niche. As a new profile in Upwork, your proposal will be seen by clients if you have a rising talent badge.

As per the official document, rising talent isn’t directly related to tests but tests are a good way to show your talent on Upwork. Take tests seriously and not only try to pass them but try to excel in them. Publish the results on your profile.

Final Thoughts

When you are new, the profile should focus on your ability to get the project done and when you are an experienced freelancer, it should show your awesomeness at what you are doing.