A Comprehensive Guide to Improve Your Upwork Professional Overview

Imagine being able to get an interview call for all your applications! Imagine the ball being in your court and you get to choose which client to work for!

Sounds exciting? So, let me tell you how to make this far-fetched dream a reality.

Whether you are a writer, web developer, or coder, your profile is always your key to success. 

If you have recently started as a freelancer on Upwork, you would be wondering how to strengthen your profile and Upwork professional overview- what to include, content to add, and how to make yourself stand out among others.

Upwork has a standardized list of elements that help you complete your profile. When creating your Upwork professional overview, it is important to highlight those points and make your profile noticed.

Tips to keep in mind while writing your Upwork professional overview

Creating a well-organized profile is one of the best ways to get work on Upwork. Your profile is your chance to convey your capability and competence to the client. It is essential to ace your first impression and your freelance profile can help you do so.

Keep it client-oriented

Your Upwork professional overview is not only for you but also for the client. While you may be super happy talking about your achievements and milestones, you need to articulate in a way that mutually also benefits your client. Talk about the client and his niche, and then relate it to your past experience.

Prove your work

Do not tell, but show the client what you are capable of. Your Upwork professional overview is a great medium to showcase your previous work samples. Add your work, numbers, data, achieved results, client testimonials, recommendations, etc. When you show your work in your profile, your chances of impressing the client increase manifold.

Add a call to action

You cannot stop with just adding your work. You need to make yourself accessible to the clients by adding the necessary call to action in your Upwork professional overview. Add an encouraging line asking clients to contact you and be accessible to them.

Be unique and original

Your Upwork professional overview should be well-detailed, unique, and exclusive. You should not follow a set template or copy from others, instead add an original touch to your profile and let your personality shine. Think of different ways to create your profile and impress the clients with your creativity.

Proofread your overview

You need to organize your Upwork professional overview and structure all the information adequately. Ensure that all the necessary information about your skills and experiences are added, and the client has enough details to understand you. Next, do not forget to proofread the final content and remove all spelling and typo errors.

Elements to include in your Upwork professional overview

Your Upwork professional overview has certain elements that need to be well-written and optimized so as to impress your potential clients. 

Let me tell you how to update these elements.

Profile Title

Your profile title is your key to attract clients. It is a clear description of your profile and the work you do.

It is one of the most important elements in your Upwork professional overview- a few words that can have a tremendous impact on your client. 

A well-written title is deemed as a sign of perfection and expertise.

• Be simple and succinct in your title. Describe your expertise and also lay down your expectations.
• Be ultra-specific about the services you offer and the projects you are looking for.
• Use adjectives to describe your style of work and express your personality.

With these points added to your title, your Upwork professional overview will become strong and easy to locate for clients.

Also check out some excellent tips to make money on Upwork.

Profile Overview

Your profile overview comes as small snippets of information in the Upwork search results. Just like we need to optimize the content snippets on Google, similarly, you also need to optimize your Upwork professional overview snippets.

Start off with a catchy beginning giving a clear impression about your personality and work. Make the most of these few lines to grab your prospective client’s attention and make them reach out to you. Keep the overview in sync with your previous work, skills, experience, and results achieved.

Keep this checklist in mind when writing your Upwork professional overview:

• Include important keywords that the clients search and try to rank your profile as higher as possible in the Upwork search results
• Include key phrases the describe the genre of projects you have worked on
• Keep your introduction crisp and also mutually beneficial to the client. Add a little bit about the problems you have resolved for your earlier clients.
• Be original and creative in describing your personality.
• Highlight your strengths and achievements, and add a subtle mention of your area of improvement. It is important to add both of these, to give a clear picture to your client.

Logically organize all this information, highlight the important sections and make your Upwork professional overview content easy to scan through.

Add your certifications

Upwork has a lot of certifications for freelancers which helps in improving your profile rank. If you pass these tests and add the certifications to your Upwork professional overview, they can improve your rank tremendously.

Further, these certifications also help the clients understand your skills and select you for the job. All you need to do is search for your necessary skills, take the tests in those skills and pass them successfully. On successful completion, Upwork will issue a certificate that can be added to your profile.

If you are just beginning as a freelancer, it is essential you have a few Upwork certifications to increase your chances of landing a project. You can also check out this beginners guide on how to get started on Upwork.

Add your badges

When you successfully complete your projects, Upwork issues certain badges to your profile. It depends on the number of projects completed, client feedback, amount earned, etc.

These badges further help increase your chances of landing a job and improve your profile ranking. You should aim to get these badges as soon as possible and add them to your Upwork professional overview.

Profile Visibility

Stating the obvious, you need to keep your profile ‘Public’. A private profile will not be seen in search results and clients will not be able to check your work.

There might be times when your profile becomes private automatically.

• When you are not active on Upwork and not earning any money
• When you do not submit proposals regularly
• When you deal in some malicious activity

All in all, if you are an active Upwork user, your profile will remain public. But, it is important to keep checking your profile visibility every month and be sure about it.

Takeaways

Upwork has millions of job postings and offers excellent opportunities to all freelancers. You need to follow a few tricks to optimize your Upwork professional overview and increase your ranking. Keep a check on your profile, add a catchy headline, include the key phrases, add your certifications and badges, etc., and you are good to go.

Moreover, keep experimenting to find the best fit for you and aim at converting all your clients. 

So, get started with creating an awesome Upwork professional overview. If you have any questions, feel free to connect with me at [email protected] for any queries. I would be happy to help you! Join the Discord community of like-minded freelancers here.