Make Money Online From Freelancing On Upwork!
If you want to work as a freelancer but have no experience, then today's article should definitely solve your problem. Upwork is one of the best solutions to start making money online, even if you have no experience yet.
Upwork provides you with a platform giving you a good opportunity to start putting your skills to good use and to find your first clients. It provides you the opportunity to become independent from an office job and start a freelance career instead.
What Is Upwork Website
Upwork is a platform that publishes millions of jobs each year, thereby enabling independent professionals to make money online from the comfort of their home, while giving companies the ability to choose from over 5,000 skills and more than 70 job categories.
How Upwork Works
The platform works just like any other freelancing website and quite similar to a job search site, where companies post the type of work they require along with the offered amount of payment. Job seekers then respond to offers of interest by sending their applications.
Remember, it's not that you will be getting hired, and will have employers. Instead, you will have clients to whom you can offer your professional services.
How To Register On Upwork
While in the past one could easily signup for an account on Upwork, now, however, there is a lot of competition and it may not be that easy for your application to get approved on the first go.
While the basic registration steps are as simple as signing up for a Facebook account. Entering your first name, last name, and email address and choosing a password. After the basic signup process, you can then set up your profile, add skills that you have for e.g. java, web developer, content writing, logo designing, etc.
Upwork then takes up to 24hours and responds back via email to confirm if your profile has been selected or not.
How To Get My Profile Approved On Upwork
Now, this is the part you have to focus upon. Remember, the team at Upwork is more than willing to accept you as a freelancer and approve your profile, however, for this, you also have to do the right things.
In order to get your profile approved you first have to think about why some of the profiles get rejected in the first place. Upwork is one of the top freelancing sites. So it is quite common for many people who want to be a freelancer, to quickly signup for an Upwork account without paying attention to filling up the details in a much more professional manner.
Hence when the Upwork team rejects profiles of such freelancers who they feel aren’t adding any value to the Upwork marketplace. The step is taken so that the freelancers who are actually serious about freelancing can work while making sure that the clients can also get their work done with reliability.
So if you found your profile getting rejected, it only means you are trying to be yet another freelancer with similar expertise. And if you think practically, you'll agree to the fact that they reject such profiles in order to make a better marketplace for the clients with only severe and real freelancers. For the same reason, they also suspend existing non-performing accounts.
So before jumping on to the freelancing on Upwork, think thoroughly and ask yourself if you are really serious about freelancing and are willing to compete with the competition. If the answer is Yes, then carry on reading the below points that may help you get your profile approved on Upwork.
Steps To Get Your Profile Approved On Upwork
Sign Up With A Professional Email Address
Your email address is your first point of content. So if you are using a free email address such as yourname@gmail.com, @hotmail.com, etc. Then it may not give a professional impression compared to what a professional custom email address can give e.g. yourname@yourcompany.com, @yourcustomdomain.com, etc.
Upload A Professional Profile Photo
Do not upload any of your fancy or party images as your profile photo. Do not treat this as another Facebook or any other chitchatting website. You have to look like a person that you yourself would hire. So, upload a decent professional photo of yourself.
Create A Robust Profile
Remember your Upwork profile is like a CV for the employers of this platform. You cannot work without knowing how to present your skills. Try to provide a Job title to describe your expertise in one single sentence that could attract some attention. The idea is to not make it too generic and nor too specific. An e.g. "impactful writer" is better than a generic "writer".
Also keep in mind that honesty is very important here because, if you are hired for a job that you can't deliver, your account could be put on hold or closed.
Write A Client-Centric Overview
Write a good description centered on the client and not on yourself. Emphasize what problems clients encounter in your area of expertise and explain how you can solve them. So use less of "I" and more "you" in your text!
The overview section allows you to enter up to 5000 characters giving you a tremendous space to share about the services you offer. Often freelancers make the mistake of adding the bare minimum which is 300 characters, and you should not make the same mistake.
Select Unique Category And Skills
The next crucial step to be followed for getting your Upwork Profile approved is to choose the correct category and subcategory of expertise.
You have the option to choose up to 10 categories. Select all those which you think you can work on, to make sure you are more searchable by clients in the marketplace.
In addition to categories, we have skills. Again you have the option to add up to 10 skills so make sure you add each of those ten skills. The basic idea is if you see something you can work on, put it on your profile to let Upwork know your full range of expertise.
Add Your Projects
If you are just getting started on Upwork but have made some projects in the past then do not miss on adding them to your profile. Add every project you have worked on in the past that you can share with your portfolio.
If you don’t happen to have samples to showcase in the portfolio, let me know in the comments below and I'll write another article sharing the guide to how to set up your portfolio in such a case.
Add All Your Qualifications
Did you go to university? Add it.
Have you worked in the past in your cousin's company? Add it
In short, add in anything that could increase the perceived value.
Avoid Grammatical Errors
And please, please review your profile description before applying. You wouldn't make a good impression if your profile has grammatical errors.
Finally, after entering all these essential elements of your profile, the verification is done in 24 hours. After this verification, you can get to work.
Is Upwork Free?
While from the registration process to the publication of your professional profile and the sending of applications are totally free, a percentage of deduction happens from the Upwork earnings that a freelancer makes, as a form of commission in getting them a job on Upwork. That is if you respond to an offer and are chosen for that job by the client, then whatever payout is offered from the client, Upwork will deduct their commission from it and will then pay you the remaining amount.
Did you found this article helpful and do you have any questions? You are free to ask your doubts in the comments section below!
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