Over the years of working on Upwork as a freelancer and hiring other freelancers, I have accumulated 1
some interesting tips and tricks that I used for myself to be successful on Upwork. 2
And I want to share these tips with you, so you don't have to waste years of trial and error and trying 3
to find out how to make things work on Upwork. 4
So, I've put all these tips in different videos and sort of compiled them in different themes. 5
But before we get to those tips, let me give you a quick tour of Upwork. 6
This is how Upwork works. 7
A client posts a job that they want to get done, like a website design and build for a startup. 8
They give details. Sometimes a predefined budget and sometimes without a defined budget as an hourly 9
rate. The freelancers bid on the job sending proposals with prices. 10
Then client responds to proposals and starts a conversation with freelancers that they like. 11
Often they might do interviews over the call. 12
Finally they make their choice and award the job to one person. 13
The contract and billing is all managed through the platform. 14
If you are working on an hourly rate, then you are going to track time through their application. 15
All time is automatically logged and the client is automatically billed for it. And the client's payment 16
method is automatically charged. 17
This is great because you don't have to worry about billing, money transfers and all that. 18
Upwork is free to use, but it takes commissions from what you make. 19
They have different commission rates based on certain brackets. 20
This is their current commission structure. But it might change any time. On the first $500 21
that you bill a specific client, 22
they will take 20%. After that 10% until 10k and then 5%. 20% sounds big, but 23
that's just on the first 500$ that you billed to the client. 24
For example, let's say you bill a client total of $5000. 25
The time frame doesn't matter. Upwork will keep 20% off the first $500 and 10% 26
of the remaining $4500. 27
So the total of $550 in commissions. 28
That's 11% of the total amount. 29
This bracketing is pretty good for web designers, because our projects go well over 500 mark. 30
And often client relationships are very long term. 31
I don't think I've ever had a one time project on Upwork. 32
All the jobs turned into long term work relationships. 33
For those freelancers who do smaller one time jobs for many clients, maybe like logo designers. Then this 34
system sucks. Because they end up paying 20% on most of the money they make. 35
Web designers have it better in this case. 36
Searching for jobs is pretty straightforward. 37
You can search jobs by keywords, skills or some other filters. Searching correctly is going to be important 38
to find the right jobs. 39
Keywords for you are going to be website, design, web design, Webflow, landing page, web page, responsive 40
website and so on. 41
Don't forget landing pages. 42
Those are in high demand and they are simpler than websites. 43
In terms of design and development, landing pages are all the same web pages we've been doing so far. 44
It's just a single page instead of an entire website. 45
Keywords aren't the only way to search. 46
Often they're not the best way, because it returns everything that mentions your keyword anywhere in 47
the job posting. Skill search can be a bit more targeted in such cases. 48
You can do that from Advanced Search 49
Select a skill from the dropdown and search. But one skill at a time, otherwise it's going to look for 50
jobs that match all the skills that you have selected. 51
These are skills that clients selected when they were creating the job, so it can be a bit more precise 52
than just keywords in the description. 53
This is how the usual job posting looks like. This one is an hourly rate project, 54
it shows right here. Job descriptions on Upwork are most of the time quite bad. Often not a lot of detailed 55
information is provided about the project. 56
Employers could use some training on how to post proper job descriptions to attract the right crowd. 57
To apply for the job, 58
you have to submit a proposal. 59
This is how proposal submission form looks like. 60
You select your rates that you propose for this job. 61
The billing type is set by the client itself, so if it's hourly billing, then you can only propose hourly 62
rates. For flat rates, 63
then you have to only propose flat rate. Cover letter is the message that you write to the client. 64
This is where you try to make that pitch and convince them to hire you 65
basically. The rest, like your portfolio, your reviews and all that they can check directly on your profile. 66
I have an experience of posting job ads on Upwork and that gave me an advantage that other freelancers 67
didn't have. 68
I knew something they didn't and so you will. 69
This is what a client sees after they post a job. 70
A list of proposals from freelancers. 71
This is most important page where the decision making by the client happens. 72
This is where they filter out freelancers that they don't want to work with and choose the ones they 73
do. 74
I have several great tips on how to be successful on this page and stand out from the crowd. But later 75
on that. The client can see your proposed rate here. 76
In this case hourly, since that's what I've set as the project billing. They can see your lifetime earnings 77
on Upwork. Your job title, some badges, which we will discuss in more detail and a few lines from the cover 78
letter. 79
When client clicks on one of these, they get to a proposal view. Which is basically the same as the freelancers 80
profile. 81
Plus the cover letter. Now all other details of your profile and the cover letter will matter. 82
Client can check reviews and ratings from the past job, how much you made on those jobs, they can see your 83
portfolio. 84
These are screenshots you can upload under your portfolio section. They can see your skills. 85
Keep these skills genuine and focused on your domain. 86
Don't put things like Microsoft Word. 87
It doesn't make you look like a better web designer. And they can see your employment history outside 88
of Upwork. 89
If you add any. If you do have employment history, it's a good idea to add them here. 90
Prior experience counts too. And it can help build your credibility. 91
Although whatever you put it has to look good. 92
Your summer job at KFC isn't going to add anything. And that's it. 93
That's general overview of Upwork.