This post is going to be super quick because I’m literally going to share one tip that, in five minutes or less, can improve your Upwork profile — not just for the impression you make on clients but for how you show up in search results.
Optimize your Upwork profile tagline
If you look at anybody’s profile on Upwork, you’ll see that there’s a little blip, even less than the characters allowed in a Twitter message, right underneath their name. Here’s mine if you’re curious about what that looks like for me:
Craft your tagline using words your ideal clients would use in their search
You want to choose the words that you put into this Upwork profile tagline very, very carefully because it’s what shows up in search results.
I see people try to have really cutesy tag lines like “I love words and being a wordsmith”. While this may seem cute to you as a writer, when a client is on Upwork searching for a “sales copywriter” or for an “SEO blog writer”, none of the words that you’ve chosen to put in your tagline are helping you show up at the top of the search results page. Plus, what you actually do becomes unclear.
Saying something like “I love words” or “I love graphic design” is great when you’re having a face-to-face conversation because you can offer more detail. On Upwork, however, you have less than 30 seconds to make an impression and the algorithms that are used by the Upwork search feature are not going to recognize those cute things that you’ve come up with at all.
If you’re going to have an Upwork profile, you want it to be one that has an amazing tagline and says what you do.
If you’re a Facebook ads expert, you want to put that down in your tagline; ‘Facebook Ads Expert’ not ‘I help people convert on Facebook’.
We want to focus on what Upwork clients are looking for — Facebook Ads Expert, Pinterest Strategist, Legal SEO Writer. Make what you do crystal clear so that you’re actually being found for what you want to be found for.
You can be cute in other aspects of your Upwork profile but I really recommend having a tagline that speaks to your ideal clients and makes it very easy for them to find you and understand in less than 10 seconds what it is you do.
You’ll see that my tagline says Legal SEO Blog Writer. It’s very clear for my ideal clients, that’s the first thing that’s listed, that’s my area of expertise. That also means that sometimes I get job invitations that aren’t exactly tailored to me. Because it says legal, sometimes I get things where people who are looking for an attorney. But it shows to me that every time somebody is searching for anyone one Upwork – graphic designer, writer, VA, actual attorney – for the word legal, I show up.
So think about what it is you do. Spend five minutes on this. If your client was to look for somebody to do what you do, what would they type?
You don’t need to be super funny, you don’t need to be cute, you don’t need to use technical jargon. Which keyword phrase would they search for if they were looking for you? That’s what needs to be your Upwork tagline.
Also this is another great opportunity for you to go look at your competition as well. What is your competition using in their tagline? You may see some good examples and some bad examples but the people who are showing up in the search results are going to be the people who have chosen the most commonly used words to describe what it is you do.
you can have multiple things listed on Your tagline
You’ll see that I have Project Manager listed on my tagline. I also have Content Marketing on there, and I’ve used the piping to distinguish those and make them unique searchable terms.
So spend five minutes today. What is the one tagline that easily communicates what you do professionally and is something that can be easily searched. This does two things for your Upwork profile.
It makes it easy for someone who lands on your profile to see what it is you do right away. Think about it – they’re only going to spend 10 seconds doing this. They can tell right away; there’s your picture, there’s your name, there’s what you do.
The second thing is it helps Upwork match you to good jobs where you don’t have to spend your connects, which are the bids you use to submit proposals, because you’re being invited. You want to be invited to as many relevant jobs as possible because you’re not spending your credits or your connects on doing that.
So, it’s great to have a tagline — it works for you all the time in many different ways and often when I see Upwork profiles that are in need of a reboot and a refresh, they have a tagline that just doesn’t clearly and quickly communicate what they do.
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