For a while, I have not made any headway with getting freelance work on Upwork (or any of the other freelance sites, for that matter). I was given the contact details of someone who has more work than she can handle and asked her a few questions about how she managed to get herself into such a situation and what advice she can offer. Here’s her response:
One of the most important things in your favour is having good reviews from previous clients/customers. Of course, you need to have done work for them through the site in question in order to get it, which can be a bit of a Catch-22 when you’re starting out. Once you’re getting reviews, it can take up to four months to become top-rated.
When you’re starting out, it’s in your favour to charge a low rate in order to get work (about $5 an hour). It’s better to make a little less than you’d like at first than to not make anything. Once you have a few good reviews, after a few months you can up your rate to what you want to earn (maybe $15 an hour). Keep in mind that the customer sees your rate plus the site’s fee as a single charge.
Focus on finding work for American, European and British clients, since they tend to both be reliable payers and pay well.
Make your profile as attractive to potential customers as you can, so that they want to hire you. You might want to have a professional review it for you, if you can afford to. Top-rated freelancers are also more visible to potential clients.
Running out of connects/credits might be a problem in the beginning. You might have to purchase some in order to keep applying. Even though this might seem counter-productive, it does eventually pay off.
Make sure that your profile has been accepted and that your identity has been verified. Failure to do so could prevent you from getting clients, since your profile is hidden from them. The sites will usually contact you upon receiving your documents. Here’s the relevant page for this process on Upwork: ID Verification Badge
Only apply to jobs where the client is a verified payer and the job has five or fewer applicants. Otherwise, your bid will likely get lost among the many applicants and you run the risk of wasting your time on someone not offering/requesting legitimate work.
If you’re fluent in English, you can try your hand at blog writing, particularly in the field in which you’re highly knowledgeable/specialised. You can try Pro Blogger if it turns out to be worthwhile work.
The fee that the platform/Website charges might seem exorbitant, but it’s worth going through them for the sake of payment protection (guaranteeing that you do get paid). I’ve worked with people outside of such a system in order to not pay that fee (which is risky), but I’ve had bad payers and spent probably as much time chasing them for payment as actually working. Losing 20% of your income is better than 40-50%, in my opinion.
In addition to Upwork and Fiverr, you can try looking for work on Freelancer.com, Remote.co, No Sweat Work and Nano Jobs (if you are happy earning crypto).
Of course, none of this advise will guarantee that you get any work or retain clients from/on these sites, but it might very well improve your chances. I wish you success in making an income and living well off it.
Lead Image: Photo of a Man with Black Headphones by Olya Ruskykh on Pexels