Hey guys! What's up? My name is Lauren, and this channel is all about remote work,
location independence, and having the freedom to travel as much as you want whenever you want.
In today's video, I'm going to be chatting about my experience as a top-rated freelancer
on Upwork. I'm also going to touch on the pros and cons of joining the platform and
whether or not you should use it as a way to land your first freelance client.
So if you've been on the fence about signing up for Upwork because of the slew of negative
reviews on YouTube and pretty much everywhere else, this is definitely the video for you!
Let's get into it!
Okay, so let's get into the pros and cons of freelancing on Upwork.
One of the biggest pros and cons of Upwork has to do with money.
So when you sign up to the platform and you land your first client, you'll have to pay a
20% fee to Upwork for the first $500 that you make. And once you've made that first $500,
the fee then goes down to 10% and once you've made $10,000 on the platform, that goes down to 5%.
Now, if we compare that to other freelancing platforms like Freelancer and Goo,
they start you off with a flat rate of 10%,
to begin with. So Upwork is a bit more expensive to start building your freelance portfolio on.
But one way to get around that is to incorporate the fees into your rates. So if you normally
charge a $50 per hour, just add 20% onto that so that your client takes the hint and you don't.
A big pro for me when it comes to freelancing an Upwork has to do with
its protection fee. I highly recommend if you do start freelancing on Upwork that you
choose projects that have hourly rates over the milestone option.
And the reason I say this is that if you do the work for the clients and you track your time and
you hand everything in and for some reason that client doesn't release payment or they
just stop talking to you, Upwork will still pay you for the time that you spend on their project.
So you will not lose money.
One of the biggest complaints I hear from other freelancers when it comes to Upwork
is about clients. A lot of freelancers say that there are no high paying clients on
Upwork and that the majority of people on there are just looking for someone to do
the job for the cheapest rate possible, and while this is true, it's also false.
For example, when I first started out on Upwork, I definitely attracted clients
who were looking to pay writers $10 to $20 per blog post, which is shocking!
But at the same time, I also landed clients that have paid me as much
as $200 to $400 per blog post. So it definitely is a bit of a mixed bag.
But I also believe that how you market yourself on
the platform will determine the type of clients you attract. Saying that,
I don't believe you should put all your eggs in the basket that is Upwork.
You should definitely be looking into other ways that you can grow
your freelancing business outside of the platform. Some of the ways you can do
that is through cold emailing potential clients or using freelancing websites.
And if you're curious about some of the best freelancing websites to find remote work can
watch this video over here. I walk you through some of the top sites for a range of niches,
whether you're a writer, you're in marketing, sales or even super niche stuff like eSports.
So one of the biggest cons when it comes to freelancing on Upwork has to do with the
fact that you have to pay the platform. When I started out on Upwork in 2016,
I do not remember ever having to pay Upwork to get credits to bid on jobs.
But this is all changed. Now you have to spend around $15, which is R300,
to get 70 credits to bid on jobs, and some jobs cost as much as 4 to 6 credits.
So if you're a freelancer who doesn't have a lot of money to play around with in the beginning,
it quickly becomes expensive. So if you do decide to go the Upwork route,
and you're comfortable spending that money,
I highly recommend that you take the time to learn how to write compelling pitches.
So when you do find a job that you're really really excited about, you can write a pitch
that is going to increase your chances of you landing that bid and making a sale.
You can download my free ebook, The Ultimate Guide to Landing Your First Remote Job. The link is in
the description below, and once you download it, you'll automatically be added to my email list,
where you'll go through a three-day course where I teach you the three elements of the perfect pitch.
So one of the things that puts a lot of freelancers off from working on Upwork
has to do with competition. Yes, it is true there are A LOT of freelancers on the platform,
and there are a lot of freelancers on there that are offering their work at really,
really low rates, and this can be off-putting.
I totally get it, but you've got to think about it realistically. Even if
you were applying to jobs on freelancing websites like ProBlogger or Remote.co,
there will still be freelancers there who can undercut your prices.
But that doesn't diminish your work or the value that you have to offer.
Upwork has addressed the sheer amount of freelancers they have on the platform
by using tactics like making you pay to bid on projects. They want you as
the freelancer to be strategic about the jobs that you do apply for because they
only want you applying for jobs where you think you will be the best fit.
So well, yes, there is a lot of competition on Upwork, and yes,
there are a lot of freelancers offering to do the same job for very little money,
that shouldn't put you off on freelancing on Upwork.
Because that doesn't mean that you are not going to stand a chance of landing a job
and making money. However, you are definitely going to have to invest money into the platform.
So if you are a freelancer who doesn't have a lot of money to play with in the beginning,
Upwork is not the best route to go.
Okay, so to me, those are the biggest pros and the cons of using the platform,
and now I'm just gonna get into how I became a top-rated freelancer on Upwork.
So the first thing I did was that I got a lot of reviews. So to do that,
I took on a lot of smaller like, one-time writing gigs because you
can only leave a review for a freelancer or a client once that project has closed.
So I did that in the beginning, and that really boosted my profile to the
top of the search results and got me rising star status and then top rated
freelancer status a lot quicker than if I just focused on the longer-term projects.
And the second thing I did was that I tailored my Upwork profile to my ideal
clients, which is what I spoke about earlier. So I optimized
my entire profile to attract my ideal freelance writing clients.
So how I did that is I made sure that I optimized my profile for
search. I thought about what my ideal kind would be searching on Upwork to
find a freelancer to work with, and I made sure that I could do that in my profile.
So basically SEO for Upwork, long story short.
And the last thing I did is that I raised my rates. So when I first started freelancing
on Upwork, I was charging stupid rates like $10 to $20 per blog post because I
had no idea what I should be charging or what my worth was, to begin with.
But I quickly figured that all out, and I started raising my rates. Not only to make more money,
which is great duh, but also because it helped me weed out all those customers
that were looking for the person to do the job for the cheapest rate possible.
Okay, and in case you were wondering, I am no longer a top-rated freelancer on Upwork
because I expanded my freelancing business outside of the platform.
I no longer rely on it as my sole way of getting clients. I get clients from
a wide variety of sources now, whether it's through referrals, job boards,
cold emailing, and still Upwork, but I do not pay Upwork anything.
I do not pay for credits. The only work that I have from Upwork is either through legacy
clients or from potential customers contacting me with their proposals.
And this is a route that I do recommend to any freelancer because sites like Upwork,
Freelancer, and Guru, they can all close down tomorrow,
and then you'll no longer have access to their pool of potential clients.
You do really need to work on your own lead gen methods and ways to diversify
your income. So that you do not have that 'all your eggs in one box' syndrome.
And if you want more freelancing tips, make sure you hit that bell notification because,
in my next video, I'm going to be sharing my best work from
home tips to help you become a more productive and successful freelancer!
And if you want to learn more about location independence and how to find remote work online,
be sure to check out these two videos or right over here.
And I'll see you in my next video. Cheers guys, bye!