Understanding how to get work on Upwork can be a great way to begin a freelancing career, which can be exciting and terrifying at the same time.

When you're just starting out as a freelancer, it can be difficult to convince clients to take a chance on you. I have seen many new freelancers give up after a few months of struggling to find work.

To assist you in resolving this issue, this post will explain how to get jobs on Upwork, one of the leading freelancing marketplace sites, so you may make the most of your freelance career.

Keep in mind, there are many sites like Upwork to consider finding jobs from — but here we’re going to focus specifically on how to get jobs on Upwork.

What is Upwork?
Upwork is a freelance marketplace where designers, developers, marketers, and a variety of other skilled individuals can connect with business owners and find work.

With a wide range of ratings, some may wonder if Upwork is trustworthy; regardless, I can assure you that it is an excellent place to begin your freelancing career.

Upwork is extremely useful because it handles payments, disputes, and even has employees who can advise you on how to get jobs on Upwork by applying based on your skills in your profile. Upwork charges a 20% fee for this service until the client spends more than $10,000 with you, at which point the fee drops to 10%.

Upwork, like the other popular site Fiverr, has a large number of talented freelancers, so competition is fierce, and it can be difficult to know how to get jobs on Upwork as a new freelancer. However, once you get a job and do good work, it opens up more doors than you might have imagined.

I've worked on Upwork with both small family businesses and large corporations that own football stadiums. I never imagined this would be possible, but by following the tips below, I was able to work with some amazing companies while learning how to get jobs on Upwork.

Here's how to start getting jobs on Upwork (even if you have no experience):

1. Begin with small tasks on Upwork.
Getting your first job on Upwork is the most difficult part of learning how to get jobs on Upwork. However, once you land your first job and receive positive feedback on your profile, you become less of a risk to potential employers.

The simplest way to gather feedback on your profile is to hunt for a low-paying job that poses little risk to the client if you mess it up (for whatever reason).

Going for a job with a budget of $20-$50 will not make you wealthy, and it will not take much convincing for a potential client to spend that much money on an unknown freelancer like yourself.

2. Prioritize positive feedback
Provided the job budget is far lower than what you would normally charge, inform the potential customer in the job application, but also inform them that you are willing to take on this job at a discounted rate if they can provide review once the job is completed.

This feedback will help you land more clients in the future and will set your profile above other freelancers who do not have feedback.

As a seasoned professional, I understand that your ego may prevent you from applying to low-paying jobs, but if you want to succeed, you will need to obtain positive feedback and a few gigs under your belt on Upwork as soon as possible.

As a writer, you may take on a job rewriting website meta descriptions. You could make a tiny banner as a designer, and a developer could address some minor issues on a website. These should be brief, easy occupations that don't pay much but will help you to advance to more difficult positions in the future.

Doing smaller work at first is also an excellent method to create relationships with people, and if you do a good job, they will hire you again and again.

For a one-time price of $30, one of my clients paid me to optimize the keywords on one page of their website. I did an excellent job with what was required and quickly became their go-to SEO expert. This client turned out to be incredibly valuable, since I made $12,000 with them in my first year of freelancing.

Going for lower-paying and smaller assignments is a wonderful method to gain employment on Upwork early on, but before you can start your freelance career on Upwork, you must optimize your profile so that potential clients know what you can accomplish for them.

3. Optimize your Upwork profile
Everyone should learn how to get jobs on Upwork with the use of optimization. Fill out all sections of your profile as fully as possible.

If you're starved for inspiration, browse Upwork for freelancers who provide the same service as you and look for those with high billable hours.

You can furthermore consider the type of content that potential clients like to see and design your own version of it.

When developing your profile, you should try all of the features to see which ones get the most views and job invites.

My profile title and my Upwork hourly rate were the most important elements in determining how many views my freelance profile received on Upwork. My recommendation to you is to experiment with both your title and hourly rate until you discover a perfect match.

A low hourly rate may result in more employment offers, but you may end up with clients that do not value your talents. A higher rate reduces the quantity of job invitations but allows you to work with larger clients. It is critical to adjust your Upwork hourly pricing in order to attract the suitable clients.

When altering your job title, preserve a copy of the previous version so you can rollback if you notice a reduction in profile views and job invites; I discovered this the hard way; don't make the same mistake.

Pro Tip: You can also use Vollna to receive all of the latest freelancing jobs posted on UpWork, Freelancer, Peopleperhour, and Guru directly to your mailbox or mobile phone.

4. Start submitting proposals on Upwork.
As a new Upwork freelancer, you may not get invited to projects straightaway, therefore you'll need to know how to send Upwork proposals. If you want to secure a job on Upwork, you must stand out from the competition while submitting your proposal.

When applying for jobs on Upwork, many freelancers make the mistake of using the same scripted template for every job they see. This is not how you get Upwork gigs.

First and foremost, you must cease sending template cover letters. A prepared message can be detected by clients from a mile away.

The more personalized your proposal, the better your chances of landing the job. If the client has hired other freelancers in the past and has feedback, there is a significant probability that the client's name was mentioned in a previous review.

Personalizing the proposal with the person's name demonstrates that you have already made an effort to learn more about that person.

When applying for jobs on Upwork, my biggest success was to not start selling right away, but rather to learn more about the client. One of my clients showed me the messages they received on their end, and the majority of applications begin with:

“Hello Name,
My name is X and I’m an SEO consultant from X. I have 5 years experience in SEO and can do this service, this service and this service.”
Can you imagine getting 50 of those messages in a row?

You'd become bored quickly. These messages also demonstrate that you are just concerned with yourself and not with the client.

Your first message's purpose should be to generate a response; once you do, you can then drive the engagement to a meeting. If I could get a client to a meeting, my chances of closing that client would increase immediately.

The best technique to get a response from a client is to ask them a single question—the inquiry should be short and not demand a lot of thought on their part. Remember, you are strangers at this stage, and they will be considering other freelancers for the project.

As an SEO consultant, I would ask, "How long have you been doing SEO?" Why are you leaving your previous agency or freelancer? Have search engines penalized your website?

You will need to develop questions based on your experience and the information supplied in the job description. If the following information is included in the job description and you ask for it, you will adversely affect the potential client, therefore make sure you have read the job description.

When the customer responds, try to steer the conversation toward a phone or Skype meeting. If you dislike talking on the phone, I recommend that you try to get used to it if you want to expand your business.

5. Aim for a large number of Upwork job invitations.
If you have successfully finished a few works on Upwork, you will begin to get invited to jobs.

When you start getting invited to jobs on Upwork, you are considerably more likely to gain that person as a client because they have already expressed an interest in working with you.

Now, let's talk about how to get jobs on Upwork via invitation. Job invitations on Upwork can be a gold mine for your freelance career, providing a regular influx of prospects. When responding to job invitations, check to see if the job is suitable to the service you provide and if the client can afford you.

I was frequently invited to jobs that were unrelated to my specialty, such as pay per click and social media marketing. I was also invited to jobs where the client did not have enough money to hire me.

6. Be well-prepared for the Upwork interview.
To secure a job on Upwork, you'll need to invest in a good microphone and webcam for meetings with potential clients. When your hardware is in place and you have some meetings scheduled, you are not far from landing a new client.

Some clients may argue that they are interviewing you to ensure that you are qualified for the position, and while this is correct, it is also a good opportunity for you to interview them.

Find out what their objectives are, what they have done in the past, why they are looking to hire now, and when they hope to start.

It's important to find out about the potential client to ensure their goals are reasonable and doable, because committing to something that isn't, will result in negative feedback on your Upwork profile.

Although negative feedback isn't the end of the world, it can serve as a danger sign for others not to hire you.

If the meeting goes well and you believe you can help the client, tell them to proceed with the close. Ask them whether they are ready to move forward, and if not, what is holding them back from hiring you now. If they give you an excuse, see if you can work around it.

Someone who has more interviews scheduled might wish to speak with more freelancers before employing you. You can either wait or inform the client that you have limited availability and can keep a slot open for them for a few days as you would like to work with them.

Scarcity can motivate someone to hire you on the spot, but don't be desperate because people can tell when someone is lying and utilizing scarcity as a marketing tool.

Pro Tip: Get yourself a US upwork account as a lot of good jobs are open to only freelancers in the US, leading to less competition for very good jobs. Clients tend to trust freelancers with US verified badges fairly easily than when compared to freelancers from other countries, especially Nigeria as they mostly believe freelancers from other countries are usually not competent.
For further assistance on how to create and verify your US upwork account IN Nigeria, Dm me on WHATSAPP: 08065672145