[Handsome Creepy Eel]

Honestly, I don't think that's a bad thing. It's sickening to see 50+ proposals on every single project, even the ones that are so specialized that probably 5 people in the entire world qualify for them.

[Wutang]

The positive thing I can think that comes out of this is that it might discourage low quality third-world workers from flooding the marketplace with proposals.

[Winston Wolfe]

Yes this is not a bad thing. It will weed out a lot of the spam.

[ColSpanker]

If nothing else, this will slow down the asshole clients who post jobs, take bids, then pull the job when they can't find people who'll work for starvation wages.

[Wutang]

I have a thought about clients who are hiring for the first time on Upwork. It seem to be kind of a crap shoot where a lot of times you'll get a person who is a waste of your connects as they'll post up a job and disappear without viewing it again. But you also get people who don't really seem to understand the system works so a lot of times they'll hire people who don't have a JSS score yet or even any work or they'll be willing to drop tons of on hiring someone on a hourly rate. I like to look at other freelancer's profiles and it's not too uncommon for me to see a profile that has maybe only 2-4 jobs but one of them is a job where they earned a couple of hundred on a hourly rate. You take a look at the client that hired them and many times it's someone who's posted one or two jobs and has never received a review from a freelancer.

If my observation is true, do you think it's worth it take a gamble on these sort of clients in the hope of landing a whale? I'm asking cause the common wisdom seems to be you should submit proposals to clients that have a history of leaving good reviews and paying out but I'm wondering if it's worth it to take a gamble on new clients. My personal thoughts is that if you look at their job posting and if the poster appears to a representative/worker for an actual brick and mortar business (as opposed to some woman looking for someone to edit her new Chuck Schumar x Nancy Pelosi erotic novel) and the job description is detailed and professional looking, it's worth the bet of 2 connects.

[Wutang]

My Job Success Score on Upwork is still sub-90% but it hasn't really been detrimental to me getting responses back from clients that I submit proposals to. If anything, I've been doing better the last 2-3 weeks than usual. Is the score not as big of a deal as I thought it would be? I've seen some other profiles that have JSS scores in the 80s but they're still getting tons of work, even if they are "write 500 words on hemorrhoid treatments for $20" type jobs.

[Winston Wolfe]

(04-19-2019 03:04 PM)Wutang Wrote:  

My Job Success Score on Upwork is still sub-90% but it hasn't really been detrimental to me getting responses back from clients that I submit proposals to. If anything, I've been doing better the last 2-3 weeks than usual. Is the score not as big of a deal as I thought it would be? I've seen some other profiles that have JSS scores in the 80s but they're still getting tons of work, even if they are "write 500 words on hemorrhoid treatments for $20" type jobs.

I've had a past client tell me he specifically looks for job success scores that are not 100% especially if the freelancer has a lot of jobs completed. Says that its suspicious otherwise. Kind of like online reviews, a 5 star average from thousands of reviews is suspicious, while 4.37 stars is excellent, so to speak.

[Wutang]

When I first made the decision to start doing all this freelance writing at the beginning of the year, one of the first things I did was to buy a copy of The Copywriters' Handbook. It's a good piece of work with lots of solid, general tips for creating writing to sell but I was wondering if anyone has any recommendations for copywriting books that specifically concentrate on writing web content such as blog articles and website copy?

The Copywriter's Handbook has a section on web writing but it's pretty dated, dealing with the web as it was back in the 90s. I've been getting better at writing Upwork proposals - my job hire rate is way up since I first started but I think I'm hitting a bottleneck when it comes to the actual quality of what I produce. I don't think I'm a bad writer but there seems to be something that's holding me back from always getting excellent feedback from my clients. Is there any books I could study to help level my writing skills up?

[Beyond Borders]

(05-08-2019 10:36 PM)Wutang Wrote:  

When I first made the decision to start doing all this freelance writing at the beginning of the year, one of the first things I did was to buy a copy of The Copywriters' Handbook. It's a good piece of work with lots of solid, general tips for creating writing to sell but I was wondering if anyone has any recommendations for copywriting books that specifically concentrate on writing web content such as blog articles and website copy?

The Copywriter's Handbook has a section on web writing but it's pretty dated, dealing with the web as it was back in the 90s. I've been getting better at writing Upwork proposals - my job hire rate is way up since I first started but I think I'm hitting a bottleneck when it comes to the actual quality of what I produce. I don't think I'm a bad writer but there seems to be something that's holding me back from always getting excellent feedback from my clients. Is there any books I could study to help level my writing skills up?

For blog articles, check out any of Jon Morrow's courses. Alternatively, you could just study the blog articles on his own site (SmartBlogger.com) and save your money.

I can't think of any books that deal with website content/copy specifically, but I've heard a lot of good things about "Building a Storybrand."

What I do is try to inject a lot of the usual copywriting strategies and theories into website copy but toning it down so it's persuasive while maintaining a professional, authority tone. Most businesses are put off by the "voice" of traditional sales copywriting and don't want to tarnish their company image, so balance is needed.

Also, you'd do well to learn the sales "process" of websites.

Things to think about are what needs to happen "above the fold," how to properly get opt-ins and build a relationship for email marketing, never letting a visitor reach the bottom of the page without clearly indicating where to go or what to do next. If you don't hold a readers attention and then guide them through their site, you will lose them, and most business owner's think of a website as an online brochure and business card - when really it can and should be a sales tool.

This is priceless knowledge for a writer to have and you can close a lot of deals if you understand how to blend copy and design to get actual conversions.

Also, CA$HVERTISING. A must-read for anyone in writing or online marketing of any kind.