Crafting an impressive agency profile on Upwork opens the door for larger projects and more opportunities to grow your business. More than 10,000 companies worldwide are partnering with trusted agencies on Upwork. These businesses seek a more efficient way to complete projects that require high-quality work, speed, and flexibility. They turn to Upwork agencies to deliver on a range of projects, across all industries, for one-time and ongoing needs.
Seven Summits, a Bay-area-based video production agency on Upwork, notes that “the exciting prospect for us on Upwork is the access to larger, enterprise clients. These are big-budget, large-scale jobs we’ve been trying to get for awhile now.”
Filling out your agency profile
Whether you’re setting up an agency profile for the first time or keeping an existing profile up-to-date, your agency can use the tips and best practices in this article to grow your business. Your agency profile is an opportunity to tell your agency’s story and present your brand. Successful profiles highlight completed projects, showcase available services, and create a compelling vision of how your brand can help potential clients.
More specifically, for your agency to appear in the Upwork search results, your agency is required to have the following profile information:
- Owner/business manager (with a linked Upwork profile)
- Agency’s name
- Logo
- Tagline
- Agency overview
- Hourly rate
- At least one service
- A primary location
While this represents the minimum requirements, you can position your agency as a skilled agency partner by filling out all of the customizable agency fields. Consider the best practices listed below for ways to enhance your profile and present your agency’s services in the best light for potential clients.
Brand your agency with a logo, banner image, and tagline
Your brand is the thing that makes you stand out from your competitors and the lasting impression you leave behind. As an agency, it’s essential to develop a brand that makes potential clients feel confident in your ability to solve their problems. Below are three of the ways that you can shape your agency’s brand on your profile.
- Logo image: Select an image that represents your business’s logo (minimum size requirement is 250px by 250px).
- Cover image: Use a high-resolution banner image representing your brand’s feel with simple visuals, color, and design, but avoid using text on the image (the minimum size requirement is 1600px by 160px).
- Tagline: Your agency’s tagline is the hook that makes prospective clients want to click on your agency profile when they see it in the search results. It should grab their attention with a short statement of your agency’s services and how you can help potential clients.
Browse agency profiles on Upwork or search for independent agencies across the internet for inspiration on how you want to present your brand.
Note: There is a field in the agency profile to list a website, but this information will only be visible to Upwork Enterprise clients. Agencies cannot include a link to their website anywhere else in their profile.
Attract attention with an impressive agency overview
The overview is your chance to expand on what makes your company unique and express how you can help prospective clients. Let your agency’s personality shine while describing past projects, the type of clients you usually work with, and the types of challenges you can help solve. Describe your team’s strengths and employment backgrounds to bring credibility to your agency’s areas of expertise. Use bullet points to highlight information about your agency, such as:
- Types of projects you’ve worked on
- Size of your team
- Niche you serve
- Description of your ideal client
- Company history
- Services offered
But don’t forget, the agency overview isn’t just about describing your company. It should also encourage potential clients to invite you to interview for their job with a clear call to action.
Tip: To make your agency stand out amongst your competitors, you can embed a short video in your profile overview that describes your agency or serves as a video testimonial from a past client.
Showcase your services and skills
Upwork’s agency profiles give your services a featured section right below the agency overview. This area organizes your services into a dropdown list that’s easy to scan, and prospective clients can click the dropdown for richer detail about a specific service.
Agencies can add up to 10 services. You can explain the unique services with a summary and link it to examples of related projects in your portfolio.
Agencies have a distinct advantage for projects that require a variety of skill sets. For example, if a company needs a website created, they may need a web developer, creative designer, and copywriter. Rather than hiring three separate freelancers, the company can hire a single agency to manage the project from start to finish.
Agencies can include a list of up to 15 skills on their profile. Skills should be ordered from most to least relevant. When creating this list, consider using abilities, services, tools, and phrases that potential clients might use to search for when looking to hire an agency for a project.
Present your past projects in the Upwork portfolio tab
The portfolio tab demonstrates your agency’s experience by highlighting your recent and successful projects. Your portfolio should feature projects that help prospective clients see your work quality while aligning the selected pieces to the services offered.
Choose portfolio pieces that reflect the agency’s services and help prove your specialization. Below are some of the elements that could be included in a successful agency portfolio:
- Case studies
- Screenshots or visuals
- Graphed or charted results
- Testimonials
While some services may be more visual than others, all successful portfolios demonstrate an agency’s credibility and expertise. To compensate for a less visual project, provide as much information as possible. Examples of helpful portfolio details include:
- Services your team contributed
- Information about the project scope
- Unique client requests
- Challenges you overcame
- Measurable outcomes of the project
Tip: Regularly update your portfolio as new projects are completed. MobiDev, a mobile and web development agency on Upwork, has a dedicated person to keep their agency portfolio updated as soon as a project is completed. This best practice has improved their visibility and helped them continue to win projects with high-profile clients.
Highlight agency owner/business manager and member profiles
When clients hire an agency, they work with a freelancing team, not a faceless organization. As a result, Upwork agencies must have an owner or business manager freelancer profile linked from the agency overview page. These profiles, and the profiles of any other agency freelance members, are included so that prospective clients can review the individual members before deciding if an agency is a fit for their project. Linked member profiles will be featured below the agency in search results, and the information included on member profiles will factor into an agency showing up in search results.
The freelancer profiles should focus on the specific member’s skills and expertise—not the agency as a whole. If you’re an agency owner or agency member, be sure to craft your freelancer profile to focus on what you as an individual can offer to potential clients. Reviewing your member profiles for completeness and accuracy is highly recommended.
Note: The agency owner may include information in their freelancer profile about the agency’s capabilities, in addition to their abilities. But other agency members’ overviews should only include individual details and not refer to the agency overall.
Ready to take your agency profile to the next level?
Agency profiles have additional sections for featuring more information on the profile’s sidebar. Below are some of the areas that can enhance your agency listing:
- Your minimum project size to give clients an idea if you typically take on projects within their budget.
- Your agency’s size can demonstrate your potential to scale and expand capacity if they have more significant projects down the line.
- Your client focus includes the types of companies you work with.
- Physical office locations that can be used for in-person meetings.
- Awards and certifications that demonstrate your agency’s accomplishments.
Encourage your agency admins to update your agency profile and incorporate some of the best practices covered in this article. A detailed and accurate agency profile can help your company stand out amongst competitors and win more projects. For additional profile ideas, continue reading about updating your agency profile and enhancing your freelancer profile.
