Tips for Crafting a Better Freelance Bio

Your online presence is super important when you're a freelancer — it's like putting your best foot forward, but virtually. And if you're not doing that in the right way, the first impression you're making could be losing you business…

The aim of your online bio, whether it's on your website, job site or social media profiles, is to make you ‘stick' in the mind of a potential client or colleague.

What you're projecting through these bio's will determine the type of client's you get — and you ONLY want the right one's, right? The one's that mean business, that will pay you on time and work WITH you rather than leaving you to figure stuff out…

So if you want to find these types of clients, or rather, have them find you, then you need to look at your online bio's and make sure that you're telling them everything they need to know about you.

Help them make the right decision — to work with you of course!

Grab your free checklist on how to create a awesome freelance bio. Download here!

What to Include in Your Freelance Bio's

Depending on the platform you're mainly working from, there are three types of bio's:

1. Short
2. Long
3. Social media

This means that you'll need to adjust your bio to suit each of these lengths. The long bio is generally what you'll provide on your own website.

The short bio is what you'll include on sites like Upwork and Elance and then for social media, you'll want to go even shorter, like a few sentences.

Make sure you're covering the following areas in the short and long bio's:

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• Your why — what are you freelancing, why do you love it?
• Your experience — how long have you been doing what you're doing?
• What types of projects you like to work on the most.
• The types of clients you work best with.
• Why you decided to get into freelancing and this particular skill?
• What your overall goals are for your brand.
• The things you like to do outside of your ‘work'.

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Three Types of Bio's Explained

Let's take a look at what's involved with the types of bio's, so you know what you need to master.

#1 The Long Bio

Make this at least a page long, about 500-1000 words is a good length. This will allow you to cover all the area's mentioned above, showcase your personality and really dig into why you're doing what you're doing.

This type of bio is great for your About page on your website.

#2 The Short Bio

Once you've got your long bio sorted, you want to cut this in half to grab your short bio. You want to condense everything you've written down into about 300-400 words. You should focus more on your credentials, with flashes of your character showing through.

Think of this as the bio you'd use on guest posts, inside an ebook, or when you're doing a presentation etc. It provides enough information to really pique people's interest in you.

#3 Social Media Bio

Once you've nailed the short bio, you can create your social media online bio's. This can be a little harder to do, because you typically don't have much room to write. The most you'll have to work with is a couple of sentences, and if you're looking at Twitter, you've only got 140 characters.

Keep it short and snappy, basically who you are and what gets you excited to do what you do?

Now that you've got an idea of what you should be doing, go and check out some of your fave online people and see what they are doing across these different profiles. You can check out my About page for my long bio, see my short bio on my Author Central page and check out Twitter for one of my social media bio's.

Mistakes to Avoid With Your Freelance Bio's

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• Being inconsistent: You'll likely end up with a number of different bio's, make sure that they are covering similar points and that your brand is consistently showing through.
• Providing irrelevant details: Don't provide details that don't speak to what you do. Don't provide outdated information and keep it as relevant as possible.
• Writing in third person: Your bio's are about you and should be written in the first person (with the exception of an author profile). You're looking to start a conversation, not shut one down!

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By following the guidelines above, you should be able to craft an online bio that showcases who you are as a freelancer and what you enjoy doing. Break it down, wordsmith it and then get someone else to look over it. Most of all, be YOU.

Did you grab your free checklist on how to create a awesome freelance bio yet? Download here!

Wanna share your online bio below in the comments? I'd love to see what you guys have going on!

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