The freelancer is a Swiss Army knife. At least, they need to be must if they want to grow their business because more than mastering their field of expertise is required. They’ll have to learn to make themselves known, find clients, and manage a schedule without restrictions. Among the skills freelancers must develop, one is perhaps even more important than all the others: selling their services. On Malt, this exercise is highlighted and can be difficult. My name is Martin, I reached the Super Malter 2 status within 6 months, and I want to give the best SEO techniques to boost your profile in this article!
Why your profile is the centerpiece of your growth
Malt is an atypical platform. It encourages us to pay special attention to our profile since it directly influences our visibility. It’s the first and only interaction with the prospect, as direct marketing is prohibited. This realization leads us to a clear conclusion: to succeed on Malt. You must offer quality content and be quick to convince.
Standing out on the platform is possible. It just requires some techniques and a little bit of attention. In this sense, I initially opted for a simple method, combining a careful observation of popular freelancers and an SEO approach.
What is an "SEO approach"?
SEO, for Search Engine Optimization, is a set of techniques to improve the positioning of a web page in search results. The objective is natural referencing - as opposed to the paid character of SEA - which increases the quality and quantity of traffic reaching a page. The whole discipline is derived from the queries made in search engines like Google.
In our case, the web page is the freelance profile, and Malt is the Google. You can't pay to be highlighted here, but we can use an SEO approach to increase profile visibility.
An SEO approach is simply a strategy focused on content and its optimization. We aim to study and refine every profile detail to get a better ranking among other freelancers. Malt allows us to customize all these elements, and we will see how it enhances them together.
Strategic SEO methods to optimize your Malt profile
Complete your profile!
Malt highlights completed and qualitative profiles. Therefore, the completion level plays a crucial role in highlighting profiles, and everything is clearly explained. It’s broken down into 3 main parts:
- Presentation: This includes a profile picture, the job, the languages, the location, etc... The description is also part of it; we will get back to it in more detail in this article.
- Career path: Here are the detailed past experiences, training, skills, and external recommendations.
- Service/offer: Major pillars of services you provide, ADR, portfolio, mission preferences, etc...
For more details, feel free to read this other article from Malt!
Choose the right keywords
After understanding the platform, we must now understand the client. And what better way than to put yourself in their shoes? The following questions can help you with this:
- What would a client look for to find me?
- What are the words, and their variations, that they might use?
- What words would I like my profile to appear on?
By conducting recognition research in the shoes of our potential clients, you will see the freelance profiles which stand out and draw inspiration from their vocabulary. We can then deduct a set of redundant keywords and create a semantic field.
I was greatly inspired by Aurélie Poupée's profile when I did this strategy for my account. Her experience as a copywriter speaks for itself and infuses her page with a deep sense of mastery. Her main strengths lie in the full use of every editable element, the simplicity and relevance of her skills, the detail of her description, and the effort she puts into presenting her experiences. This a true example for all freelancers looking to understand what makes a great profile.
Another way to find the right keywords is to use a tool like the well-known Keyword Magic Tool from SEMrush. This tool lets you find precise keyword suggestions for a given subject. Malt also offers indications on the Dashboard, which helps complete and refine your research. Once the keywords have been collected, you can make a list of them to use as soon as possible on your profile.
Use search filters
To identify the competition in your sector and get a better idea, it’s advisable to study it through search filters and observe profiles. Among them, we can mention a few filters :
- Geography: Find potential specificities in your activity region (price differences, methods, communication, etc.). Clients appreciate freelancers who can travel to their offices, so feel free to let them know if this is your case!
- Industries: Are the freelancers operating in your sector multi-skilled or highly specialized? Do they offer packages of services? Do they work in teams with other freelancers?
- Experience level: Observe whether bids from similar freelancers change with their experience level and note the changes in price from one range to another.
This SEO approach will allow you to use the search to become more relevant.
Strategically manage your prices
Our ADR, for Average Daily Rate, can be used as a filter by a client. Analyzing your competitor's average prices and placing yourself in the right place is essential. To do this, the platform provides us with a barometer of all freelancers' prices according to the sector of activity and the level of experience:
However, be careful not to underprice ourselves. Lowering our rates makes us more likely to receive poorly qualified briefs and clients who need to recognize the work's value or have a very small budget. The ARR should reflect a consistent image of our services, and this approach ensures a better profile view rate based on client searches, naturally leading to better SEO.
Optimize your description
The description is one of our profile's most strategic pieces of content and provides total freedom of expression. From an SEO point of view, it represents an opportunity to place many keywords and thus gain in referencing quality. However, we must avoid falling into the trap of overloading; placing one keyword every two sentences is more than enough.
My advice for a good description is to keep it simple. The focus should be on solving the prospect's problem by providing a complete and transparent solution. Emphasizing communication and trust are also excellent conversion levers.
Manage your skills
Like the description, the skills section is a great way to optimize your presentation for better SEO performance. Malt considers a profile complete once 7 skills have been added. You shouldn’t make them up to fill the 50 boxes but play with the words related to your primary skills to cover a maximum of possible searches while ensuring that you can meet the opportunities that will be related to them. This is where our keyword study will be most beneficial.
Based on the latter, we can then use our semantic field to transform them into techniques, hard and soft skills, tools, etc... A developer, for example, would be well advised to talk about the languages they master but also about frameworks, libraries, and applications. Here’s an extract from my list:
- Using your portfolio
The portfolio is a great way to showcase your work and skills. Images often speak louder than words, but words are also important. Therefore, optimizing the descriptions of these contents by using the semantic field defined earlier is essential. The prospect will then be able to associate the image of your work with the keyword in question and will be more likely to project themselves into collaborating with you. It benefits both referencing and prospecting!
- Be responsive
It’s more of a trick than a content technique; responsiveness plays a big part in our ranking. Malt considers both the response time and the response itself. Trying to respond quickly to opportunities, positively or negatively, is rewarded by the platform and is therefore considered part of our SEO strategy.
- Optimize your URL
Our profile URL is essential to appear in Google search results, but also when we share it with potential prospects. Like me, you can opt for a simple approach by putting the first and last name, but if you're new to the platform, I advise you to expand it by adding a keyword. For a developer, a suitable URL would look like this: malt.fr/profile/jeandupontdeveloppementweb.
To change it, go to the left column on your profile page:
- Get advice and recommendations
Reviews are crucial to our visibility. They increase the quality of your profile regarding the Malt algorithm and the prospect using the search results. They better your rank and considerably increase the click rate. That's why it's crucial to always ask for feedback at the end of an assignment and don’t hesitate to follow up with the client if they forget. The impact is clear, especially as a profile with a significant difference between the number of missions and the number of reviews can look suspicious.
While waiting for your first projects on Malt, consider asking for external recommendations from your former clients, colleagues, or friends. These external reviews will positively impact your ranking in search results and increase your credibility.
Conclusion
Congratulations, your profile is now optimized! You have all the cards in your hands to land the best assignments. Malt is a godsend for starting as a freelancer and finding new clients, and a well-crafted profile will guarantee great opportunities.