Johannes,
One of the most important things to understand about an Upwork profile is its focus. A profile should offer a specfic service (or related services) and help clients understand the benefit in hiring the freelancer to provide those services. Clients come to Upwork with specific needs and they look for freelancers who can meet those needs and get results.
If your goal is to provide translation services, your travel agency experience should be secondary, unless your travel agency work involved specific translation services. Otherwise, your profile should focus on your English/German translation experience, the English/German translation services you provide, and why clients should hire you to provide English/German translation services.
Here are my suggestions:
1) Revise your title to focus on translation services by removing all other words: English/German Translator.
2) Remove unnecessary phrases like: "Welcome to my profile!" from your overview/summary. When clients search for freelancers, only the first 200-225 characters of your summary are shown. This means you have very little space (approximately two short sentences) to get their attention. You want clients to see their goals (your services and results) in this small space.
Next, focus your summary on your English/German translation services. For example:
| I am a versatile translator/proofreader with experience translating German to English and English to German. I can perform high-quality translations for web content, e-books, literature, technical documents, and business documents. I can help you prepare, manage, and translate data and documentation, and create accurate materials in your desired language and voice. |
After an introduction like this, you can talk about how your experience as a travel agent supports your English/German translation services and how it might benefits clients. Also, you can make your summary more attractive by giving clients several reasons to choose you. For example:
- Talk about your experience providing translations/proofreading.
- Talk about how you can protect proprietary data/information and use responsible best practices while translating content.
- Mention your time management and organizational skills, and your availability.
- Can you highlight any translation/proofreading projects you have worked on and your accomplishments? (If you have no experience providing English/German translations, there isn't much you can say here.)
3) Add a portfolio to show samples of previous work or to demonstrate your skills. The portfolio is a chance to make a positive first impression on potential clients. If you don’t have relevant examples to add to your portfolio, you can create items that demonstrate your skills.
4) You may want to add one or two Specialized Profiles that focus on specific services or completely unrelated services. Having a specialized profile can help increase a freelancer's searchability.
The biggest improvement you can make is your overview/summary. Clients looking for English/German translators will find plenty of them on Upwork. The question is, do they have enough good reasons to choose you? The information you provide can help them better understand why they should hire you and how it will benefit them.
Good luck!
