If you’re a freelancer, no matter what industry you’re in, a good quality web presence is going to be good for business. Its important for every freelancer to have a clear and well-constructed website, and this applies to pretty much all professions. In this article, I’m going to discuss some key ways a good website will benefit any freelancer.
1/ Make yourself unique
There are plenty of online public directories which help freelancers to get work. While these may be a good place to get up and running as a freelancer, there is only so much you can do on these directories to make yourself stand out. These is also practically no way of getting any kind of personality or business individuality across with your profiles. A well-designed website will help you stand out from the crowd, and let you show your personality and business mission off to your clients much more effectively.
2/ Show the world what your clients think
A website is great way to showcase your hard-earned testimonials to potential customers. It has been proven that a good testimonial can help turn potential clients into actual paying clients. As a freelancer, you have a reputation to uphold and showcasing good testimonials, especially testimonials from reputable sources or big brands, can help boost your reputation. A good reputation can help you to become an industry leader in your respective field.
3/ Create an online portfolio
A portfolio is a great way for any freelancer to show off their skills and let the world see examples of their previous work. How a portfolio would be presented would vary from industry to industry. For example, a photographer would showcase lots of images, whereas a content writer may present links to different pieces of writing. What better place to keep a portfolio showcasing your work than online, where everyone can see it?
4/ Build a community
Most websites come with the ability to publish new blog posts to your website. Maintaining a blog is a great way to build an online community. Building a community around your blog can present fantastic opportunities to freelancers, as well as helping to establish the owner of the blog as an industry expert.
5/ Earn more money – in addition to freelancing
As a freelancer, if you have a strong web presence and have made good steps towards establishing yourself as an industry leader, then owning a website can open up various other lines of income. Most of this is based around maintaining a blog that helps your readers, building a community and then monetising your blog. Here are a few good ways to make money from your blog:
- Affiliate marketing – This is where you recommend a premium product to your readers, and you get a percentage of the sale of a sale is made. So for example, if you use or know of a premium product that you think your readers will find useful, then you should check if the product in question has an affiliate programme. If you sign up to an affiliate programme, you will be given a special link that you can then give to your readers. If your readers click on this link, then the user will be tracked from your site through to the sale of the product, and you will get a percentage of the sale.
- Advertising networks – If you are getting a good amount of traffic to your blog, then it may well be worth exploring different advertising networks. This is where you would create an account with a particular network, and then embed adverts on your website from the network. Then when one of your visitors clicks on an advert, you will receive a small payment. Lots of small payments can equal an nice income. The most noteworthy advertising network to check out would be Google AdSense.
- Paid content – If your blog is providing genuine value to your community, you always have the option of charging people for the privilege of reading it.
- Products – Turning a part of your website into an online store of some kind is another way to make money from your website. So if you have written a book for example, you could charge people for downloading the eBook version.
These are just a few of the proven ways in which you can start earning a good income from your website.
6/ Be seen as a business, as well as a freelancer
Being a freelancer works for a variety of business types in many different industries. You can freelance part time, or even as a hobby, but in order to stand out and lead the industry, you need to see your freelancing as a business, and you also need others to see it that way, too. Having a strong online web presence can help your potential clients perceive you as a prominent business within your industry, rather than someone who is just trying to earn some extra cash. This will help increase your sales and get more leads.
7/ Give people a way to contact you
What good is being a freelancer, working for yourself, and having the freedom to work when and how you want, if your clients can’t get in touch with you to request your product or services? A professional website is the best way for clients to get in touch with you. Using advanced contact forms, you are also able to ask your clients to upload files and other assets specifically related to the product or service they are requesting. This makes quoting for a new job much easier.
8/ Be found more easily
Maintaining a website and publishing regular content to your blog will help you appear in the search results on Google. When looking for a particular service, or freelancer, people will tend to do a Google search. Showing up in these Google searches can be incredibly valuable. If people can find what they are looking for straight away on Google, then they probably won’t have any reason to look elsewhere, therefore you could potentially be losing business by not having a website.
9/ Build client trust
This goes back to maintaining a blog that publishes good quality content. If you are providing regular, valuable content to your potential clients or peers, then this will show them that you know exactly what you are talking about and, in turn, will build trust. When it comes to winning business and gaining new clients, trust is a vital factor,
10/ Your competition already has a website
To put it simply, if your competition have a strong online presence and you don’t, they they are going to do better and win more business than you (assuming, of course, that they are equally good at their job). As a freelancer, you need to stay ahead of your competition, and building a strong web presence is a good way to do this.
Wrap-up
So in conclusion, it’s important for every freelancer to have a website, regardless of what industry you’re in. There are so many benefits to having a freelancer website, and with open source projects such as WordPress, it doesn’t have to cost thousands and thousands for a great website. Do you agree with my list, or do you have anything else to add? Let me know in the comments.
Freelancing is just like any other business where you as the owner, need to have a strategy. Focused freelancers not only earn, but they work towards their success.