As a freelancer, the importance of your online presence can’t be overstated.
Your online touchpoints are the primary contact your potential clients and collaborators are going to have with you and will likely be a serious deciding think about whether or not you’re able to secure the following contract to keep your enterprise surviving and growing.
Your website will act as your principal digital storefront and generally is a crucial tool in landing recent freelance clients to keep your enterprise on an upward trajectory.
On this post, we’ll take a look at a few of the most important steps you possibly can take to optimize your freelancing website to get more clients and repeat business.
Make Sure Your Site is Fast, Reliable, and Functional
The actual content of your site is definitely vital, but before we get into that it’s vital to take into consideration a few of the technical facets of your freelancer site.
Once I first began freelancing, I assumed I’d ticked all the suitable boxes for search engine marketing by including relevant high-demand keywords on my content and a logical linking structure.
I used to be surprised once I wasn’t getting the rating increases I used to be hoping for, until I noticed there have been a whole lot of technical issues with my site I’d been neglecting.
Ensuring your site is fast-loading, reliably accessible to all visitors, and functional on all pages, is important for any freelancer who wants to get more clients.
A few of one of the best things you possibly can do to improve your freelancer website on a technical level include:
- Compressing images while still maintaining their on-page quality, ensures that your load times aren’t affected by large image files.
- Check for broken links and redirect loops which may make a site visitor’s experience unnecessarily slow or confusing.
- Optimize your hosting environment with a reliable managed hosting provider who’s able to handling sudden traffic spikes and provides heightened security to prevent cyber attacks.
- Test all recent pages thoroughly on as many devices as possible to ensure it’s mobile-responsive and supply a consistently positive experience to your mobile users.
Though it could be tough for those who don’t have a technical background, taking these steps will give your website a reliable base of functionality that you may construct on with recent content and features to delight your clients.
Make a Strong Impression with Your Home Page
People in your target market will potentially enter your website on various pages. Depending on how they found you, a lot of them are going to navigate quickly to the house page to get a summary of what your site is all about.
In the event you’re not giving your audience this information in a succinct and easy-to-digest way, they’ll be liable to bounce off your site and potentially take their business to considered one of your competitors.
I’ve experimented with just a few different home pages previously, and I’ve found the designs that get probably the most traffic retention summarize the important thing details of your freelancing service as efficiently as possible. Remember the short attention span of any recent site visitor, and don’t risk running down the clock.
Throughout the first few seconds of reaching your homage, a visitor should know:
- What sort of services you’re offering?
- How these services profit your clients
- Your specialization (or, what sorts of clients you’re aiming to serve.)
Many design elements can aid you frame this key information, similar to a central banner and subheading, images which are tied to your key messages, and attention-grabbing dynamic elements like carousels.
Nonetheless, you design the layout of your property page, remember to answer your clients’ key questions quickly staying mostly above the fold, and encourage them towards the following step within the client journey with a compelling and highly visible CTA.
Find Your Website Area of interest
One other common freelancer sin I used to be guilty of once I was getting began was marketing myself too broadly.
In the event you’re looking to get more clients, it could seem logical to market yourself as having a various skillset that makes you a great selection for as many alternative projects as possible. If truth be told, this tends to ward off droves of clients who’re on the lookout for a selected speciality from their freelancer and tells them that you just’re a jack of all trades, master of none.
In the event you want to get more clients who will not be only a terrific match for you but will likely be more likely to stick around after the initial project, you wish to cultivate a private brand that shows you’re a specialized freelancer.
To begin with, determine where your specialism lies: the sort of projects that you just do higher than other freelancers and that are improved by your unique knowledge and experience.
Then, once you’re writing your landing page copy, choosing pieces to your portfolio, or designing another element of your site, take a while to consider if this reflects your specialism. This implies showcasing work that can appeal to your ideal client, writing copy in a tone that’s relatable to them, and selecting design elements which are familiar to your goal area of interest.
Once you position yourself as a specialist, you’ll give you the option to tailor your marketing efforts to your ideal client, separate yourself from an excessively competitive pool of freelancers, and gain more clients with the promise that you just’re the suitable selection for them.
Publish Content That Solves Problems
In the event you’ve spent any time in any respect researching freelancer website design, you’ve probably heard in regards to the importance of publishing high-quality content in your site.
While content might be a terrific way to attract your target market and gain recent clients, it’s vital not to fall into the trap of considering that an energetic blog is the one thing you wish for successful content marketing.
In the event you want your content to be a marketing asset, you wish to meticulously plan every post around the issues your ideal clients are facing, and offer them solutions which they will extract real value from.
Your content also needs to work to showcase how you possibly can leverage your expertise to solve these problems to your clients.
Let’s say, for instance, that you just’re a contract copywriter who works mainly with SaaS corporations. Among the big client problems you’ll want to goal along with your content might include:
- Selling more subscriptions.
- Understanding clients or customers for simpler marketing.
- Being seen as a thought leader within the industry where their tool gets probably the most use.
- Educating their core audience on how to use their tool effectively.
- Rolling out recent features and maintenance while keeping on schedule and inside budget.
By planning and producing high-quality content specifically offering solutions to these sorts of issues, you’ll give you the option to maximize the equity of your content, generate more interest from the sorts of clients you’re targeting, and establish yourself as an authority in your field.
Site Design For Success
Your website has the potential to be one of the effective tools in helping you get more clients, whether it’s an important step in an outbound marketing campaign or a more passive lead magnet that lets people know you’re great at what you do.
By actively optimizing your freelancer website, aligning it along with your brand identity and reviewing it often, you’ll give you the option to maximize its equity and keep it flowing with traffic and leads.
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