You need a website. Period.
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photo credit: Adeline Yaw
I had a freelancer contact me in the fall and was expressing frustration over not getting any clients. His work was fairly specialized and we bantered back and forth about some ways that he could write for a broader audience about his specialized topic.
Then I asked him a question that clarified the conversation dramatically: I said, “while we’re on the phone, I’ll check out your website to see if that gives me any more ideas about what you can write about.” I figured, if I saw his blog or an article or something, that could trigger some additional brainstorms.
“Oh, I don’t have a website.”
I checked an email he had sent me earlier in the afternoon. Sure enough, it came from a Gmail account. Uh, okay dude; step one: Get a damn website. I advised him of this. Told him it was a top priority. Now here we are, 3 or 4 months after my conversation with him. Still no website. Not surprisingly, still no jobs.
It’s not that a website is the be-all and end-all of freelancing. It won’t suddenly get you hundreds of new clients where not having one only got you dozens. There isn’t a magic formula. But people check you out online now to see what you’re like. Will you deliver on what you promise? What are other people saying about you? Are you the thought leader you say you are? Etc.
And, websites are free and so unbelievably easy to set up. Years ago I started freelancing with a click-together template site and then I moved to a free site at blogger. Now I have invested in my own branded site but at the time, those solutions worked for me. They weren’t perfect but they did the job.
If you’re just starting out and you’re on an insanely shoe-string budget, start with one of these free options:
- Blogger.com. This is my favorite site. It’s easy to use and you can create a blog (which I think is a good thing to have).
- Squidoo.com. Not bad. It’s very click-together/drag-and-drop. I think it’s under-utilized by freelancers.
- VisualCV.com. This is just an online resume but it might be a good start for you.
- Ceevee.com. Similar to above.
- LinkedIn.com. This is okay, but just make sure you set your profile to “public”. The only drawback is that the domain name is easy to mistype.
- WordPress.com. Another free site using a great content management system.
Eventually, you’ll want to move off of a free site because they have their limitations… and at some point in your career a free site is not the professional image you want to portray. Sites that you pay for are extremely affordable – a couple hundred bucks a year for something really decent.
No matter what you choose, please choose something!
Freelancing is my life. It's what I know, it's what I'm good at, and I can't imagine doing anything else. You can call me "Freddie the Freelancer"… because I'd prefer not to use my real name for reasons that I'll tell you about in a moment.
2 Comments
I couldn’t agree more. Stats show that 80% of small businesses fold within the first 2 years. Mostly because they don’t attract enough clients. How do you let your potential clients know who you are and what you can offer them? A website of course! It lets you project your company’s image to your target audience. It can help differentiate your business from all of the other similar businesses in your field.
Also consider this. Increasingly, people are going to search engines like Google and Yahoo to search for the products and services they need. If you don’t have a website, you won’t be found.
A website is essential to the success of today’s small business.
[...] You need a website – period [...]