Let’s welcome today’s guest blogger, Helvecio “Elvis” da Silva. He writes about the importance of a well written, well designed professional website for every freelancer. Kudos to Elvis for coming up with such a long list!

One of the most common questions for freelancers just starting out is, “Why should my freelancing business have a website?”

As a design and Internet consultant for over 15 years, I can affirm that there is no short simple answer.

If you haven’t decided on investing your money in a business site, the list below will surely help you change your mind. These tips apply to freelancers in various industries and niches.

Freelancers need to have a website because:

1. Credibility

A well planned and structured website, with excellent content, good design and efficient navigation, gives your business credibility. Prospects will see professionalism, no matter the size of your freelancing business and how many employees it has. Consumers nowadays expect every serious business to have a website.

2. Location

Being found is of uttermost importance to every business. A site will help prospects come to your office or find your telephone number or e-mail address to contact you with requests, suggestions or inquires about your services.

3. Information

Nowadays people go online first to get information about a product, service or business they’re interested in. A website makes all this information available 24/7. The higher quality, more organized your website’s content is, greater your chances of attracting new clients.

4. Sales tool

Prospects can examine and study your services from the comfort of his home, any time of the day. Some sites even provide live support where prospects can get their questions answers, thus speeding up the sale.

5. FAQs

If your business invests too much time answering the same questions over and over again to prospects, then a website will reduce this cost by displaying a page or section of frequently asked questions.

6. Lower costs

Registering a domain name, hosting and creating a site is a much smaller investment than putting up a physical office or a store. Literally, on the Internet, you can “open shop” overnight.

7. Customer’s feedback

A site lets your customers give you feedback through testimonials, suggestions, and complaints, speeding things up when it’s time to modify or create new products and/or services, resolve problems, create marketing and sales strategies and even help prospects become clients by buying what you offer.

8. Find new markets

You can collect lots of valuable leads through a website, and they can reveal a new market that you may have been unaware of.

9. Approaching your market

Search engines like Google and Yahoo! are the first places prospect go to look for information about a product or service, how and where to get it. A site optimized for search engines helps your business be closer to your market or get closer to new ones.

10. Discovering new ways of selling

It’s a common misconception that certain products and services cannot be sold online. However, with the tools and technology available to us today, this is simply not true. Marketers are selling anything from physical products, to digital products, to services online. Why not market your freelancing services online as well?

11. Advertising

It’s easier to advertise new services, promotional items, and news of interest to your clients on your site. With a little help from an e-mail marketing campaign, the return may be even bigger. And remember: the cost is far lower than advertising in traditional media.

12. Referencing

Having a URL makes it easy for your clients, contacts, friends and family to refer other people to you. All they have to do is say, “Need a graphic designer. Check out this dude at yourdomainname.com”

13. Updates/Promos

Just like companies need to send regular updates or warn their clients about malfunctioning items that need to be recalled, you need to stay in regular contact with your leads and clients. A site can display this kind of information, thus the client will be informed quickly. This kind of concern generates a feeling of security to clients to acquire from you in the future, as they realized your business won’t let them down.

14. Branding

A well-built site will help you promote and market your brand, giving it extra credibility.

15. Competition

It’s likely your competitors already have a site and this puts them ahead of you.

16. Opportunities

A site offers the possibility of new business opportunities to come up, like getting customers in other areas, towns or even other countries, who wouldn’t be able to find you if it weren’t for your site. Your website can also help potential partners and collaborators to find you.

17. Market research

By monitoring your site’s statistics, you can collect data on who visits your site, how they find you, and what types of actions they do on your site. You can even find out what web browser they use, and what operating system their computers are on. This information can help you create new strategies to develop your business.

18. Visitors’ contacts

Your website can help you automatically collect data, like e-mails addresses and names, from people interested in your services. Once they do so and thereby give you permission to contact them, you can send them newsletters, special offers and much more. Creating a database with these contacts to send out important information and news on new services is valuable to any business.

19. Creating relationships

Usually prospects will acquire a product or service from a business they know, like and trust. A site gives them the opportunity of find more about your business, services and even you, which gives a feeling of familiarity. Thus, it’s likely they’ll close a deal with you, rather than with a business they know nothing about. Sometimes, a picture of you or your staff’s profiles will make the business more “real”, making your prospects more likely to approach you.

20. Growth potential

According to the blog Retail Refugee, “Online retail sales in the United States could reach $248.7 billion by 2014, growing 60 percent from 2009….” In short, if your business doesn’t have a site you are NOT making money!

As a freelance professional, entrepreneur and business owner, you can appreciate how a well thought out website will help you stand out, create a professional brand, and get more clients.

Do you have a website to promote your freelancing services? If not, why not? If so, are you satisfied with how your website has been supporting your freelancing business?

PS: If you need more help to turn your website into a client magnet, take a look at “The Savvy Freelancer’s Website Secrets: How to Create A Client Magnet Online.”

photo credit: turtlemom4bacon

He introduced the use of Joomla in UFRJ, one of Brazil’s top universities. Since 2009 he’s been attending several CMS-related events, aiming to expand his knowledge. In 2010 he was a speaker at Joomla! Day New York. His goal is to share what he has been learning from the point of view of a designer and how he uses Joomla! and WordPress to make it happen. Currently he also works as a Joomla! instructor in partnership with iLearn, one of the leading internet schools in Brazil and a W3C member. He is a dreamer and he works hard to make his dreams come true.

This is Day 17 of 31 Days to Start a Freelancing Business (or Make Yours a Better One). If you want to catch up, click here to read Day 1.

Yesterday, you wrote the first four of the seven essential pages of your freelancing website. Today, we’ll get to the last three.

5. Testimonials or Feedback

The testimonials or feedback page is a critical component of your site. Prospective clients take a lot of risk when hiring a service provider for the first time. By reading feedback from others your work, you’re reducing some of this risk for your prospects. You can read more about the importance of client testimonials here.

If you did the assigned task on Day 11, you should have a few testimonials for your site by now. Just put up whatever you have for now. On a later day, we’ll be working on getting more social proof of how good you are.

If you’d like a sample, you can look at my feedback page.

6. Work Samples

Your prospects will definitely want to see samples of your work. If you have work that’s been published online, put links to those pieces on this page.

You can also publish your work yourself, on your website. For example, if you’re a designer, you’ll want to put thumbnails for your best work on this page. Use thumbnails to minimize the loading time of your page. But make sure the thumbnails are linked to higher-resolution versions of the images.

If your samples are physical objects, such as an article published in a magazine or a brochure you designed, you can scan or take photographs of these objects. Very important: don’t publish copyrighted materials on your website! Instead, request your prospects to contact you if they want to see those pieces, like I do on my samples page.

7. Resume

Like the traditional resume, the purpose of this page is to provide information about your work experience and formal training. But don’t make this page look just like your paper resume. Translate the information for the web. Summarize key areas and don’t go into the littlest details.

I’ve noticed that not all freelancers even have this page. I think this is a big mistake. Your resume page can highlight your strengths, particularly if you have a lot of formal training and experience in your field.

For example, my resume page emphasizes how heavily I invest in my continuing education, as well as my 20 years writing experience.

By the end of today, you should have the 7 essential pages on your freelancing website.

There are other pages you could add, but which I think are optional, such as:

• resources – products and training programs you recommend to your prospective clients (this is the only place where you should have affiliate links, in my opinion)
• squeeze page – to collect the email addresses of your prospective clients. Highly recommended, but not necessary if you’re just starting out.
• privacy – your policy about protecting your readers’ privacy. You SHOULD have this page if you collect information about your readers, such as if you have an opt-in form or squeeze page.
• freebies – a landing page for free stuff you’ve made for your site visitors, such as special reports, white papers, WordPress themes, website scripts, etc. Here’s an example of a landing page for a free report from my site. (While you’re there, feel free to download the report; no opt-in required).

To Blog, Or Not to Blog?

Now we get to an important question: should you have a blog?

You have a WordPress site, which means you could blog very easily. You’ve got all the tools. But should you?

Blogging is an essential tool for any business to attract clients, including a freelancer’s business. So, yes, I think you should blog.

Here are just a few things you can accomplish with your blog:

• Highlight your expertise – especially if you’re a writer, a blog functions as an excellent sample of your work. But even if you’re a virtual assistant, web designer or other type of service provider, you can display your expertise through your blog posts.
• Attract a steady stream of traffic - by blogging, you’re publishing new content regularly. It’s content that will attract traffic to your site.
• Have a central hub for your social media efforts – a blog is central for participating in social media. It gives you a place and a reason to reach out to your social media contacts. They’ll want to get to know you better, and they will naturally check out your blog (rather than a static site), to do so.

That said, a blog can be a lot of work. So this is something you should definitely think about. If you decide not to blog (yet), don’t sweat it. You can start a blog anytime you want to. After all, you’re using WordPress on your site, right?

Incidentally, Sharon McMillan and I will be discussing blogging for freelancers in the next Savvy Freelancing Webinar. I don’t have the details yet, but if you’d like to stay in the loop, you can sign up for the webinar here. I’ll send you the webinar details as soon as they’re available.

Are there other pages you think you ought to have on your site? Did I leave anything out? If so, please post a comment below.

Lexi

photo credit: TheAlieness GiselaGiardino²³

PS: Need a step-by-step blueprint for creating an effective website? You’ll find it in “The Savvy Freelancer’s Website Secrets: How to Create a Client Magnet Online.” Check it out!

This is Day 16 of 31 Days to Start a Freelancing Business (or Make Yours a Better One). If you want to catch up, click here to read Day 1.

Yesterday, you installed the must-have plugins in your WordPress site. Today, you’re going to start writing content in your site!

If you will only have seven pages on your freelancing website, then I suggest those pages should be:

1. Home Page

This is the entry page, or the first thing visitors will see when they type in your domain name (remember? www.yourdomain.com?). The home page should have a title or headline that will compel your target clients to read the rest of the page. This is where your USP comes in. If you did the assignment on Day 9, you’ll have something to put on your home page.

The home page should be brief, but give a summary of your services. It should also have clear links to the other pages on your site, such as your list of services.

You may also want to add a nice, informal, personable photograph of you on your home page. It helps your prospective clients to bond with you instantly. (Tip: Make sure you’re looking into the camera.)

For a sample, take a look at the home page of my professional website.

2. About Page

Now, pull out that story you wrote about yourself on Day 5. You may want to revise it a little to fit better on your About page.

Should you use the first person or third person? Either way works, except that some people aren’t comfortable talking about themselves the whole time! If that’s the case with you – or you want your story to sound more objective – then write the About Page in the third person, like I do here.

If you didn’t put a photograph on your home page, you should definitely put one in your About Page. Come on, let your prospects get to know you better!

3. Services

This is the page where you publish your menu of services, which you completed on Day 7. Make the page easy to read, so your prospects don’t get confused or lost. It’s easy to lose clients this way.

If you decide to publish your rates as well (which I highly recommend), use the assignment from Day 8. Make sure to read the comments on that post for an excellent suggestion about how to express your rates.

4. Contact

It’s essential that prospective clients be able to reach you from your website! Some people recommend having a telephone number on your contacts page, or even a customer support live chat. Whether you do so or not depends on your personal style and the needs of your target clients.

Personally, I don’t like to talk to my clients (prospect or otherwise). That’s because I’m a stay at home Mom with a preschool-age child. It’s nearly impossible for me to engage in a telephone conversation without being interrupted. In fact, I have to schedule phone calls (when absolutely necessary) during the times when hubby is home to keep the munchkins at bay, or after they’re asleep.

On the other hand, I know that some clients like to talk to a person first before deciding to hire them. So by making this choice, I am probably turning off some prospective clients. Oh well. We’re not the perfect fit for each other at this time. That’s ok.

At the very least, your prospective client should be able to Email you from your site. This is where the WordPress plugin cformsII comes in handy, and why I recommended it yesterday. With cformsII, you can create a contact form on your site without displaying your Email address online. You don’t want to publish your Email address because that makes you vulnerable to spam bots that harvest Email addresses on websites. Here’s the contact form I made with cformsII.

That’s it for today. We’ll talk about the next 3 essential pages you should have on your freelancing website tomorrow.

In the meantime, how’s your website going? Let me know by posting a comment below.

Lexi

PS: I should point out that you ought to write all this content by creating Pages in WordPress, rather than posts. Pages are for static content on your site. Use Posts if you want your site to have a blog, which is dynamic content.

PPS: If you’re not comfortable with writing, refer to Copyblogger.com and Contentrix.com for easy-to-follow tips on writing web content.

PPPS: If you want more detailed guidance on building your freelancing website, take a look at “The Savvy Freelancer’s Website Secrets: How to Create a Client Magnet Online.”

photo credit: gualtiero

This is Day 15 of 31 Days to Start a Freelancing Business (or Make Yours a Better One). If you want to catch up, click here to read Day 1.

Yesterday you installed your WordPress site and picked a theme to use.

Today you will install plugins into your site. Plugins are functionalities that allow you to easily do things in your site – technical stuff, like backing up your data, or things to help make your site easier for your readers to use.

Plugins make your WordPress professional website powerful, even if you don’t know anything about HTML coding or website authoring.

Here’s a list of 10 WordPress plugins I think every freelancer should use:

1. Akismet – helps screen out spam comments

2. WP-DB-Backup – automatically backs up your WordPress database

3. cformsII – adds a contact form on your site, without you having to reveal your Email address. See it in action here.

4. Social Bookmarks – adds social bookmarking buttons on your posts so your readers can easily share or tag them. You don’t need this plugin if you’re using the Headway theme, since Headway has its own widget for this.

5. Yet Another Related Posts Plugin – automatically makes a lists of posts related to the current one, with links to each post. You can see it in action below this post, under the photo credit.

6. Tweetmeme – tracks the number of times your post has been Tweeted about, and displays a button so that readers can easily tweet it.

7. wp-cache – helps your site load up faster. Especially helpful if you’re a graphic designer with a graphics-heavy site.

8. All-in-One SEO Pack – easily optimize each post/page for your target keywords. You don’t need this if you’re using either Thesis or Headway or some other theme with SEO functionality.

9. Photo Dropper – finds Flickr photos with Creative Commons license, so you can enhance your post with a picture without ever leaving the WordPress editor.

10. What Would Seth Godin Do – allows you to display a customized message either on top of, or at the bottom of each post. Use it to invite readers to sign up for your RSS feed or newsletter. You can have different messages for first-time and returning visitors. See my message to you at the bottom of this post.

By the way, if you need step-by-step help to use WordPress, you can see free tutorials here.

Are there any plugins I missed? Let me know by posting a comment below.

Lexi

PS: Need more detailed help with setting up your professional website? Check out “The Savvy Freelancer’s Website Secrets: How to Create a Client Magnet Online.”

photo credit: striatic

This is Day 14 of 31 Days to Start a Freelancing Business (or Make Yours a Better One). If you want to catch up, click here to read Day 1.

Today you’re going to do something potentially scary if you’ve never done it before: install a WordPress site.

Why WordPress?

Yesterday, I mentioned that I highly recommend you use WordPress to set up your professional site. I should clarify that I meant WordPress installed in your own domain name, with web hosting you pay for, rather than a site on WordPress.com, which is free.

Having your own site, rather than a free one, gives you instant credibility. You’ll also have much more control over your own site. WordPress.com and other free sites have many restrictions, which will stifle you sooner or later. In fact, with a free site, it’s possible for your site to suddenly disappear because you’ve violated a term of service you may not have even been aware of.

So why WordPress and not an ordinary HTML site? WordPress is open-source, which means it’s free. You don’t need to buy software to create your web pages. It’s accessible anywhere you have Internet access and a web browser. It’s fairly easy to use; definitely much easier than HTML authoring.

WordPress is also very highly customizable. You can change the look of your site. Although WordPress is a platform for blogs, you can make it look like a regular website – if that’s what you want. You may or may not want to put a blog on your professional site (more on that in future posts).

Using WordPress widgets, you can automate certain functionalities (like what you see on the sidebars of TheSavvyFreelancer.com).

Finally, WordPress is very attractive to search engines. It’s easy for Google to index a WordPress site, sometimes within hours of installing it!

If Your Web Host Has CPanel

If you followed my advice yesterday and signed up for web hosting with a CPanel, then this shouldn’t be too hard or take too long. In fact, you can instal WordPress in 5 minutes.

To do this:

1. Go to your CPanel and look for a selection of Software/Services. You should find either Fantastico Deluxe or Simple Scripts, or both.

2. Click on either Fantastico or Simple Scripts. Now you will see a list of programs you can install, including WordPress.

3. Click on WordPress.

4. Follow the instructions to install WordPress.

I can’t go into more detail because each web hosting is different. If you run into any problems, contact your web host’s customer service department.

Or, if you’d rather be saved from all this trouble, get your web hosting from Reliable Webs and have them install WordPress for you. Then all you’ll have to do is log into your site and start customizing it.

If Your Web Host Doesn’t Have a CPanel

Contact your web host and find out if it’s possible for you to install WordPress at all. If it’s not, it’s not yet too late to switch web hosts. You’ll thank me for it!

Choosing Your Website Theme

Once you’ve got WordPress installed, the next step is to choose a theme for it. You can find plenty of free WordPress themes by doing a Google search.

If you’re willing to pay for a theme, the premium ones I’ve used are Revolution, Thesis and Headway. Thesis and Headway are considered rivals in the world of WordPress themes. I use and like them both. I used Revolution for a magazine-style site, which may not be suitable for a freelancing website.

I chose Thesis because of its elegant look. Thesis sites look very clean and uncluttered. It also has built-in SEO features that help your site rank in the search engines.

Thesis claims to give you total control. In fact, you can customize a Thesis site any way you want – as long as you know how. In the beginning, I did a few customizations by following tutorials in websites and the Thesis forum. But eventually, I just got way too busy to keep playing with it. (In fact, I just recently noticed that I lost my custom colors when I last upgraded the Thesis version of my professional website. Take a look here.)

Click here to watch a video about Thesis.

Enter the Headway theme. This is a fully customizable theme as well, and it’s much easier than Thesis. TheSavvyFreelancer.com uses the Headway theme. I was able to get just the look I wanted in under an hour. It would have been faster if I had watched the tutorials first instead of trying to figure everything out myself!

Click here to learn more about Headway.

Before you spend money on a premium theme, make sure it’s the one you really want and will use for a long time. There are lots of options out there, including free ones. Don’t feel bad if you can’t afford a premium theme. You’ll find plenty of free themes that look amazing. In fact, I used free WordPress themes for almost a year before finally plunking money on premium themes.

How to Choose a WordPress Theme

Whatever you choose, keep these tips in mind:

• Select a widget-ready theme, so you can easily add functionalities in your sidebars and footers.
• Make sure your theme has font sizes which are legible. Look at sample sites and check the font sizes, background color and font colors. (You can change these things if you know some HTML. If not, choose something you like with minimal changes)
• Choose a theme that reflects your personality and/or the image you want to project with your business. Don’t use an overly frilly theme if you’re in the business-to-business market, for example.
• Make sure your theme’s colors look professional – no neon colors unless you’re in a very creative field.
• Look at numerous sites using the themes you’re considering before you commit to any one. Observe what the possibilities are with the particular theme, and any elements you’re not too happy about and might want to customize later on.

So which WordPress theme did you choose? Share a link to your site when it’s up, ok?

Lexi

photo credit: pshutterbug

This is Day 13 of 31 Days to Start a Freelancing Business (or Make Yours a Better One). If you want to catch up, click here to read Day 1.

Before you launch your freelancing business, there’s a critical task you need to complete: establishing your presence on the Internet by setting up your professional website.

Why Do I Need a Professional Website

Even if your target clients are offline businesses, you should still have a professional website. First of all, your prospective clients are sure to Google your name when they scope you out. What will they see when they do this? Hopefully, they’ll find a website that’s professional, easy to navigate and convince them that you’re the person to hire. But more on that later.

Another reason you should have a professional website is because it will work for you, like a brochure, resume or business card that’s available 24/7 – as long as your website is up and running, of course. In fact, many freelancers – myself included – don’t even use business cards or other printed marketing materials. Our professional website provide enough information to help prospects decide whether or not to contact us for possible work.

First, Choose A Domain Name

The domain name is your website’s URL or web address. For example, “thesavvyfreelancer.com” is the domain name of this site you’re reading right now.

Which domain name should you choose? I use my name, Alexis Rodrigo, for my professional website’s domain name. That’s because, to this day, I am unable to find a business name I’m really happy with.

If you have a business name, of course, you should use that as your professional website’s domain name.

But whether or not you have a domain name, it’s still a good idea for you to register your own name. This is just to make sure you own that particular piece of real estate on the web, and are in control of it. You don’t want prospects going to yourname.com and finding something totally inappropriate – even if you’re not the owner of that site, but just happen to have the same name.

Other businesses go as far as to register every domain name with different extensions, such as yourname.com, yourname.net, yourname.info, yourname. org. Overkill? I think so, but you may feel differently. If you can afford it, go ahead and register all these variations to your domain name. It will reduce the chances any possible confusion.

Speaking of which.. should you use .com, .org., . net or something else? If you’re targeting a particular geographical location, then you’ll do better in the search engines by registering a country-specific domain name. For example, if I wanted to rank well among Google users who are in Ontario, I should have registered myname.ca.

Otherwise, .com is the better choice, because it’s familiar with most Internet users and therefore easier to remember. I hear it also tends to rank better in the search engines. (Please note, I’m not an SEO expert and this is just hearsay )

How Do You Register a Domain Name?

You can register a domain name either through your web host, or through a domain name registrar. I’ve done it both ways, depending. I used to register through my web host, simply because it’s simpler and I’m all for simple and easy.

However, lately, I’ve also been using GoDaddy.com. It’s been highly recommended by Internet marketers whom I trust. I find their interface to be easy to use. For example, it’s a cinch to redirect URLs – but you probably don’t need to know about that right now.

Which Web Host Should I Use?

Once you’ve registered your domain name, it’s time to sign up for web hosting (or vice versa, if you’ve decided to register your domain name through your web host).

You want a web host that’s reliable, affordable and provides a CPanel – which is a way for you to manage your site. Since I highly recommend that you build your website using WordPress, a CPanel is essential. Website hosts with site builders that don’t use CPanels won’t allow you to create a WordPress site.

It’s all very techie and I’m not good at explaining, but for now, just take my word for it. For all it’s worth, I personally use Bluehost and ReliableWebs. Bluehost has its share of ups and downs, but my Bluehost sites are up most of the time (at least, as far as I know).

ReliableWebs is slightly more expensive, but it can be very affordable if you only plan to have one site, anyway. You can do it for only $5 per month at ReliableWebs. Plus, ReliableWebs will install your WordPress site for you. It’s super easy to do anyway, but if you’re nervous about it, you can have them do it for you for free.

UPDATE: I forgot to renew hosting for one of my sites, which of course, caused it to disappear. I emailed Reliable Webs right away, at 8 pm on a Sunday evening, and my site was back up and running in under one hour.

I’ve experienced a similar problem with Bluehost (wherein I caused my own site to disappear due to my own error), and while the Bluehost support person told me how to get my site back up, that was the extent of support I received. I had to hire a virtual assistant to rebuild my site, which took a couple of days. In contrast, Reliable Webs did everything for me. I now plan to move more of my sites away from Bluehost to Reliable Webs.

PS: If you have a number of sites, it’s a good idea to spread them over several hosts, so that you don’t have all your eggs in one basket.

You should also ask your friends about the hosting they use.

Further Reading

Traci Feit Love over at Sparkplugging.com wrote a post about building a professional website. She writes about domain names here and website hosting here.

That’s it for today. Two very easy tasks and, probably the first time ever in the last 13 days when you’ve had to spend a dime on your business.

Let me know how you’re doing by posting a comment below.

Lexi

PS: For more detailed help on putting up your professional website, check out “The Savvy Freelancer’s Website Secrets: How to Create a Client Magnet Online.”

photo credit: manfrys