The Value of a Website for Freelancers

For any entrepreneur or business these days, it is extremely important to have a website for the purpose of marketing. This is especially true for any entrepreneur or business that does the majority of their business online like most freelancers do. The vast majority of your potential clients own internet access and use it regularly. The ease of use and cost effective aspects of website marketing are widely recognized by business professionals everywhere and are taught in business classes all over the world. It is virtually impossible to run a successful business without a website.

Imagine trying to climb a ladder as a paraplegic. Just standing on a ladder requires the use of legs. That is the same theory behind trying to run an internet based business without some sort of a website. Sure, you can e-mail your potential clients, join freelance networks and unions, and post on forums. However, nothing beats the value of a decent website. It does not need to be anything fancy. Just give it a classic look using a ready-to-use template and add a biographical section and details on services and pricing. If you want to go fancier, you can use an easy website creator or learn HTML and do it yourself. The other option is hiring a website design professional or business to do create your website for you, and then just update your information as needed.

If you are serious about a career in freelancing of any kind, you will need to market yourself. The most successful freelance writers are not necessarily the best writers in the business. In fact, they might be the exact definition of mediocre in human form. They are just extremely good at marketing. They started out marketing themselves properly early on, and have gained the name recognition. With name recognition automatically comes reputation unless you do something horrible to mess it up that makes its way around the industry. You may be ten times better than that six figure freelancer that just hired you, but without the marketing edge, you will forever work for them.

A website will allow any freelancer to: post samples of prior work, enable contact with future clients, display testimonials from prior or current clients, and take advantage of the growing market to be tapped into online. Your more unreliable clients will probably not be in contact with you until they need something. However, they will check your website if you have one available. That is where they can find out about a special you are running, a new project package deal you are offering, or find new samples and keep up on your new services as you expand your business.

By: Michael Bowler, Creativity Unlimited