In today’s business environment, websites are often setup to act as the hub for all marketing efforts. It is an opportunity for you to put your best foot forward and to connect with new clients. This week’s training video takes you through the different elements that I believe you need on your site- when you are ready to set one up.
Transcript:
Hi everybody! Let’s chat about some things you do and maybe you don’t need on your freelance writing website.
Starting a freelance writing career is a really exciting opportunity and there is really never been a better time than now, but you are going to need some way to market yourself. Now I went for three years without ever having a freelance writing website. So, although many people will tell you it’s something you absolutely have to have in order to be successful, it was something that I waited to invest in until I was working specifically on getting private clients.
Now if you are brand new to the idea of getting private clients and you want to set up a website, don’t make things more difficult than they really need to be. Your website does need to have some basic information about you and your writing background. It’s okay if you are not a professional writer, but talk about any experience you have had doing any type of writing before.
The other thing you need to include on your website are sample pieces of your work. I recommend doing this because when I am searching for other writers to source for a client project, if I can’t find examples of their work or if they don’t easily send that back to me over email after I ask, I am probably not going to dig any further. The client should have a basic idea of the quality and the tone that you write in before they reach out to hire you. So, it’s a good idea to have some samples up there. That allows them to self-select out off or into working with you. so, somebody who doesn’t like your particular writing style for example, might choose never to contact you based on those proposals, but somebody who immediately jells with your writing tone and style will decide to contact you.
Another thing you should definitely have in your website is a way to communicate with you. A great way to do this is to encourage people to accept a free 15 or 20-minute call and then you can connect this immediately with your booking software, so that your booking needs discovery or brand name or strategy calls, whatever you want to call it with people directly from your website and you know then that your website is also converting and helping you land those clients and grow your leads. So, that’s one way to encourage people to get in touch with you. Sometimes that shows who is serious and who is not; you know who is willing to give up fifteen minutes to get on a phone call with you. If you are not going to have that, I do recommend having some way for somebody to get in touch with you. I personally don’t like contact forms because I feel like they don’t work 100% of the time, so I prefer to have somebody just reach out to an email address directly. Now bear in mind that if you do that you are going to get spam emails from people trying to sell you services because you published it. So, you might want to use an address that ultimately gets forwarded and filtered to your general email inbox, but you want to have some way for people to get in touch with you and to learn more.
Now, one thing that you may not need on your website is pricing information. On the one hand, it makes sense to share your pricing information because then your clients can decide whether you are even in their budget or in fact, may they are shocked that how little you are charging, but it can kind of go both ways. I haven’t found pricing information on my website to really help me convert or generate further interest rather than just having a way for people to get in touch with me. A lot of successful writers use that idea of the free 15 or 20-minute strategy call as their opportunity to convert someone, so that may be a better fit for you depending on whether or not you have the time in your schedule. Your freelance writing website does not have to be overly complex. It needs to have your work samples, a way to contact you and some basic information about you. Testimonials from clients are a great thing to share on your page if have it, although those are harder come by as a ghostwriter.
Best of luck building your freelance website.
