Freelancers are in demand: Recent survey data found that in 2023, 78% of companies are planning to use freelancers for new projects rather than hiring additional staff.
This creates a golden opportunity for freelancers to find new clients, get more work and raise their business profile. The caveat? In a competitive freelance market, you need to make sure that companies can find your work and get in touch ASAP.
The easiest way to kickstart this process is by building a freelance website that funnels inquiries from email accounts, social media profiles and advertising campaigns to a single, unified source, allowing you to quickly review and respond to requests for work.
In this piece, we’ll explore how to create a freelance website, from getting online to choosing the right template to adding functionality and optimizing for SEO, then look at some of the biggest benefits that come with having your own site. Let’s get started.
Getting Online
Before you can build a website, you need to get online. Start with these four steps.
- Choose a domain name
First up is choosing a domain name. Ideally, you want something simple and easy to remember. For freelancers, common domain name choices may indicate the type of service they offer or reference their own name. To help find available names that meet your criteria, Name.com lets you quickly search for a domain across thousands of options.
- Set up hosting
With your domain name in place, the next step is setting up your web hosting. With a massive market of hosting providers to choose from, look for companies that are well-reviewed when it comes to site uptime and reliability, and that offer multiple hosting plans to meet your needs.
- Create a business email account
Clients need a way to get in touch. While social connections and search engines can help direct them to your site, it’s worth creating a business email address that offers a unified point of contact. Solutions such as Titan Email offer guaranteed uptime and delivery along with calendars, security features and plenty of data storage.
- Select a website builder
The right website builder can help streamline the process of designing and developing your website, in turn letting you get up and running more quickly. Tools such as Wix offer intuitive, drag-and-drop editing along with more than 500 website templates.
Choose a Website Template
With your website builder selected, your next task is choosing a website template.
Templates are prebuilt site structures that offer different styles and themes to suit the purpose of your site, and the way you want to engage with customers. The Wix website builder comes with a host of free templates to choose from that can help align your site with your brand.
Some of Wix’s freelance website examples include sites designed for business consulting companies, illustrators, artists and designers. You can also choose to build your own template from scratch if you have a specific style or tone in mind for your site.
No matter what you choose, remember that the goal of your site is to draw in potential clients and keep them engaged. In practice, this means creating a site that’s clear about what your freelance business does, offers examples of what you do best and makes it easy for prospective customers to get in touch.
Add Important Pages to Your Site
The first page visitors see on your site is your home page. This page typically contains your business name and logo along with a brief description of what you do, as well as links to other relevant pages on your site. While there are no hard-and-fast rules regarding which pages you need to have, six types are common:
About Page
The about page includes information about you, your brand and your mission. For example, you might talk about when you started freelancing, what led you to this type of work and how you help clients.
Services Page
Your services page is all about what you offer. This could include multiple service types, tiers of services or custom services available upon request. Some freelance sites list their pricing upfront, while others choose a contact-for-pricing model.
Portfolio Page
The portfolio page lets you highlight work you’ve done. This might include work for previous clients, pieces you’re still working on or personal projects.
Testimonials Page
A testimonials page includes quotes from companies or clients that you’ve worked with in the past describing the quality and impact of your services.
Contact Page
Your contact page helps clients get in touch. It may include a phone number, business email address or a contact form visitors can submit with details about their request.
Blog Content
Last but not least: blog content. This type of informational content can help your site rank higher on search engine results and encourage visitors to stay on your site longer.
Add More Functionality/Plugins
When you build a freelance website, it’s also worth considering the use of additional features or plugins to improve the user experience or provide data about how your site is performing.
For example, you could add a social sharing or “contact us” widget that lets visitors quickly get in touch or share their experience on social media. You could also add back-end functionalities such as tools that track the number of new visitors, the amount of time they spend on your site and how many people click through to your contact page.
Other plugins offer the ability to track website performance and notify you if the site starts to experience issues such as slow loading times or linking errors.
Optimize for SEO and Mobile
SEO stands for search engine optimization. Sites that are SEO-friendly rank higher in search results, making them easier to find. Search engines use several metrics to rank sites, including the use of popular keywords and the relevance of site content.
For example, if you’re a freelance illustrator, keywords such as “digital illustration” or “graphic design” may see high search volumes. Including these keywords in your content (without over-using them) can help your site rank higher. When it comes to content, meanwhile, it’s worth regularly posting new blog or informational content to help search engines view your site as relevant and up to date. Not sure where to get started with SEO? Check out these free SEO tools.
Optimizing for mobile devices is also important. Given that mobile commerce revenue reached $3.5 trillion in 2021, capturing this market is critical for freelancers building their web presence. Making sure your website works on mobile means using what’s known as responsive design — this practice ensures that website elements “respond” based on the user’s device to ensure your site always looks great and is easy to navigate. When it comes to mobile optimization, look for a website builder that offers this functionality as part of its core services.
Benefits of Having Your Own Freelancing Website
Having your own website offers multiple benefits, including:
Brand Development
With businesses moving online, digital brand development is critical. Your freelance website operates as a digital home base — by regularly updating your site with new content, portfolio work and testimonials, you can develop a well-known digital brand.
Increased Professionalism
No matter the type or size of the company, customers expect professional, enterprise-level service. Having a great website makes this possible — let customers quickly get in touch with “contact us” widgets or explore your portfolio with just a few clicks.
Trackable Leads
Website tools can help you measure and track the impact of your site, including customer leads. By capturing this data, you’re better equipped to follow up and find new clients.
Improved Digital Presence
The better your digital presence, the more likely you’ll get noticed by prospective clients. By building a professional-looking, mobile-friendly website with great content, you can expand your digital reach and capture more customer interest.
Getting Started with Name.com
New freelance opportunities are waiting — if customers can find your business.
That’s why creating a freelance website is critical. With a great domain name, streamlined site design, compelling content and solid SEO optimization, you can capture customer interest and engage potential clients from initial search to site exploration to service requests.
Name.com can help you find your best fitting .PRO or.BIO top-level domain, and provide the support and services you need to create business email accounts, build a great site and get noticed online.
Take your freelancing to the next level with Name.com. Let’s get started.
