Why Every Freelancer Should Have Their Online Business Website
While freelancing is getting competitive with each passing day, you can still make a mark by showing your presence through your online business website. Irrespective of any platform you use, as long as your website is up and running, it can do wonders.
But what are those specific reasons which make it essential for freelancers to have their online business sites?
Let's explore each of them in detail.
Why A Online Business Website is Important
Save Time and Stand out from the crowd
If you are already working on a freelance platform, you might have known the fact that among those platforms, you need to create and edit gigs, send buyer requests and proposals – which could take a lot of your time as you have to stick to the computer for the most of your day.
Within these freelance platforms, it is tough to survive if you are a newbie. Buyers prefer to give projects to experienced freelancers as long as they do not have any budget issues.
But with your online business website, if you build a good client base, you can focus more on working instead of applying for jobs all the time. Also, not many freelancers develop their websites - you can have the edge over them while you bid for the projects.
Showcase your Portfolio for Expertise
Getting freelance jobs on social media platforms can be challenging if you do not have any portfolio to be shared. So, if you are looking for clients on Facebook and LinkedIn, you can grab your prospect's attention by giving them the link to your portfolio website.
If you are a website designer, your website is a portfolio for your customers.
If you are a Graphics designer, you can upload all those logos, brochures, flyers, visiting cards, and more on your website, which you have designed in the past - This will help your prospects to build trust in you.
Credibility
If you have good reviews from your clients, you can always share them on your website and use them to your advantage. Having a testimonial on your website will increase your credibility, and hence more business can be generated in return.
The professional freelance platforms also allow your customers to rate you and leave a review, but the worst part is that you can not remove the unwanted review from your profile.
Imagine if a client is intentionally irritating you for some unknown reason and if upon project completion, you get a bad review even though you did a good job – it will not leave a good impression on your potential customers.
But on the other hand, if you have a website, you can upload powerful testimonials as per your choice.
Sharpen your Skills and Master your Craft
One of the benefits of having an online business website is skills enhancement.
If you are a writer, you can set up a blog on your website and can start writing – it would not only improve your writing style, but you can also become professional in SEO writing. If you choose to go with WordPress for a blog, there are a couple of plugins that you can install to help you with your SEO writing style.
If you are a website designer and developer, you can build your website after purchasing a domain and hosting. And not only that, you can keep on learning about how to make your website responsive, how to increase page loading speed, and how to keep all design parameters in check.
If you provide SEO services, you can apply all those techniques on your website – this would help you understand SEO strategies better. SEO is an ongoing process, so you can keep learning this craft as long as you have a website of your own.
And, there are many other skills which you can learn and apply on your website.
Monetization
If you are a writer, you can monetize your website using Google AdSense, Ezoic, and other monetization tools. So, at the same time, when you are writing content for your portfolio, you can generate income out of it.
You can also earn through affiliate marketing if you are doing an online business with Amazon through their affiliate link.
While you are getting new leads, your revenue wouldn't stop coming.
Amazon online business: You also need to have a website if you choose to work with Amazon as a drop shipper.
Zero Commission Strategy, Set your rates
On the freelancing platforms, you have to give a certain amount of money to them on each of your completed orders, but if you are having your website, you can set rates for yourself without the tension of giving commission to anyone.
SEO leads to Organic search and hence more business
You can drive traffic to your website for the business generation with a good SEO strategy. So, if you want your business name to be appeared in someone's search engine against their inquiries, you need to have a website. An effective SEO strategy would lead to more traffic, which means more potential customers and more business in return.
Extend your reach through Social Media
You can create Ads on Social media platforms and link them to your website to generate more visitors and hence more chances of business development.
Own Brand
You never know when these freelance platforms will block your profile over any suspicious activity. There have been instances where the profile gets banned without prior intimation to the sellers.
Even if they are skeptical and you are not proven guilty, they can block your profile.
Imagine if this happens, and you got to take a new start all over again.
The worst part is that you will also lose your hard-earned money if the profile gets blocked.
So, money gone, profile gone, and you are no one but just another new freelancer.
But with your website, you will have total control over your branding. You can decide how you want other people to approach you and treat you.
Over time, people will start to know you by your brand name if you keep delivering value.
Build your email list
If you manage to bring visitors to your website, you can offer them a free eBook in return for their emails – which you could use later to pitch your services.
Design Website Prototype First
We have shared an exhaustive list of all those reasons which should motivate you to build your online business website. Whether you start with the free website builders or paid ones, it is your choice – but make sure that the website should be well designed.
And for a well-designed website, you should start with Prototype designing because a prototype will guide you along with your website development journey.
To design Prototypes, you can use Wondershare Mockitt
Mockitt is a design prototyping tool that allows creating stunning designs for your website and their mobile versions.
Since it takes about 50 milliseconds for visitors to form an opinion about your site, you need to ensure that every element you place makes sense.
Your website should not look cluttered and messy. To make sure it does not, you can use Mockitt to design various versions of your websites – then you can put all of them under test, show it to the stakeholders and get their opinion.
You can use Mockitt on your web browser and save yourself from the hassle of downloading it into your operating system.
You will not be required to watch long tutorials to start using Mockitt – it is so user friendly that by the time you get to see its working screen, you will have an idea how to navigate between various other screens.
So use Mockitt to make sure that your design is right on point. And after you complete the design, implement it onto your website to start off with your freelance career.
Remember, your website is the best online business platform among all other options with which you can become a brand and make money if you put all of your efforts.
So play your cards right!
