Web Design for freelancers

These top tips on 'best practice in website design for freelancers' come from Heather Burns, a freelance web site designer and consultant in Glasgow, Scotland. http://www.idea15webdesign.com/

Creating a web site can be a daunting prospect for freelancers. After all, we are presenting our individual personalities as well as our professional expertise to the world.

Despite that unique challenge, the site creation process does not have to be a struggle.

Applying best practice principles to your web site can help you to punch above your weight and win lucrative clients and income.

Here are my tips to help you build your freelance business web site on the right foundations:

1. Your web site should be a part of a greater marketing strategy. Ask yourself questions like:

What do you need your web site to accomplish?
How will your website complement your offline marketing?
Will it supplement or replace other marketing efforts?
Who are you targeting? Who aren't you targeting?

What incentives will you offer your visitors to convert them to customers?
How often do you plan to update the site?
How do you plan to integrate social media?
What might you want to do with the site in a year's time?

Map out your strategy well before you think about the site's visual design. In fact, the visuals should come last.

2. Respect yourself, and your freelance business, by hiring a professional web site designer to create your site. Your potential customers are coming to you to evaluate your suitability to their needs, not your amateur design talents. A home-made web site with a template logo sends out the message that this is a business which has to cut corners.

3. A web site which has been made on the cheap through off-the-shelf “easy site” software will dent your credibility. Many cheap web software packages place a link about themselves in their sites' footers which effectively announce to the world how little money you have. Your web site should convey the impression of your professional success, not the lack of it.

4. Be consistent in the way you describe your freelance business. Decide whether you will represent yourself as “I” or “we”, and whether your promotional focus will be on yourself as an individual or on the goods or services you provide. Choose whether to focus on the nature of your product or service (your career in writing sales copy) or the result of using your product or service (a 20% increase in revenues for your clients). Whichever angle you choose, do not pretend to be something you are not. There is a fine line between punching above your weight and stretching credibility.

5. Search engine optimisation is not rocket science. It is the successful application of a properly targeted marketing strategy achieved through intelligently written content and professional web site construction techniques. Don't fall for snake oil, sales hype, or – heaven forbid - spam email offers about SEO. Your designer will help you to develop, implement, and monitor your SEO strategy as part of your site's construction process.

6. While we still design web sites on desktop PCs, many people now access the web exclusively through mobiles, smartphones, or tablets. Your designer should ensure that your site can be accessed and interacted with across all of these forms of presentation.

7. Finally, all commercial web sites in the UK – even those which are not selling anything via the web site - must comply with the UK's E-Commerce Regulations. Many freelancers' web sites are, in fact, breaking the law by omitting the information that the Regulations require. Visit http://www.out-law.com/page-431 to find out how to bring your site into legal compliance.