One of the most difficult and perhaps the thorniest task for a freelancer is to get clients. You may be blessed with a great writing talent or web designing skills that sparkle interests and blow off minds, but if you can’t manage to get a single client, you won’t be able to seize upon your expertise – and obviously there is no point of labeling yourself as a freelancer.
Chances are, in your search to find tips on how to get freelance clients, you will find that experts expect you to build a blog as your portfolio. Which I’m sure you did. Nevertheless, getting clients still is a ‘glitch’ that you couldn’t ride out until now. Ever wondered what’s wrong with your blog that keeps repelling clients?
Recommended Reading: Freelancers: 10 Things Clients Don’t Like Hearing
Here are some of the reasons:
1. Cluttered design
Here is a question: Can you attract a butterfly with a ghoulish and an unattractive garden? A place where they wouldn’t be comfortable hanging out and reaping the benefits of the nature? I’m sure it would be a little hard and most likely impossible.
(Image Source: James VanDyke)
For a clientele, the process is almost the same. In order to get clients and gain a client’s trust to contact you seeking for your freelance services you need to have a clean and ‘tidy’ design.
A blog with clutter, sidebars dreadfully structured, and widgets popping out can repel clients making them cast doubt on your potentials before even contacting you. Ensure that your blog is clean and clutter-free.
Recommended Reading: 11 Popular Blog Design Styles (With Examples)
2. Buried contact forms
Your objective as a freelancer after generating a good impression is to make a client get in touch with you asking for your services. What if the client can’t find a form to fill-in and contact you? Is he going to waste his precious time foraging for one in your blog, when he could be working on finding another freelancer among the millions out there?
If he leaves the site without contacting you, you’ve just lost out on a potential income-earning project. Make sure your contact form is easily viewable to grab potential clients (who are already interested).
Hiding contact forms on pages, and camouflaging contact pages on fuzzy menus certainly repels clients.
3. Flabby first impression
Your website is a place to showcase your talents and what services you are offering to clients. It plays a major, yet essential role on a client’s first impression of your services.
If you are a freelance web designer, then your website shouldn’t be of the average standard. You should spruce up your web design to demonstrate your designing aptitude before your clients get in touch with you.
On the other hand, if you are a freelance writer the masterpiece of your copy and content should reflect your abilities as a writer. Failing to do so, grammar mistakes and inappropriate word use can result in a bad impression and obliviously push away freelancing writing gigs.
4. Presenting exorbitant fees
This is one of the most common mistakes a freelancer can make. Presenting the rates of your services can divert the client’s notion if applied wrongly. When a client stumbles upon your website, before he decides to reach out for your services, your rates will determine a further action.
If your rates are exorbitant and not even close to the client’s budget, he will feel undermined due to insufficient budget. You will lose out the opportunity of negotiating terms and prices because he’s already gone.
That is the reason why most freelancing experts advise to hide the prices as a way of getting contacted for further negotiations.
Recommended Reading: Why Don’t People Want To Pay For Good Design?
5. Fake testimonials
To increase your work reliability and credibility towards prospects you should attach in your website real testimonials from people who previously hired you. It woud be great if they could endorse your valuable services and recommend you to entrepreneurs who want to leverage their businesses.
The sad thing is that many freelancers drop the ball showing fake testimonials in the form of text only. To remove all doubts, you could attach a link to their websites and the images of the clients who endorse your work.
According to a research conducted by Eryn Jane Newman from the Victoria University of Wellington, images make claims and statements more believable than a simple text. With that said, you can implement that principle to increase the credibility of your testimonials.
6. No ‘About me’ page
You need an About Me page for clients to form a strong bond and build trust with you. You should make sure you include on your website, your personal picture and relevant information about yourself, your services, as well as your background (or portfolios).
With more and more scams turning up on the internet every day, if you don’t attach any photo of yourself on your website, clients will not be more likely to invest in you.
For Your Reference: Create “About Me” Sidebar Widget With Post Editor [WordPress Tutorial]
Further Reading:
Here are more articles about blogging including:
- Marketing Your Blog: 10 Essential Tips You Should Know
- Improving Blog Traffic: 5 Must-Have Qualities
- 6 Practices That Make Your Blog Look Less Professional
- Popular (But Bad) Blogging Advice You Should Ignore
Here are a couple of posts that showcase blogging tools that you may be interested in:
Conclusion
You might be thinking you are doing exactly what it takes to hook freelance clients but if your blog/portfolio doesn’t entice clients at first glance, you’ll end up losing out and repelling more high-paying and prospective clients over and over again.
Have a look at the strengths and weaknesses of your blog or website, tweak it to the best of your abilities with sources of inspiration you can find on this site to increase the likelihood of closing freelancing deals and contracts.
Editor’s note: This article is contributed by Kelvon Yeezy .Kelvon is a freelance content writer, social psychology enthusiast and the mind behind blogthisout.com. When he isn’t writing or reading books, you can find him hanging out on Twitter. Check out his portfolio here.
6 Ways Your Blog Is Repelling Prospective Clients
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