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Your guide to a freelance website that hooks new clients.
There is no need to spend too much column space talking about why a good website as a freelancer is the key to getting customers to line up.
Your website is often the last stop between a curious future customer and the first pitch from your side. And unfortunately it is one frequent freelancing mistake, to underestimate the importance of a website that shows who you are.
But what is a good website anyway?
A good website is a page that clearly explains what you can do and who you help. Plain and simple.
You cannot, and must, not help everyone. (The thing about limiting oneself and find your niche (we've written a bit about it here if you need to start the level earlier.)
Your website is therefore also your chance to cut to the chase and speak directly to your ICP - ideal customer profile.
Freelance with Factofly
Use Factofly to invoice and get paid without having your own CVR number or registered company. We handle all the boring stuff, so you can spend your time where it's most fun.
The promised land
When a potential customer lands on your page, you have one overall goal: you must help your future customer dream and show him/her the promised land.
The promised land is the world with your solution in hand.
Maybe it's a cracklingly crisp webshop, texts softer than butter or a big data solution that collects all loose ends. Regardless of what you sell, it's about being very specific and showing what kind of magical solutions you deliver.
New customers are rarely, if ever, faced with a general problem in hand. They therefore seek very specific solutions to very specific problems.
The structure of your page
Your page is generally divided into two sections: above and below the fold. Also called above the fold (ATF) and below the fold (BTF).
The fold is what is visible before you as a visitor have to find the scroll wheel on the mouse.
The most important element on your site is therefore your ATF section.
It determines whether potential customers are stimulated enough to investigate your service more deeply, or whether they continue to search for a supplier who can solve their problem elsewhere.
In this article, we do a breakdown of your ATF section, and look at which elements you should focus on.
Freelance with Factofly
Use Factofly to invoice and get paid without having your own CVR number or registered company. We handle all the boring stuff, so you can spend your time where it's most fun.
Above the fold
The good ATF section on your freelance website contains some standard elements:
- Header: the value you provide
- Under Heading: how to deliver it
- Social proof: who else have you helped
- Call to action: how you help a new customer move on
- Objection action: how to handle doubts about whether you should be selected
- Image: how you visualize your service
1. Your headline
There are countless guides on how to write the perfect headline. We look at perhaps the three most important.
Speak directly to your target audience.
You don't have to win everyone over, and you can often fall into a trap where your headline becomes too generic. If you embrace too broad in your headline, you will experience a bounce rate which is heading towards the moon. (Hint: we'd rather not have that!)
Therefore, be aware of who you want to reach, and speak directly to that core target group.
Be specific and focus on what value you deliver
Your headline must be easy to decipher, free of fluff and provide a clear understanding of how the recipient will get value. This is already where you open the door in a pinch the promised land.
Dominate your niche
Use your headline to support your position as a solutionone your potential (and hopefully ideal) customer is looking for.
2. Your sub-heading
Your subtitle is basically the supporting supporting role for your headline. It must therefore be able to do two things: describe what you deliver + how you deliver the value you just described in the headline.
Bonus: customers love numbers! If you can include results from other customers here, you will go a long way.
3. Social proof
When you sell services or products directly to the end consumer, the latter often gets a kick out of being first. But when you sell to companies, the story is a little different.
Business customers would rather not be first, they want to be safe. In the boardrooms there is a slightly frayed motto: "You never get fired for hiring IBM".
The safe choice will not get you into trouble.
Project managers are chasing results, and the easiest way to navigate among potential providers is who else has been satisfied.
Testimonials, ratings and results all help to substantiate why you should be chosen. Find ours guide to getting testimonials in house, and then play them right up front, where you can't avoid seeing them.
4. Call to action
Your CTA should make it as easy as possible for potential customers to be helped further.
The best CTA texts move beyond “buy now!” or "contact" and supports the rest of your messaging.
An exercise we do again and again is to ask "why". And you keep doing that until you can formulate a CTA text that is precise and benefit oriented.
Let's say you sell Social Media management packages for webshops in the design industry.
A CTA exercise can therefore look like this:
- "Buy now"
- Why?
- “So I can save you time dealing with social media”
- Why?
- “So you can get an insta that kicks r*v”
- Why?
- “So you can sell more lamps”
- Where…
When you have reached the core of the benefit you provide, you can formulate a CTA text that goes from a generic "Buy" to something a la "Get the IG profile your brand deserves".
5. Objection action
Potential customers have a number of reservations. Get under the skin of potential customers and get to the core of what is holding them back from choosing you. (Pro tip: give The MOM test a quick spin if you want to dress up to ask better questions.)
Objection action, in its simplicity, is all about dispelling any doubt, and you can therefore advantageously sprinkle it over both your ATF section and the rest of your page.
In the example above, do Overflow use of objection action by responding to a possible user's reservation "It probably doesn't work with the tools I use today!". Overflow has (most likely) identified that caveat as the biggest barrier, and is addressing it directly above the fold.
6. Image
The crown of your ATF section is a visual element that ties it all together.
Many freelancers choose to show themselves above the fold, but if you can show your service, or even better your service in use, you are way ahead of your competitors.
Freelance with Factofly
Use Factofly to invoice and get paid without having your own CVR number or registered company. We handle all the boring stuff, so you can spend your time where it's most fun.
Above The Fold summed up
You have fifteen seconds to hook your visitors – otherwise they bounce.
The ATF section on your freelance website must create so much curiosity that people want to work with you.
The first step is therefore to guide a possible customer further into your site.
The good ATF section contains:
- A value-oriented headline.
- A sub-heading that supports the heading and tells how.
- Social proof that helps to see how you have helped others.
- A clear path for how to move forward (CTA)
- Handling arguments for why they should not choose you
- Visual elements that show you or your service in use
Your guide to a freelance website that hooks new clients.
There is no need to spend too much column space talking about why a good website as a freelancer is the key to getting customers to line up.
Your website is often the last stop between a curious future customer and the first pitch from your side. And unfortunately it is one frequent freelancing mistake, to underestimate the importance of a website that shows who you are.
But what is a good website anyway?
A good website is a page that clearly explains what you can do and who you help. Plain and simple.
You cannot, and must, not help everyone. (The thing about limiting oneself and find your niche (we've written a bit about it here if you need to start the level earlier.)
Your website is therefore also your chance to cut to the chase and speak directly to your ICP - ideal customer profile.
Freelance with Factofly
Use Factofly to invoice and get paid without having your own CVR number or registered company. We handle all the boring stuff, so you can spend your time where it's most fun.
The promised land
When a potential customer lands on your page, you have one overall goal: you must help your future customer dream and show him/her the promised land.
The promised land is the world with your solution in hand.
Maybe it's a cracklingly crisp webshop, texts softer than butter or a big data solution that collects all loose ends. Regardless of what you sell, it's about being very specific and showing what kind of magical solutions you deliver.
New customers are rarely, if ever, faced with a general problem in hand. They therefore seek very specific solutions to very specific problems.
The structure of your page
Your page is generally divided into two sections: above and below the fold. Also called above the fold (ATF) and below the fold (BTF).
The fold is what is visible before you as a visitor have to find the scroll wheel on the mouse.
The most important element on your site is therefore your ATF section.
It determines whether potential customers are stimulated enough to investigate your service more deeply, or whether they continue to search for a supplier who can solve their problem elsewhere.
In this article, we do a breakdown of your ATF section, and look at which elements you should focus on.
Freelance with Factofly
Use Factofly to invoice and get paid without having your own CVR number or registered company. We handle all the boring stuff, so you can spend your time where it's most fun.
Above the fold
The good ATF section on your freelance website contains some standard elements:
- Header: the value you provide
- Under Heading: how to deliver it
- Social proof: who else have you helped
- Call to action: how you help a new customer move on
- Objection action: how to handle doubts about whether you should be selected
- Image: how you visualize your service
1. Your headline
There are countless guides on how to write the perfect headline. We look at perhaps the three most important.
Speak directly to your target audience.
You don't have to win everyone over, and you can often fall into a trap where your headline becomes too generic. If you embrace too broad in your headline, you will experience a bounce rate which is heading towards the moon. (Hint: we'd rather not have that!)
Therefore, be aware of who you want to reach, and speak directly to that core target group.
Be specific and focus on what value you deliver
Your headline must be easy to decipher, free of fluff and provide a clear understanding of how the recipient will get value. This is already where you open the door in a pinch the promised land.
Dominate your niche
Use your headline to support your position as a solutionone your potential (and hopefully ideal) customer is looking for.
2. Your sub-heading
Your subtitle is basically the supporting supporting role for your headline. It must therefore be able to do two things: describe what you deliver + how you deliver the value you just described in the headline.
Bonus: customers love numbers! If you can include results from other customers here, you will go a long way.
3. Social proof
When you sell services or products directly to the end consumer, the latter often gets a kick out of being first. But when you sell to companies, the story is a little different.
Business customers would rather not be first, they want to be safe. In the boardrooms there is a slightly frayed motto: "You never get fired for hiring IBM".
The safe choice will not get you into trouble.
Project managers are chasing results, and the easiest way to navigate among potential providers is who else has been satisfied.
Testimonials, ratings and results all help to substantiate why you should be chosen. Find ours guide to getting testimonials in house, and then play them right up front, where you can't avoid seeing them.
4. Call to action
Your CTA should make it as easy as possible for potential customers to be helped further.
The best CTA texts move beyond “buy now!” or "contact" and supports the rest of your messaging.
An exercise we do again and again is to ask "why". And you keep doing that until you can formulate a CTA text that is precise and benefit oriented.
Let's say you sell Social Media management packages for webshops in the design industry.
A CTA exercise can therefore look like this:
- "Buy now"
- Why?
- “So I can save you time dealing with social media”
- Why?
- “So you can get an insta that kicks r*v”
- Why?
- “So you can sell more lamps”
- Where…
When you have reached the core of the benefit you provide, you can formulate a CTA text that goes from a generic "Buy" to something a la "Get the IG profile your brand deserves".
5. Objection action
Potential customers have a number of reservations. Get under the skin of potential customers and get to the core of what is holding them back from choosing you. (Pro tip: give The MOM test a quick spin if you want to dress up to ask better questions.)
Objection action, in its simplicity, is all about dispelling any doubt, and you can therefore advantageously sprinkle it over both your ATF section and the rest of your page.
In the example above, do Overflow use of objection action by responding to a possible user's reservation "It probably doesn't work with the tools I use today!". Overflow has (most likely) identified that caveat as the biggest barrier, and is addressing it directly above the fold.
6. Image
The crown of your ATF section is a visual element that ties it all together.
Many freelancers choose to show themselves above the fold, but if you can show your service, or even better your service in use, you are way ahead of your competitors.
Freelance with Factofly
Use Factofly to invoice and get paid without having your own CVR number or registered company. We handle all the boring stuff, so you can spend your time where it's most fun.
Above The Fold summed up
You have fifteen seconds to hook your visitors – otherwise they bounce.
The ATF section on your freelance website must create so much curiosity that people want to work with you.
The first step is therefore to guide a possible customer further into your site.
The good ATF section contains:
- A value-oriented headline.
- A sub-heading that supports the heading and tells how.
- Social proof that helps to see how you have helped others.
- A clear path for how to move forward (CTA)
- Handling arguments for why they should not choose you
- Visual elements that show you or your service in use
