How many qualified leads does your freelance website deliver?
As freelancers we often don’t think carefully enough about why we have created a website for ourselves, and what its purpose is.
More often than not, the creation of the first version of our websites is little more than a knee-jerk reaction. It’s the digital equivalent of hanging out our shingle.
“I am a freelancer now. Therefore I need a website that tells people what I do.”
To put it another way, the first version of our websites is often little more than an online brochure.
“Here is what I do. Here are some testimonials. This is why you should use me. Here is how to contact me.”
We also make some efforts to make our pages search engine friendly. And we all discover that it’s a heck of a job to compete for top position for the phrases we would like, such as “copywriter”, “freelance copywriter”, “online copywriter”, “New York copywriter”, “natural health copywriter” and so on.
We have our website, we don’t get much traffic and we feel frustrated. Maybe we turn to social media and create a Facebook page, and some lists on Twitter. Little by little our traffic grows in volume. Not by a lot, but by enough to make us feel OK about our progress.
Then we decide to publish an e-newsletter. We even write a special report that we give out free to new subscribers. We publicize our special report and slowly build our list.
By now, we might be feeling quite pleased with what we have done.
So let me take you aside and ask you a question.
“Of the people who come to your site, and of the leads you generate through your e-newsletter, how many are qualified prospects for your business?”
Ah. Tough question.
Many years ago I followed this self-same process (without the social media component, because it wasn’t available back then.)
Then in one of my e-newsletters I asked people to respond to a short questionnaire. I wanted to know who they were.
The answer? Maybe 5% were true prospects for my freelance business. The others were fellow copywriters, webmasters and marketers who liked to read my articles.
The same figures probably applied to all those visitors who came to my site and didn’t sign up for the newsletter.
Double Ah. I had invested hundreds of hours writing to people who would never give me any business. Not so smart.
So let me ask you this question. Is your freelance website optimized to attract and capture genuine prospects? Or are you just sharing your knowledge with other marketers, with no particular purpose in mind?
If you are simply throwing your knowledge out to the wind, it’s time to sit back and ask some tough questions about your website, and its purpose.
I’ll share some thoughts on the changes you need to make to your website in next week’s article.
Stay tuned.
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