I always believe that individual freelancers, as well as companies, should have a blog. Even if they don’t, they still will have a website. So here are ten crucial pages that should be part of any freelance service provider blog or website.
Without much ado, let me get started with the essential pages of a blog.
The most visited page of any site is its home page and is the most crucial part of any freelance website. It is the page they see when they type in the domain name or click on the logo from any other page on the site or blog.
So, ideally, it should have all the elements that you want to highlight for the blog. In short, the homepage should provide a summary of what you offer as products or services and navigate them to other essential pages.
As an example, if you wish to get more email subscribers, the home page should have an email option form. Similarly, if you are a personal blogger or freelancer, the blog should connect on a personal level with the visitors.
I always prefer to have my photograph on my blog or personal sites. For the company website, I like to have each member of the team’s photo.
Personal level connection on the home page can do wonders. If you are a company, having a team photograph will be much more valuable than having a stock image. Even individual pictures of the core team members can help clients connect.
Moreover, because the homepage is the most critical page of the site, make sure you have a summary of everything you do on the home page but don’t make it too overwhelming for anyone to get lost in the sea of information.
If you didn’t put a photograph on your home page, you should put one on the about page. If you are a team, put a team photograph either individually or in a group.
The about page should not be only about what your company does or the vision and mission statement of the company but should also connect with the visitor to help them know more about everything you do.
As a team, one can introduce each member of your core team, what they do, what their roles are, and how to get in touch with them (possibly Skype or Facebook).
Similarly, for an individual freelancer and blogger, it is vital to crafting the about-page correctly.
The page that can help your clients able to send you information to contact them for a follow-up.
So, though it may not be one of the most visited pages on your site, it is still one of the essential pages on a freelancer’s blog or website because it helps convert a visitor into a potential lead and then to a possible client or customer.
So your contact page should include multiple ways to reach you, including all your social media channels.
Moreover, one should test the contact page for email delivery because I have seen the email sent from the contact page does not reach the needed destination.
On top of that, it is good to include a Google map of your business location to help potential clients and customers know your physical location. If it is not too much, have a phone number as well. However, if you get spam calls, one can remove it.
One more critical aspect to remember about the contact page is the visibility of the contact page link from other pages. Often I see the contact page is in the footer hidden among tons of links.
If you are one of those bloggers who gets a lot of people contacting you and don’t want to be approached that frequently, the link in the footer is fine.
However, if you are a service provider and want to get the most out of your website, you should have the contact link at a very prominent position to help visitors get in touch with you.
A page to showcase your samples work and so it is one of the essential pages on a freelance website. Even if you are new to freelancing, there are ways to build and showcase samples.
All the tasks you have done in various categories can be viewed in an easy to navigate interface on your portfolio page. It should help visitors with a fair idea of what you or your team can offer.
One can make some actual samples part of the homepage with links to more examples on the portfolio page. It will make navigating to the portfolio page a lot easier from the homepage of the site or blog.
Making each dedicated page for each sample is even better. Then one can use those sample pages to build the portfolio page.
The testimonial page is where you showcase what other clients have left as feedback about what you offered them in the past.
Similar to the portfolio page, you can showcase testimonials on the home page with a more link to the testimonials page.
Remember, the feedback that your uncle left about your services isn’t a good testimonial. If you don’t have testimonials, you can wait till you add testimonials; however, if you can use social media-based testimonials, even better.
Embed tweets, or Facebook posts of testimonials build trust. If possible, ask your client to leave feedback on twitter or Facebook so you can embed them on your testimonials page.
As an individual freelancer, it is imperative to have a resume online. I have my 2005 time resume still lying online on my website.
https://www.go4expert.com/shabbir.doc
It should have been updated and email/phone/address everything in it is outdated, but you get the idea.
I had RTF and DOC versions back then because I wasn’t a web guy then. Now, it is better to have an HTML format alongside the downloadable pdf version.
For a team, the resume of the owner, project managers, team leaders helps clients understand the kind of expertise the team has.
You can go one step further and even provide a Google doc of resumes as well.
For a freelance website or blog, each service should be listed in detail of what you do, how you prefer working, etc., along with samples and testimonials.
So if you are a content writer, you should write everything about how you prefer working for content writing clients along with samples and testimonials.
Furthermore, each of those services as a summary can be part of the services pages.
The services page can serve the purpose of providing a better understanding of each of your services that clients may be interested in.
On the homepage, one can list three to four top services you offer and then link to the services pages for better navigation for all the services you are offering.
Hire me page, which is so intuitive and yet is always absent on any of the freelance services provider websites or blog that I have recently visited.
The hire page is different from the contact page in such a way that it has the option to schedule a meeting with you along with your availability calendar, or it can link to your Upwork.com profile.
The contact us option will be a general page where people can contact you for various reasons, including those who want to work with you or in your company, but the hire page is only for clients to get in touch with you. It can mean you can customize it much further for direct client contact only.
The page to send a resume and work for you.
It will typically apply to a company, but for individuals, it can be a partnership page or work with me page where you can offer other freelancers to send their resumes or offers to you.
Even if you are an individual, you can have a career page for others to leave their resume.
Typically there is no landing page on a freelance website or blog, but the aim of the freelancing site isn’t to have it online and forget it. There should be a purpose, and one of the goals is to get clients.
The landing page can help you do marketing with Google Ads, Facebook ads, or even LinkedIn ads to drive prospective clients to your site and let them contact you.
Just having a few page website in cyberspace will not make any difference. So you should always have a landing page on your site and focus on building your clients through advertising.
May work, may not work, but if you don’t have a landing page, it is an opportunity that you didn’t try.
Once you have a landing page, it becomes clear you are serious about online marketing.
You may not have all the ten pages, and you can merge individual pages with others or can eliminate certain pages like a contact page by providing the contact option on all pages.
Still, all the options should be part of the freelance website or blog for sure.
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