Do you have a website for your freelance copywriting (or other freelance) business?
Delete it.
No, seriously.
Delete it.
Unless you have a finely-honed traffic-getting system that’s…
— Bringing highly-qualified clients to your website…
— Getting them to raise their hands and express interest in connecting with you…
— And setting them up so they’re turning into clients…
You don’t need it.
Can I tell you a dirty little secret?
I don’t know that I’ve EVER gotten a full-on client from any website selling my services.
Breakthrough Marketing Secrets is different. I’ve sold training and coaching because of this site. And I’ve connected with smaller clients, for things like copy reviews.
But as far as getting actual freelance work?
Every single major client I’ve had, I would’ve had them without my website.
Maybe some of them checked it out AFTER I’d connected with them, or they’d heard of me and my work.
But nobody found me through my website.
Here’s another dirty little secret…
As much as great marketers need a basically UNLIMITED supply of copy and great copywriters…
I’ve never heard of a top marketer — the ones who are really good clients — typing “freelance copywriter” into Google and actually hoping to hire anyone.
They’re too busy.
It’s too uncertain of a process.
And there’s too much riff-raff out there self-representing as better than they are for them to trust whatever is on the website.
So they don’t go looking for copywriters on Google.
Crazy, huh?
Kinda flies in the face of what you’ve been told by people who want to help you build or host a website, right?
But the truth is, all the BEST copywriters I know who are only doing client work (not running side businesses) have skipped the website altogether, have let theirs grow cobwebs, or have shut them down after years of inactivity.
If you INSIST on having a website, here’s what you should use it for…
First off, you could actually build a good client-getting website. They are few and far between. Again, see the problem above of actually getting good, qualified clients to visit your site.
But if you’re going to do that, you should have a site built to establish your authority, list clients and preferably showcase testimonials and case studies, and drive ready prospects to reach out and connect with you.
Or, simply use your website as a convenient way to share your portfolio. Don’t actually expect people to go to it on their own. But when you start a conversation with prospects, you use it as a place to send them to see your work.
Again, it will benefit if with samples of your work, it also includes testimonials and case studies, as well as a client list.
But if you choose this second option (or even the first), you really should expect that the website WILL NOT attract clients on its own. It’s up to you to drive the traffic. Either through word of mouth, or through proactively paying for advertising to qualified markets.
But should you just hide? Not quite.
Here’s the one web presence I believe every freelancer MUST have…
It’s okay to be on social media, as long as it doesn’t eat your time up.
It’s okay to be on Facebook, and LinkedIn, and Twitter and whatever else.
Don’t spend unlimited time there, pretending like you’re working. But you can spend some time there contributing to conversations and building a network.
But again, that’s STILL not what you really need to get clients.
The one thing I think every freelancer should have (and good news — it’s super-affordable) is an online scheduler.
I use and recommend Book Like A Boss.
(And yes, I’m an affiliate. So if you click the link above and actually pay them money, I get a small cut as a referral fee. But like everything I’m an affiliate for, I value my integrity over the affiliate commissions so I ONLY refer it because it’s something I believe in myself.)
How do you use this scheduler?
There are a ton of ways.
For one, I have multiple appointment types set up that make it easy for me to send a link to clients or prospects, just to schedule a call.
Any time I want to talk to someone, there’s no back and forth. I just send a link, they schedule the best time that fits in my calendar (in pre-defined appointment blocks) and it shows up on my calendar. Plus, email reminders!
But it goes beyond that.
One of the easiest ways to lose a prospect’s interest early in the sales process is to be a pain to schedule with. I don’t suggest you make yourself widely available as an antidote though, because you should be busy. But if you can send them a link to schedule a kick-off call, you can both be busy (limit the windows of time you make available) and make it easy to schedule with you.
Also, any time you talk to someone (e.g. at a conference or networking event) and you want to continue the conversation, instead of just exchanging business cards you can immediately send them a scheduling link.
In addition, you can build out your scheduler to ask important questions, and turn it into an application process.
Plus, if you’re actually selling individual consultations or coaching calls, certain booking programs (including Book Like A Boss) let you do that all on the same platform.
Oh yeah, and if you did insist on that website? You can actually embed the scheduler in your site itself, so you don’t even have to send people to their platform.
Let me be direct here…
There are other platforms besides Book Like A Boss. And many would be worthy of recommending, I’m sure. But I’m a happy customer, and I can confidently endorse them. In fact, in the however long I’ve been a customer (I think a couple years now), I’ve only seen them make the platform better.
So with that, I’ll add this…
They just added free trials.
Every new account gets 14 days to try it totally free (including ALL features). You may not stick with this highest-level plan, but maybe you will.
Either way, you have enough time and access to check it out for yourself, and decide if it might be a fit, based on actual use.
And then, use it.
Create appointment types.
Send out your links.
Book calls.
And talk to prospects and clients.
It’s like having a personal assistant to do this for you, but much cheaper and more convenient.
And, it’s the only online presence I’ve ever used to book tens of thousands (maybe hundreds of thousands at this point?) of dollars worth of client work.
Here’s the link again — including so you can set up a free trial and see how it works.
Using this — actually using this — could be a client-getting breakthrough.
Yours for bigger breakthroughs,
Roy Furr
