Are you selling freelance services? You may be a freelancer, or a consultant. Perhaps you run an agency which provides services.
If you sell services, chances are good that today you rely on your website to win clients. Unfortunately, for many service businesses, responses are slow. Advertising isn’t helping.
Freelance services: make more sales with this fix
Want a simple fix to help you to make sales?
Here you go. Call up your home page and read it, as a prospective client would. I know this is challenging, but do your best.
Next, answer this question: Is your current home page focused on your clients, or on your business?
Unsure? That’s OK. Let’s look at some clues that you’re focused on your own concerns, rather than on clients’ concerns:
- You “welcome” site visitors;
- “What we do” is a primary focus;
- You talk about who you are: how many years of experience you have, awards you’ve won, and so on.
The fix: WIIFM
When creating advertising, copywriters have an essential focus: “what’s in it for me?”, often shortened to WIIFM.
Here’s why. We’re all focused on ourselves; it’s an instinct. We need to be self-centered for much of the time, otherwise we’d never survive.
Your home page is an advertisement for what you do; how you help clients. So if you want to make more sales, it’s vital to focus on your audience’s needs—what’s in it for them if they spend time on your site. You’ve only got a few seconds to convince them that you understand them and their concerns.
So, who’s your primary audience? Why do they hire you—what challenges do they have, which you solve? It’s best to make a list of your audience’s concerns so you can focus on them on your home page.
Of course, you also need to keep SEO in mind: what words do your clients use when they try to find you online?
Search engine optimization (SEO) and WIIFM
If you have a website, you need to be aware of SEO, otherwise people won’t find you. That said, you don’t need to be ruled by SEO.
Here’s some advice I give my clients: write the page first, then add your keywords to the page.
It’s common for business owners or website developers to focus on SEO first. But consider that you’re writing to make sales; your site visitors are your primary concern.
Occasionally a writer or client tells me they want to achieve the “top spot on Google.” Sadly, search personalization means there’s no real “top spot.” Each search engine’s algorithms are highly customized to users. Each user’s results is personalized, according to their history, what the search engine “thinks” they want, and their location.
Sell freelance services: always focus on WIIFM
WIIFM needs to be your major focus on your website, however WIIFM changes over time. Therefore, stay in touch with your clients and their concerns.
Change your website when your clients’ concerns change, as they have for everyone since the beginning of the pandemic—you’ll sell more of your freelance services.
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Photo by Daria Mamont on Unsplash
Copywriter and marketing pro Angela Booth maintains a busy copywriting and ghostwriting practice. Fascinated by online marketing, she wrote one of the first business books for internet marketing, published by Allen & Unwin. She’s been an enthusiastic blogger since the late 1990s.
