Work from home is now getting increasingly more popular than it was only a few years ago. Nowadays, there are wonderful opportunities for everyone who wants to earn thanks to their skills. Modern people are freer than ever to enjoy their proficiencies without tying themselves to long-term contracts that often limit their independence as individuals and professionals.
There are many popular freelancing platforms, such as Upwork, that you could use to find autonomous projects to fulfill in multiple fields like copywriting, translating, proofreading, developing websites, accounting services, journalism, legal advising, composing music, arts, and dozens of others. All you need to do is just register to an appropriate freelance platform, create your profile, and wait for people who need your service to assign you tasks and projects.
Even though the above is completely true, it always makes a better impression when you have your own freelance website for your services. Here, in questions and answers, we will try to explain to you what are the advantages of creating one, how to do it, and what you should consider in each step.
Question #1: Do freelancers need a website?
Sometimes registrations on Upwork, FreeUp, or PeoplePerHour are not enough for your career prosperity as a freelancer. But the fact that popular freelancing platforms often take a percentage of the profit of each freelancer is also one of the reasons why many people who work freelance prefer to make their own websites instead.
It is not only a question of avoiding fees. For achieving bigger success, many freelancers would need a dedicated website where to advertise their skills and professional qualifications as well. As it could be a wonderful marketing instrument, including through the application of search engine optimization (SEO) practices, creating your own website for your freelance services might be a significant privilege.
As it could give you a confident head start, creating a website for your freelance activities might be quite a useful initiative. In addition to letting your potential clients contact you easier through your website and avoiding additional paying commissions to the platform, a personal website for your professional skills can reflect extremely well on your image as a specialist or expert.
On a personal website, you can put a rich portfolio of your successfully completed tasks and projects (including images of the finalized works), as well as testimonials from satisfied private or corporate clients. In addition, you can announce your prices or promotions to attract even more future content customers.
Question #2: Is creating a freelance website difficult?
About two decades ago, building up an efficient webpage was pretty hard. People always had to rely on IT developers. In addition, they needed their assistance with any issue that arose. Fortunately, those times are now past as all the opportunities to create a webpage are more than ever before.
With the help of excellent content management systems such as WordPress (WP), Weebly, Drupal, and Joomla, nowadays any freelancer can create a flashy and fresh website for their work purposes with no coding knowledge required. WP is the most popular among the CMSs, being used as a substructure for 43.1% of all websites in the world.
In addition to the fact that creating a website today is easier than ever, knowing some marketing tricks (for example, search engine optimization, also known as simply SEO) can greatly contribute to the marketing of your highly professional services.
Question #3: Why WordPress?
Each of the popular CMS is distinguished from the others by certain characteristics. Some of the paid platforms, for instance, are preferred because of the very easy drag-and-drop options which are not present in WordPress. But WP has some advantages, many of which are unique for the platform, that make it the most preferred CMS in the world. WordPress stands out of the crowd due to the following advantages:
- Time-proven: No other CMS platform has been able to dislodge WordPress from the leading position for two decades. This single fact speaks volumes about the advantages of the platform.
- Open-source: WP is an open-source application. Anyone could use it, remodel it, and upgrade it.
- Free: Downloading and installing WordPress is free. Some additional plugins are paid, but the platform itself can work well without having to spend even a minimal amount of money.
- Easy to use: Working with WordPress is easy, which makes the platform ideal for any freelancer who wants to focus on their work development and doesn’t want to be distracted by annoying technical conundrums.
- Personalization: The multifarious WordPress templates let anyone customize the appearance and the section positioning of their website. Each website can also be tailored to the freelancer’s preferences with plenty of wonderful add-ons.
- Smooth and fast performance: All the templates that are used to create WordPress websites are designed to provide maximum comfort in terms of site loading speed.
- Compatibility: Every single template is regularly maintained so that WordPress-based websites could be opened on all new desktop and mobile devices.
- Variety of media types: With this CMS platform you will be able to upload and publish any type of media on your website, no matter if images, videos, sounds, document files, or others.
- Social media options: Posts on any website based on this system could be shared on any of the popular social platforms. Once the link is pasted there, titles and photos would appear automatically.
- Decent security & privacy: Your data on WordPress is kept secure and private. Password control is strict and additional identification may be required for each attempt to access the control menu.
- Enhanced protection options: With some protective WordPress add-ons, you could ensure extra security and privacy measures for your visitors if needed.
Question #4: Is WordPress a good option for freelancers?
Without a doubt, there is no better way for beginner freelancers to create a website than WordPress. Building a website the traditional way, i.e. by applying knowledge of coding languages, is quite old-fashioned and tedious. And most people don’t have the time or desire to study JavaScript, Python, or CSS just to create a website for their new initiative. That’s exactly why WordPress was created – to make it easier for everyone to create their own website quickly and easily, no matter what the purpose of the venture is: business, freelancing, or just a hobby. The fact that the most popular CMS application these days is free makes WordPress even more useful for freelancers.
To become successful in freelancing with WordPress, you don’t need to become a craftsman in content management systems. Usually, it is quite enough to simply install WordPress and browse the menu to work with the application. But in case you are not sure how to complete a particular task, you can absolutely always Google it and find the response to the problem without having to seek peculiar assistance from a specialist. One of the main advantages of this platform is that it is used by tens of millions of people around the world every day. And information on how to do something with WordPress is all over the internet every day and night.
To be able to check your more complex potential questions instantly, we would recommend this WordPress upkeep program by Seravo. But with WP you will almost always have the solution right in front of you even just by googling it.
Question #5: Do I need special WordPress upkeep for my freelance website?
No, you absolutely do not need any additional help to create and maintain a simple website for your new freelance adventure. But if you want to improve the interactivity, security, or just the look of your website through paid or free add-ons (plugins), an expert opinion would always be useful to you. Nowadays, many hosting companies offer 2-in-1 plans that include both hosting service and WordPress upkeep.
The above possible improvements can be achieved not only with add-ons or professional upkeep but also with the help of all popular code languages. All of them, such as HTML, CSS, and JavaScript, are applicable to WordPress and can improve the functionality, look, and security of your website. A trusted developer could always help you with this, as well as you yourself could do it if you are familiar with this matter.
If coding is not your cup of tea at all, then we would recommend you rely on WordPress upkeep, such as the Seravo plans. But regardless of all the possibilities for enhancing and sophisticating a webpage based on the most popular CMS platform, never forget that any new website can function perfectly well and smoothly only on a cool WordPress template.
Question #6: Does it take long to get used to working with WordPress?
The short answer is simply “no”. Learning how to use WordPress to create and maintain a website only takes a few days. A week or two at most, and that’s in case you want to really dig too deep. As a freelancer, you could learn how to create a beautiful website based on WordPress for your initiative in just 1-2 days. And there is absolutely no need to look for special courses or pay money to learn additional skills. You can do it by only watching useful YouTube tutorials.
Of course, there are people who have less experience with computing devices, and for them learning to work with the system may be more difficult and may even take weeks. But we consider this rather an exception. If using WordPress was hard, it wouldn’t be the most immensely used CMS platform in the whole world. By the time of writing this blog article, 2/3 of all websites based on such a platform are benefiting not from another platform but WordPress. What better proof than that?
Question #7: Which affordable web hosting service is appropriate for WordPress websites?
Although it’s the most underrated step in building a website, choosing the right and affordable web hosting service is actually the most important choice we have to make. Most often, you have to choose between a shared, dedicated, or (Virtual Private Server) VPS plan. Here’s what makes each of them stand out in a nutshell:
- Shared: The cheapest plan, perfect for beginners, including for freelancers. With it, you share a single server space with other websites. That’s why it may not be suitable at all for websites with low to medium traffic, but it does a great job for your freelance website. That is why we recommend it to every single freelancer.
- Dedicated: The most expensive type of plan. All the large server space is used by only one website. This makes it exceptionally suitable for extremely high-traffic websites. But dedicated servers are absolutely unnecessary and unprofitable for low-traffic websites such as those of freelancers.
- VPS: This plan is a hybrid version between the shared and dedicated. The server space is shared but each virtual server uses a predetermined share of the server space, so no other user of the physical server can violate its borders. It is perfect for websites with moderate to high traffic and websites presenting any freelancer’s services.
In the field of hundreds and even thousands of hosting providers out there on the internet, finding the most affordable web hosting might be quite a big challenge. Some unscrupulous hosting providers try to sell plans and whole packages that their customers don’t always really need, but they do it quite convincingly. They know very well that when people make a website they are prone to underestimate the choice of hosting service because they are busy with all the other tasks related to making the website.
In choosing your host, the advice we would like to give you is simple: never subscribe to a plan or package that includes services you do not really need. In other words, pay only for what you will be using. Concerning a website that will be used for advertising your skills and services as a freelancer, we highly recommend you the cheapest type: shared web hosting. At Seravo, we offer a special WP pro plan that is perfect for all budding enthusiasts whose sites are WordPress-based.
Question #8: What should I look for when choosing an affordable web hosting company?
With the huge variety of web hosting providers, it is difficult to choose the best one. But we will help you make your choice based on some significant options that are important to have.
- WordPress upkeep: In case you’ve decided that WordPress is the platform you’ll use to build and maintain your gorgeous freelance website, we highly recommend choosing a host that can help or advise you on resolving any potential issues. Finding an affordable WordPress web hosting provider can save you trouble in case a problem that you can’t handle arises.
- 24/7 support: No one will be happy if their freelance website’s server goes down on a Friday night and not a single potential client could reach their page until Monday. Or worse, it may happen around some national holiday. Therefore, it is very important that the host provides 24/7 support by phone, email, or live chat, including on weekends and holidays.
- Marketing niches: Check if the hosting provider is focused on offering services for particular niches. A host that is specialized in offering hosting services for freelancers, beginner e-commerce initiatives, or start-ups might understand your necessities much better than a provider who is used to working with huge corporations. The more the provider could understand your needs as a freelancer, the better and more favorable your experience will be.
- Price: Before paying for a plan, always check what the total cost includes. Generally, the more services a plan includes, the more expensive it is. We advise you not to pay for hosting options you do not really need, but also not to compromise with what you do need.
- Reviews: Before choosing it, always check the name of the hosting company on Google or on sites like Trustpilot. There, you could not only see the host’s overall rating, but you can also read some real customer reviews. This way you can get a decent impression of the quality of the service. A rating above 4.0 is usually considered excellent.
Question #9: What are the important features a freelance hosting plan for WordPress should have?
All the options that a hosting plan has reflect individual needs differently. But there are still some basic options that are important for a high-quality service. Here are some of them.
- Domain: Usually, there isn’t a registration cost for the domain, and the process of managing and maintaining the domain name system (DNS) must be included in the total price.
- SSL certificate: This is also a thing that you shouldn’t be charged additionally for. It is an instrument that makes an encrypted and secure connection between the server where the website is based and the web browser of the visitor, so private data (ID details, debit card numbers, etc.) could be shared securely.
- WordPress updates & PHP support: Decent WP web hosting providers frequently offer all kinds of WP updates (add-ons, themes, etc.) for free, as well as PHP support and optimization.
- Image optimization: This built-in feature lets you decrease the MB data of the images and helps your website load smoothly and fast.
- Backups and recovery: Backing up your website’s database and information is a very useful tool. Thus, your freelance website could be quickly recovered in case of a hacker attack or other types of malicious actions. Good hosting providers do the recovery for free.
- Additional security measures: Examples of additional security measures include daily checks of all files to notice any potential malware.
Question #10: How to attract customers with the power of our site?
Believe us, it is easy! Just make sure that you include the following portfolio components in short:
- What you offer: Make a list of all the services you offer as a freelancer. Make sure you use grammatically perfect language. It won’t be bad if you use some popular marketing tricks (for instance, a positive attitude, appropriate colors, etc.) and excellent SEO practices.
- Prices: It would be good if the customer has easy access to your price list. If it is difficult to find, they can leave the website and seek the fulfillment of the services they need elsewhere.
- Execution time: It is important for the client to know in advance the period for which each of the services you offer can be performed.
- Order form: A contact form should be effortlessly accessible and allow the customer to easily express their requests and special requirements.
- Reviews: If there are already customers who are satisfied with your services, you could ask them to write a sentence or two about your site that you could publish on your freelance site. Thus, every potential client will be convinced of your abilities and professionalism, and the probability to choose you will also increase.
- “About me” page: It will be good if you have a decent and separate “About me” page on your site. There, you could include all the basic information about your professional skills (short biography, diplomas, and certificates of skills) and contact details.
Conclusion
Choosing to work as a freelancer opens up many new horizons. And with the possibility to determine your own working hours, it gives a great opportunity to fully organize both your working hours and your personal duties.
WordPress is a great choice for building your own website to offer your freelance services. You don’t have to pay for expensive WordPress upkeep and hosting that includes expensive and unnecessary options. All the affordable WordPress web hosting plans and packages would do a great job if they have a few useful features that you already know. Good luck!