7 Essential Website Design Tips for Freelancers

For a freelancer, appearance is everything. People will hire you (or move on to someone else) based on your impression, your work, and your brand. And one of the most effective ways to put your best foot forward? Designing an attractive website!

But not just any website. To build your client base and maximize your freelancing success, you need a website that helps you stand out from the competition.

Don’t worry, you can do this even if you’re brand new to web design, and we’re here to help. Read on to learn a few website design tips for building a site that will make a positive impression on everyone who sees it.

1. Design Your Branding First

Before you can begin building your website, you need to design your branding. It’s important to choose a design that suits you well, as your website and branding are reflections of you and your work.

No matter which colors or style you choose, your primary website color should be white, while your brand colors are used as accents.

When you’re choosing colors, keep in mind that you want customers to think of you when they see the combination. If you’re a painter, a riot of color can be a good thing, but in most situations, it’s best to stick to 2-3 brand colors.

2. Plan Your Site Structure

Once you have your brand colors in mind, it’s time to move on to site structure. How will users navigate your site? It’s a good idea to plan this out on paper before doing through the trouble of implementing the design on an actual website.

Your menu should include at least three items but no more than six. Beneath each item, you can include relevant subcategories, but don’t make it too complicated.

If a new visitor to your website can’t find what they’re looking for in three clicks or less, your site structure is too complex.

3. Choose a Responsive Theme

Designing a website that looks fantastic on a computer is great, but the best websites look just as good on phones and tablets as well.

An astounding 85% of adults in the United States own a smartphone and use that device for a large portion of their web browsing.

Without a mobile-friendly website, you’re going to miss out on a huge number of clients. Luckily, designing responsive websites for freelancers has never been easier.

All you have to do is choose a responsive website theme! The rest of the work will be done for you.

4. Create Relevant Pages

You should already have a rough idea of which pages you want to include from planning your site structure, but now it’s time to hammer out the details. What information do you want your website to include? You can create as many pages as you want, but the following are a must:

• Homepage
• Products and/or services
• Portfolio
• Testimonials
• About me
• Contact

Depending on the type of freelance work you do, you might also want to have an online store on your website. Your products and services page will include your order form, but if you have digital copies of your work available, you can make it easy for customers to buy them straight from your site.

5. Make Skimmable Content

Another important element of a freelance website is a blog. Even if you know how to become a freelancer and create a stunning website to advertise yourself, you need to bring people to that site!

Not only is creating a blog a great way to showcase your knowledge, creativity, and personality, it’s also an effective business strategy. By utilizing keyword research and optimizing your blog for search engines, your site will appear higher in search results.

As you might have guessed, there’s a right and a wrong way to write a blog. Your primary goal, aside from writing high-quality posts, is to ensure that your content is skimmable.

Writing 3000 words on the art of photography is great, but few people will read the entire thing. Instead, they’ll scroll through and pick out sections that interest them.

The best way to scare away visitors is to attack them with a wall of text. Write as much as you want, but keep your paragraphs short and your sentences concise.

6. Include Social Media Links

Social media is an invaluable tool for any small business, but especially for freelancers. You’re able to connect with your audience, advertise your work, and draw more eyes to your business all at once.

Have at least 1-2 social media accounts on which to promote your work, and provide links to them wherever you can on your website. You should also add links to your website on every social media account!

7. Add Calls to Action

Sometimes, the simplest answer is the most advisable. How do you get people to use your services or buy your products? Ask them to!

Not including calls to action on your site is one of the biggest mistakes you can make. In fact, there should be a call to action on every single page.

That way, when potential clients visit your website and like what they see, they can use the CTA buttons to easily move on to the next step toward hiring you.