My So-Called Freelance Life - Michelle Goodman [20]
YOUR CLIENT LIST. Besides impressing new customers by dropping the names of your hotshot clients, you may want to include some of your rave reviews. (“Not only does Michelle deliver dazzling prose, she and her mean guacamole are a welcome addition at our annual picnic.”) Prospective customers will naturally want to know what others think of your work (and perhaps your bean dip). Why not make it easy for them?
FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS. If you find yourself repeatedly answering the same questions (“No, I don’t photograph boa constrictors, only puppies and kittens”), a How I Work, Services Offered, or FAQ page could save you some time and migraines. The one thing I would leave off your site, though, is your rate. If your projects vary in size, complexity, and industry, you don’t want to box yourself in with a project or hourly rate that may not apply universally. (More on pricing in the next chapter.) There are some exceptions of course, say if you work as a pet sitter, portrait photographer, or psychologist, fields where giving the hourly or session rate is common.
Siteomatic: Website Design Made Simple
Okay, let’s dive right into the site making. Here’s what you’ll need:
A DOMAIN NAME. I suggest you purchase your own domain name (for instance, MySuperImpressiveWebsite.com). It will cost you all of ten bucks a year, if that. More important, it’s much more pro and much easier for clients to find and remember than a web address like this: SomeProfessionalOrganization.com/MichelleGoodman or MichelleGoodman.SomeBloggingTool.com.
A WEB HOSTING SERVICE. If you want your own domain name, you need one of these. Ask other freelancers which web hosts they recommend. Again, this shouldn’t cost you much. I pay $100 a year for mine. A good host will walk you through the domain naming process (and even give you the name for free your first year). Some web designers also offer domain name and hosting services, a boon if you prefer one-stop shopping.
A WEB DESIGNER. If I lost you at “domain name,” you definitely need a web designer or a geeky pal to walk you through the process. But for a moment, let’s assume I haven’t lost you. Let’s assume that you’ve been blogging for three years at MyRadFoodieBlog.Blogspot.com, know at least three HTML tags, and want to take a crack at designing your own site. There’s still a decent chance this could happen: “I tried to design my own web page without much in the way of skills,” says illustrator Molly Crabapple. “Bad idea. Websites are the business suits of our generation. You shouldn’t settle for an ugly knockoff. For over a year, my crappy, un-updated site kept me from sending my portfolio around.” (Note: Her website is gorgeous now.)
Ever frugal, I too tried to hand-make my first digital business suit. Translation: I chose a free, supposedly user-friendly web publishing tool and pestered my patient, HTML-savvy-ish boyfriend to customize the colors and header, an exercise that resulted in lots of collective swearing at the computer and me having to live with some site hiccups neither of us could fix. And while I do adore how my homegrown site looks, there are a lot of features I wish it had and things I wish it did.
But rather than spend fifty hours trying to tailor it myself (I mean, banging my head against the pixilated wall and driving my boyfriend insane), I plan to cough up the cash this year and pay a designer to make over my site the way I want—in a fraction of the time it would take me. Instead, I’ll spend the time saved writing, something I actually can get paid to do, which, conveniently, will more than cover the cost of hiring the web designer.
You shouldn’t have to pay a designer thousands upon thousands of dollars for a simple four-page portfolio site. Prices will of course vary, so get a few estimates if need be. If cash is extremely tight, see if you can find a baby designer at your local art school who’s willing to do the deed on the cheap. As Seattle author, überblogger,