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Standing out from other freelancers the easy way
By Mike Klassen
One o the rst jobs I got as a reelance designer came about when, on a whim, I e-mailed someone whose website I stumbled across. He sold PDF inormational products.Since the only thing I knew how to do at that point was 3D book covers in Photoshop, I gured Ihad nothing to lose in introducing mysel and explaining that I could handle his 3D book cover needs.(Tose are the covers you see on websites that illustrate downloadable products.)About a day later, I got a phone call rom him. He liked the samples on my website, but here’s why hedecided to hire me instead o someone else: I had my phone number and my address on my website.He said that it bothered him that some people he might use or design and copywriting didn’tinclude that inormation. Tere was usually an e-mail link, or an e-mail orm, but rom his experience very ew sites he visited listed a phone number or mailing address.Sure, he might get that inormation afer he e-mailed or hired the reelancer. But he elt that having the phone number and mailing address on the website said something about the reelancer. o him itsaid that you weren’t araid to be accessible i someone had an immediate question prior to hiring you.Maybe he was old-school... not one who wanted to type out long e-mail messages and then waitaround or answers or wonder i the e-mail got through a spam lter.O course, his eelings on the matter were just his opinion. Not having a phone number and addresson your site doesn’t mean you’re an untrustworthy reelancer and it doesn’t mean you’ll never get jobs.It just meant that, in this particular case, I stood out simply because I had that inormation on my site.I providing that inormation on your site could land you a ew extra jobs here and there, would it be worth it to you?And that’s my point... sometimes we don’t do the easy things that might sway a potential client inour avor. Was it hard to have my phone number and address on my website. Not at all! But we do have
Klassen Communications • Direct Market Layout & Design • www.mikeklassen.com • www.magalogguy.com
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to take the time to thoroughly think through what potential clients are looking or when they visit oursites. It’s not always just about displaying your design or writing skills.As I was writing this, I was contacted by a reelancer who was requesting some inormation. I wentto his site and didn’t see a phone number, address or even some indication o where he was located. Tatsays nothing about his skills, but there are people out there who want to see that inormation beorethey contact you. No, it doesn’t completely make sense, but it’s a reality or some clients and you’d be wise to take that into consideration.Here’s something I did a long time ago and I’d recommend you do the same. I looked at my website,my home page in particular, and asked, “What inormation is missing that a potential client may wantto know?” And, “What inormation is currently there that really doesn’t need to be there?”In the end, I restructured my whole site to make it as lean as possible. My contact inormation,instead o being on a Contact page, is at the bottom o every page. I also knew that people thinking o hiring me would be in a hurry. So I made sure my home page had all the important inormation:1. An overall view o what I do and my Unique Selling Proposition2. A list o the types o projects I handle3. A ew samples o my work4. My contact inormationNow let me tell you a piece o inormation that I removed rom my home page that I used to thinkhad value: a list o some o the design tools I use. What I ound was that, or the type o clients I target,there’s already an assumption that I’m using proessional-level tools and not doing something likemagalog or book layouts in Word. While the list o tools I use only took a sentence on my home page, it didn’t meet the criteria o whatI thought was the core inormation my target clients would want i they only had time to look at myhome page.
Klassen Communications • Direct Market Layout & Design • www.mikeklassen.com • www.magalogguy.com
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