A good question to start with is what is considered an “effective website?” If it’s for your freelancing business, it can:
- Introduce you to potential customers.
- Explain your products or services.
- Market products or services to potential and existing customers.
- Instruct site visitors in your business and what you provide.
The single overall statement of what makes a business website stand out is that it generates business and serves your clients or customers. It is fine if your website doesn’t generate business if that’s not your goal in creating it. It could be just for instructional purposes, but most freelancers want their site to deliver new and repeat business.
WordPress is Free and Popular
This software began as a blogging platform. However, it became extremely popular with businesses because blogging was helping with SEO, Search Engine Optimization. As the software evolved, it became much more than a blogging platform. With more than 75 million websites built on the WordPress platform, it grew out of its “blog” format into a website tool used by some very large businesses whose sites you’ve likely visited.
Open Source Means Powerful Tools
WordPress is open source software. This means that other developers can build applications, both themes, and plugins, that enhance the site owner’s abilities, the look and functionality of the site, and the usability of the site by visitors. No matter what your business, there is going to be a theme that will present your information well, provide friendly navigation, and even allow you to deliver paid content or sell products on the site.
Freelancers Enjoy CRM Tools and Email Marketing
CRM, Customer Relationship Management, is easily integrated into the WordPress site with plugins. The freelancer can communicate with visitors and customers with email or using comments for information exchange. Many major email marketing providers offer plugins that integrate the website with their systems for seamless contact management. You can take a site visitor from an unknown person to a prospect with contact information through integrated forms that pass them into your email or CRM system. If your sale cycle requires multiple contacts, this system works very well for staying in touch.
Self-Hosted WordPress Sites Give You Full Control
While you can have free hosting for your site at WordPress.com, you have very limited use of third-party plugins and themes. You can pay extra to get them, but there are other limitations that you can avoid by paying to host your site elsewhere. Hosting providers like GoDaddy, Yahoo, Bluehost, and Hostgator all have fast and easy installation tools to get a site up in minutes with a ready-to-use WordPress backend.
Paying in advance for a year or more can get your cost down to as little as $6 to $7 per month. When you self-host in this way, you have complete control of your content, as well as access to tens of thousands of third-party applications that provide virtually any function you can reasonably desire for your business website.
Consider WordPress for your freelancing website because it is inexpensive, extremely flexible, and provides a powerful set of business tools.
