While WordPress web design business is one of the best forms of solopreneur business, maintaining a steady flow of paying clients is something easier said than done.
If you're a starter, you'll often find getting newer clients your way is very difficult. Similarly, word of mouth and friendly referrals can bring a handful of clients to existing designers, but you deserve way more.
The WordPress freelance business is a competitive field and using the right way to market your business can give you an edge over your competition.
If you're wondering how to get more clients to your freelance web design business, here are three ways to market your web design business that will ensure you're in business.
Let's start!
Start a blog and funnel search engine clients.While this is one of the simplest and commonly found ideas, starting a blog has a more scientific approach to it than visible. You'll understand this once you are in the shoes of your audience/clients.
Imagine you're a business person who just bought his copy of a WordPress theme for your company website. Since coding isn't your area of expertise, you are now confused how to add a menu bar to the theme that shows your company details or a call to action.
What will be your next big step? Obviously, Google!
You'll Google how to add a theme menu and voila you got your results!
The second result by Amethy Website Design is the blog of a website design agency, and you just landed there without them having to spend a dime on advertising.
You read their problem-solving article, and they get a credibility boost and a chance to funnel this Google visitor (you) to their website designing service. They remain in your subconscious mind so that you can contact them if you need a more complex design done.
This is the #1 principle to land website clients that have a clear intent of buying or hiring your services.
To leverage your blog to get clients from search engines, you have to write blog posts that solves your readers' problems or talks about those. This will increase your chances to appear when they search something on Google and hence eventually hire you.
Research carefully on the issues your clients are facing, check other competitors who are in your space (you can use a tool like SEMrush) and see what type of posts they are writing and that's where you get your starting point.
Then you can use Google's related searches to find similar ideas. Free keyword research tools like Google's keyword planner would also help you get a lot of similar content ideas and associated keywords to get started.
Make sure your blog is optimized and is relevantly visible to search engines too. Submit your sitemap, use schema markup to show up your availability, pricing, etc directly on your search results.
If you're not sure what to add, here is a list of essential WordPress SEO plugins that will help you install the right plugins. If you're targeting your local clients in your work area, the above list contains a list of local SEO plugins too, choose one as needed.
Pro Tip: Don't use too many plugins, only use the ones that your business needs from the above list.
Use Social MediaThe next best place to get more clients for your business is to hang out where your potential clients hang out too.
Twitter and Instagram are great places to get started.
On Twitter, you can use relevant hashtags in your tweets so that it reaches the maximum people searching or using that keyword. To get started, use the following guide which is about using your competitors' social media strategy.
You can also use Twitter search to land potential recruiters by searching for relevant keywords like:
Hiring [add keyword here]
Looking to hire a [add keyword here]
I need a [add keyword here]
or even help-asking tweets like how to do [add your keyword/niche relevant work ideas] etc.
Also, make sure you are using the platform at its best. Read the official Twitter blog for great tips that work. Here is a golden nugget that helps you optimize your freelance shop to get more visibility on Twitter.
Similarly, Instagram is a place that is often underrated for business purposes. With over 800 million monthly active users (data source) Instagram is a place to market your business to get more clients.
Optimize your profile, add your location (if need be) and in the profile bio link, make sure you add a link that shows your visitor what to do next.
Since you cannot post multiple links on Instagram, your profile link should lead your potential client to the right location to get a free quote.
Use multiple images, post with relevant hashtags (hashtags are very important but don't use more than 5-7 hashtags) to your Instagram updates. Here is a perfect example of an Instagram post (by Fabrizio, a great designer) done right. It showcases the work of the designer, then uses a good description and relevant hashtags so the post gets found by a relevant community of users who can be his potential clients.
Sometimes, leveraging a bigger platform is an excellent alternative than struggling to get good referrals for your own network. Just like freelancers use a job board or a site like Upwork, designers can leverage Marketplaces like TemplateMonster's to get ahead of your competitors.
The main benefit of getting your work showcased in a marketplace is you get the exposure to 1000s of customers who already use and trust the platform. This saves you the time to market your business and get newer clients.
They do take away a part of your earnings for sure, but that fee is worth every penny, you get acquiring new clients. You can further use the word of mouth of these clients to land new referral gigs.
For example, if you get selected for TemplateMonster's MarketPlace, you can easily get in front of your millions of potential clients (they have 6 million potential clients in the last quarter itself) which is something you or me as an individual freelancer might not make it at an individual level.
You could also keep doing your freelancing and graphic design work side by side.
So, these were the best yet often underrated strategies that you could use to market your WordPress web design business and land new clients.
Your client acquiring process shouldn't stop even after your first few clients. In fact, there starts your most vital method to leverage these happy clients to get new referrals.
We will, however, leave that topic to leverage your happy clients to get newer clients for a future post. Stay tuned by subscribing to the TemplateMonster blog.
What strategies have been working for you to get a steady influx of clients?
Share it with other readers and us in the comments section. Let's form a community of helping freelancers.
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Source: How to Market Your WordPress Web Design Business for More Exposure
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