You’ve learned a marketable skill and now you want to start selling your services online. Whether it’s freelancing or building an agency, the foundation of any business starts with having one great website for yourself!
Below you’ll learn the steps you need to take to start selling your services online, including building out a website and the site elements you’ll need to start selling.
1. Consider Your Service and Market
The first thing you should do when starting a business is to think about how your services will be positioned. Think about who you want to serve and how your unique experience and expertise make you well positioned to serve this market.
You need to be able to answer two questions:
- What specific service am I offering?
- Who am I offering that service to?
When you can confidently answer these two questions, your website design and messaging will be much more intentional.
2. Build Out Your Website
Building a website can seem intimidating, but the process is actually pretty easy. You could build your own site or hire someone to do it for you with some technical knowledge of HTML and CSS. If all this sounds overwhelming though there are plenty online tools that make building webpages easier! With a website builder your hosting, domain name, and site building tools will be all under one roof.
The process of building a site with a website builder is incredibly simple as well:
- Choose a website builder
- Setup your account and choose a domain name.
- Pick and customize your theme with the drag and drop tool.
- Publish your site.
3. Create the Necessary Pages
When selling your services online there are certain pages that you need to have on your site. We cover these essentials below, so make sure they’re included for potential customers can find what they’re looking for and purchase from you!
- A home page that immediately tells your visitors what you offer and how you can help them.
- A portfolio page that gives potential customers an idea of the quality of your work.
- A testimonial pages that highlights stellar reviews from past clients (you might not have these right away).
- A services pages that gives a breakdown of the services you offer.
- A contact page that lets visitors reach out about a potential project.
Building out the above pages will give your site a rock solid foundation. You’ll have everything you need to start selling your services online.
4. Generate Traffic and Clients
To start your service-based business, you need traffic and clients.
Here are a few common methods for generating new clients:
- Guest blog on popular sites that your potential clients read and have a bio link that directs back to your site.
- Create a popular blog to rank for customer-centric keywords (this is a long-term approach).
- Create social media profiles on platforms your audience hangs out, like LinkedIn and Instagram.
- Scour popular job boards in your niche and pitch any jobs your services are in alignment with.
- Start cold pitching companies and individuals who are in need of your services.
Conclusion
The key to success in business is consistency. You need this if you want your customers and clients coming back again because they know what kind of work it takes for them get results! Providing consistently excellent service can lead not only testimonials that showcase past achievements but also referrals from happy admirers.
