Sell Your Freelance Web Services to Businesses That Don't Have a Web Site

Written by Rachel Goldstein


As you are probably already aware - there are many more freelancers out onrepparttar net than there are employers. Consequently, freelancers often find that they are bidding for a job along with hundreds of other web professionals. For this reason alone, some freelancers are finding that they have to bid so low that they cannot make a reasonable living. Why not take your business into your own hands? After reading this article you will have a sure fire way of attracting clients to you, so read on.

How many small businesses are in your area? The average county has thousands of small business. However, only a third of all small businesses have a web site, and only a third of these sites can carry out a sales transaction. What these businesses don't realize is that they can probably profit from a web site. They are in great need of a talented web professional such as yourself to not only bring them torepparttar 132793 water but also to show them how good it tastes to drink. In other words, let these entrepreneurs see that there are more profits to be made.

First you need to prospect local businesses to find out which ones are potential customers. What kinds of businesses are most likely to need a web site? Selectingrepparttar 132794 best freelance opportunities is a matter of intuition, but I have found from previous experience thatrepparttar 132795 following types of businesses are excellent prospective clients:

Restaurants Theaters Night Clubs Grocery Stores Travel Agencies Law Firms Religious Organizations Real Estate Agencies Insurance / Loan Officers Universities and Educational Facilities Local governments / County web sites Customized Item Stores Many others

It is important to focus your energy on where there is likely to be a need for your services. Uncovering a business opportunity often times requires broadeningrepparttar 132796 range of your skills and services. Since you are targeting all sorts of different businesses you will often need to learn about different industries in order to be useful. You might find that you want to focus on one industry, for example, only targeting restaurants. You could create online menus, downloadable coupons, reservations, take out orders, and any other innovative ideas to draw inrepparttar 132797 prospect's interest. In fact, imagination and creativity are your keys to success. The number one focus of a successful entrepreneur is PROFIT. Your goal is to find out how you can raiserepparttar 132798 prospective client's profit line ... this takes creativity.

Excellent tools for researching local businesses are :

1. Yellow Pages 2. Chamber of Commerce 3. Better Business Bureau 4. Department of Small Business Development 5. Trade Associations 6. Search Engines 7. Purchased Lists

What information do I need to find out about each prospective client before contacting them? Slow down, you have some work to do first. Atrepparttar 132799 minimum, you will need to getrepparttar 132800 phone number, company's name, and address. From this information, you can hopefully gain access to verifiable details about this business. From this information, you should do research onrepparttar 132801 Internet. You will need to find out ifrepparttar 132802 business in question has a web site. Use every resource available to access this information. If you can't find a web site then you found yourself a lead.

What happens ifrepparttar 132803 company does have a web site? Well, ifrepparttar 132804 business in question does have a web site then you have two choices ... either move on or further evaluaterepparttar 132805 site. If you chooserepparttar 132806 latter, this is what you should look for:

1. Isrepparttar 132807 web site visually appealing? 2. Arerepparttar 132808 site's resources being used effectively? 3. Are there means for a sales transaction? 4. Doesrepparttar 132809 site have a domain name? 5. Is site listed in search engines? 6. Were meta tags used effectively? 7. Doesrepparttar 132810 site load quickly? 8. Is there essential contact information available? 9. Are there broken links or missing images? 10. Do you see a sales strategy that they are missing?

If any ofrepparttar 132811 above situations occur, you should consider contactingrepparttar 132812 company to setup a consultation. Remember to always use tact. Never come right out and criticize anyone's site, in most cases ifrepparttar 132813 site is awful,repparttar 132814 owner himself tried to build it. All you need to do is showrepparttar 132815 business owner that he is losing out on extra earnings. There are nice words that you can find to express this instead of derogatory statements.

You should keep all of this gathered information in a database, Rolodex, or on index cards. (I recommend writing downrepparttar 132816 information on large index cards. When you find a prospective client, take their card with you and write down personal information onrepparttar 132817 back of this card. This way,repparttar 132818 next time you visitrepparttar 132819 client, you can ask him how his sick aunt is feeling.)

Before contacting your newly found lead, you will need to get your thoughts together. Answerrepparttar 132820 following questions of yourself:

1. How can a new or redesigned site increaserepparttar 132821 owner's profits? 2. How much money would I need to charge? 3. Are there similar sites onrepparttar 132822 net that you could show an example of. You should showrepparttar 132823 owner how company XYZ profited from similar steps. 4. What design and graphic choices would you choose? 5. Are there add-ons that aren't necessary, but effective? 6. (If redesign) What changes would need to be made to betterrepparttar 132824 site?

There are not many people that enjoy cold calling, so I assume that you might be a little worried about this. Believe me, I hate cold calling as much as you. Withrepparttar 132825 use of a script, and a lot of practice, cold calling will seem much less intimidating.

Now you should have allrepparttar 132826 information that you need aboutrepparttar 132827 client laid out in front of you. Take a look at all of this information and make sure that you can remember it clearly. From this information you should be able to create a script to use when you callrepparttar 132828 business owner. I will outline a sample script that you can in turn use to your advantage. Take a look atrepparttar 132829 following example:

A: Hello, Can I please speak with owner's name?

B: This is he. How can I help you?

A: Is this an okay time for you to speak?

B: Sure, I have nothing going on right now. Who is this? (If he says that he is too busy to talk right now then you should ask what time is an okay time to talk with him).

A: Hello, My name is your name from your company's name.

B: How can I help you today?

A: Well first of all thank you for being so kind to speak with me. I am familiar with your company and I have heard many good things about it, for instance share an example. Well, anyway, I was interested so I looked to see if you had a web site and I couldn't find one. Do you have a web site running?

Make a Winning Home Page

Written by Les Goss


Title: Make a Winning Home Page Email: mailto:les@zmoon.com Copyright: Copyright © Les Goss2003 Web Address: http://www.zmoon.com/ Word Count: 1127

Summary: To create a home page that will rank well inrepparttar search engines and attract new visitors once they arrive takes some advance planning. Knowledge of a few key points can make allrepparttar 132789 difference inrepparttar 132790 success of your site.

Publishing Guidelines: Permission is granted to publish this article electronically or in print as long asrepparttar 132791 bylines atrepparttar 132792 end are included. If you use this, notification would be appreciated. Thanks!

How to Make a Winning Home Page

One ofrepparttar 132793 most common questions I get from my clients is, “What should I put on my home page? Where do I begin?” Whether you are starting a new web site or redesigning your existing one, these are important questions to ask. If you don’t getrepparttar 132794 answers right, you might as well not even have a web site.

The Purpose of a Home Page

The home page serves many functions, and they all must work together seamlessly. First of all, it must be designed to rank well inrepparttar 132795 search engines so that people who don’t already know you can find you. Second, it’s an introduction to your business and an invitation to new customers and clients. Third, it must have a clear and intuitive navigation system so that a visitor can immediately knowrepparttar 132796 scope of your site and easily move around in it. This topic won’t be covered here, but you can read more about this in my article about Designingrepparttar 132797 Perfect Web Menu (http://www.zmoon.com/articles/menu.html). Fourth, it must load quickly, even for people using a dialup modem for their internet access. And all this must be contained in an attractive package!

To rank well inrepparttar 132798 search engines, you must either play by their rules, or buy your way in. Today we’ll do itrepparttar 132799 free way, but if you want to know more about paid options, see my article on Search Engines: Should You Pay? (http://www.zmoon.com/search.html)

The Two Main Factors that Will Improve Your Ranking

When ranking sites,repparttar 132800 search engines consider two main factors. How many times doesrepparttar 132801 search phrase occur on your page, and how many other quality sites link to your page? The first factor indicates how closely your page matches whatrepparttar 132802 searcher is looking for. The second factor indicatesrepparttar 132803 overall quality of your site, since other sites won’t send their customers to you unless you offer excellent content. How to cultivate a strong network of sites linking to your site is beyondrepparttar 132804 scope of this article, but will be covered in another edition.

Create Your Keywords List

Step one is to brainstorm a list of words and phrases you think someone would type into a search engine looking for a business like yours. If I had a landscaping business in Cheyenne, for instance, I might create this list: landscaping, tree trimming, lawn care, weed control, rock gardens, ponds, garden design, xeriscaping, flower beds, mulch, consultation, Cheyenne. I would include my city since I only work within 50 miles of home.

Next, I would userepparttar 132805 free tool at WordTracker (http://www.zmoon.com/cgi-bin/pl.pl?word) to get other words to add to my list, find out how often they were entered intorepparttar 132806 engines inrepparttar 132807 last 60 days, and how many competing sites also have them. I would probably buy a day’s worth of access to their complete service since it adds so much information and costs less than ten bucks.

Place Your Keywords onrepparttar 132808 Page

Make sure your highest-priority keywords are placed inrepparttar 132809 title tag of your code. Unless your business name is so well-known that thousands of people will type it into search engines looking for your site, leave it out ofrepparttar 132810 title. Your logo will be prominent onrepparttar 132811 page, so they will see your name there.

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