Tip #1: Why the goal of your homepage isn’t to get you hired
How long do you think it takes people to decide whether to buy a product after the first time they googled for it?
2 days? Maybe 10?
It’s 20 days (at least it was in 2018).
And that’s just for a toaster they can see from all sides, read hundreds of detailed reviews about and send back if they don’t like it with zero harm done.
Imagine, if that toaster has a personality, demands a non-refundable deposit and may toast something important in their business before they know it.
#scary
To add insult to injury, when your clients are looking for a freelancer to hire, they don’t just focus on technical skills. Among other things, they want to make sure you:
- provide referrals and portfolios
- come with high ratings and reviews
- exhibit good communication skills
- have high standards for quality
- are motivated and focused on the details
- had experience with similar projects
Your website copy can’t possibly check all these points, and no discovery call can warn them that you aren't great at sticking to deadlines.
So, hiring you comes with a higher risk for your prospects compared to buying a physical product.
This means you can’t expect someone who just landed on your homepage for the first time to hire you on the same day, and they're most certainly going to compare you to your competitors before they reach out.
What does that mean for your homepage structure and copy?
It means that you shouldn’t write your homepage as a lead page hoping to convert your prospects on the spot.
Your homepage isn’t a focused lead page that attracts only the folks with a strong intent to spend their money.
It’s a versatile bunch of people who come to your homepage from:
- Organic search for your service / name
- Referrals from social profiles / articles on other websites
- Your own blog posts that got them curious about the author
So, instead of trying to do the impossible (and fail), you should create your homepage:
- to make a solid memorable impression
- to get ideal clients among your homepage visitors interested enough to check other pages on your homepage (ideally, your services)
...so that they will remember and think of you once they’re ready to reach out for a quote.
|