Do independent professionals need an own homepage?

Each company aims to sell its products or services. The answer to the question if a website is compulsory to reach this goal, is easy :

If you are an online store owner, you absolutely need to create a website.

If you are in any other type of business :  There is no obligation to have a site. Various other commercial channels exist for you. Nevertheless, a homepage is always an excellent advice.  

Good old non-digital commercialisation methods

Even before the invention of the internet, people did already sales. For example by standing on the marketplace and informing other people about their services.

Other popular methods still used today are : door to door retailing, physical shops, various forms of street marketing, word of mouth, or running expensive TV spots.

Word of mouth is a great marketing method for local businesses. If you run the best bakery in town, your customers are happy and will recommend you to all their friends. In this case, you don’t need any digital presence at all.

But how well can non-digital methods work, if you are the best IT Consultant or SEO Copywriter in town ? Knocking randomly on people’s doors will probably not allow you to find too many new clients. Standing with a megaphone on a busy place might be more interesting to reach out to potential customers, but you will probably need to repeat this action a couple of times.

Word of mouth can work – if you have a strong professional network and satisfied clients. There are freelance consultants that work successfully thanks to word of mouth, without an own website, and even without a Linkedin profile. But they are an exception. For most freelancers it will be very difficult to operate in this « traditional » way.

Do Digital Marketing Professionals need a website ?

Digitalisation concerns all areas of life and all industries today. Word of mouth can work for artisans, as we have seen, and in some cases for Business  Consultants too.

Even freelancers in the digital domain can do their activities without a website. But they must succeed in finding enough clients via other ways : word of mouth, social media profiles, freelancing platforms.

Imagine you are a SEO Copywriter : It’s not impossible to find missions by answering ads on freelancer sites. But you’ll probably have to contact 10 companies to get 2 answers. Then you’ll be kindly asked to make a free test article, and then there is a 50 :50 chance to get the job. If you have an own website with a blog, you don’t need to make test articles to prove that you know the alphabet.

If you are a freelance homepage designer, the situation is even more difficult. Of course an own website for your business is not compulsory, but is there any serious reason for not having one ? If you propose building sites for others without an own site, you’ll have a credibility problem.

Are Freelancer Platforms a good alternative ?

There are dozens of freelancer platforms. Unfortunately many of them are not interesting for professional european freelancers. To register on such a site often means : unattractive offers, requests for a paid subscriptions with an uncertain value for money, a high number of spam emails, and a concurrence with low cost freelancers from Africa and Asia that have a day rate of 5 EUR.

Serious freelancer platforms that allow interesting missions are rare. And if you happen to get a mission on one of them, you have to pay a commission to the platform, maybe even in addition to a basic subscription. Furthermore, the platform’s GTC don’t allow your clients to give you new orders outside of it.

Is it enough to have Social Media Profiles ?

Social Networks allow an online presence that is easier and cheaper to achieve than by a website registration.

On Linkedin you can register a profile within a few minutes and with zero costs. If your profile and content is very appealing, you can attract new customers – among the other Linkedin users. But if your target audiences are not on Linkedin, or if they do not use the network actively, your prospection will be less successful, unfortunately.

Many Youtubers make a comfortable living only with their advertising earnings. Interestingly enough, many of them start a homepage too, when they reach a certain follower number, especially for the selling of merchandising articles.

On Tiktok, Twitter etc., you can do influencer marketing, ie. for beauty products. Often, successful influencers start to promote their own products. In this case, they have to manage order processing and customer service. Theoretically they can only publish a phone number or an email address…

But top influencers always opt for an own website. Kim Kardashian, who has the modest number of 75 million followers on X (formerly Twitter), sells her skincare products by a professional e-commerce site that gives a smooth shopping experience.

For all social media networks the following important points are to be considered :

• The network’s complex algorithms determine who will see your posts and who will not see them
• It’s difficult to read (again) older posts of a creator (even if the content is very good)
• The post length is limited
• Content policies are strict. Even big influencers get sanctions for reasons they don’t always understand.
• Readers switch easily from your profile to profiles of other users.
• Your profile (without an own website) is in competition with profiles of other users that propose a good homepage.

How efficient are Landing Pages ?

Landing pages are basically a unique shorter or longer page that serves as an extended order form sheet, for a registration or a payment action.

As they require less technical skills than building a website with many columns, they are quite popular with many people.

A landing page can be used either as a single-column website, or be added to a regular multi-column website, for example for the promotion of a special event.

The success of a landing page depends on the value proposition of the freelancer. People with a valuable regular website can easily add a landing page to it, ie. to promote a training course.

Charismatic influencers that show their talent in videos or with high quality social media postings, will be able to make interesting sales with a unique landing page. But those freelancers, who are technically good in their area, but less good with their value proposition, will have difficulties to convince potential buyers with nothing else than an extended order form sheet (a landing page).

The Key Advantages of a Website 

A professional website offers much more possibilities than a social media profile or a landing page, and it is a perfect promotion channel for your activity.

Full digital accessibility for internet users all over the world is possible (while social media is only accessible for registered users). If your site is mobile friendly, it can be checked even during a bus ride.

Personal Branding: A homepage allows freelancers to present their qualifications, values, lifestyle etc. by various types of content.

Professional Portfolio: Your homepage shows what you are capable of in your concrete business sector. Visitors can check check the quality of your creations. If you are a photographer, there should be nice pics on your page. If you are copywriter, there should be good blog articles. A webdesigner should have a site with a good technical structure, etc.

Unlimited content creation possibilities : You can publish as many blog articles as you like, and they can be as long as you want them to be.  You can combine text and visual content, integrate Youtube videos, and much more.

Freedom of expression (within the limits of the charter of the Content Management System) is generally better than on big social media networks.

Combination with Social Media : You can cross-link from your site to your Linkedin-Profile or Youtube-Channel etc.

Social proof : Present your satisfied clients to gain new ones!

Inbound Marketing : A website is generally a great digital acquisition method. You can raise its efficiency for search engines by SEO strategies.

Email Marketing : People enjoy to subscribe to newsletters on great websites. 

Various additional features : You can combine your site with an online calendar (calendly etc), integrate an online payment function, implement a securized member area, and much more.

Let’s summarize : It is not compulsory that you have an own website as a freelancer – as long as you make enough sales with other methods. But, for most individual entrepreneurs life will be much easier with a homepage. And if you work in the digital area, there is no serious reason not to have your own site !

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