Your point-of-sale (POS) system needs to be agile, too. A holistic view of your products, orders, and customers helps you prepare for an influx in demand. It also gives you the data to reward loyal customers with discounts, locate previous orders, and accept multiple payment methods.  

If you manage a WooCommerce store, you need a POS plugin designed for the needs of your website. We got you. Below are five of the best POS plugins for WooCommerce.  

1. wePOS 

Fast. Responsive. Easy to use. These are just a few words that describe wePOS. This POS plugin makes it possible for you to take orders and track inventory in your WooCommerce store. You can physically count your products with bar codes and add them to your customerâ€s shopping cart. 

With a single-page application, this point-of-sale plugin responds quickly to your requests. Your customers wonâ€t have to wait to check out products. The intuitive UI is easy to navigate. So, you can manage your inventory without any hassle. 

wePOS comes with shortcut key support. That way, you can easily scan barcodes and process orders. No more delays in your physical store. 

The plugin also uses Appsero SDK to collect data. It has a strict policy not to gather data by default. Rather, the SDK only gathers data when a user allows it via the admin. The SDK improves the overall product experience and helps with troubleshooting issues. 

2. Square 

Built for all types of businesses, Square helps you start, run, and grow your store. At no cost, you can get this POS extension for WooCommerce and accept customer payments today. There are no long-term commitments or hidden fees. Your business only pays when you make a sale. 

Never miss a sale again. Square allows you to accept payments online, in person, or on the go. All major debit and credit cards are available in multiple countries, including the United States, Canada, and Australia. Also, youâ€ll get your funds deposited within one to two business days.  

With Square, you can increase conversions by accepting digital wallets, like Apple Pay and Google Pay. Your recurring customers will enjoy securely saving their payment methods and adding labels to identify their preferred payment choice. 

Moreover, Square prides itself on security and fraud prevention. Their team watches over your account 24/7 to analyze transactions and suspicious activities. 

3. Point of Sale for WooCommerce 

Ready to take your store to the next level? Point of Sale for WooCommerce is an advanced toolkit for placing in-store orders. This web-based POS app makes it convenient for you to sell online products in your brick-and-mortar store. 

It transforms your web browser into a cash register. So, this tool works seamlessly with retail stores, market stalls, and food vendors.  And because it’s built specifically for WooCommerce, there are no third-party API interfaces. Simply install the extension and start selling. 

You can create a tailored POS experience for each store department. Configure product grids to show individual products and categories; then, assign the grids to specific registers in your store. You can add custom products directly from the interface, too. 

Point of Sale for WooCommerce works well for rewarding your customers. You can create fixed or percentage-based discounts and coupons to encourage shoppers to buy more products. 

4. Hike 

Yesterdayâ€s business is not the same as todayâ€s business. And itâ€s safe to say, your business will evolve as consumer behavior changes and the economy expands. Those changes need new ways of doing your work.  

Hike is a robust retail solution that integrates its platform with WooCommerce. This combination gives you central access to your customers, inventory, and product catalog. Youâ€ll have complete control to manage every part of your business without the stress. 

If you already have an existing product catalog, you can automatically sync your inventory from Hike to WooCommerce, or vice versa.  Your sales, purchases, and any other transaction will instantly update on both platforms. Thereâ€s an option to review your existing and new customer profiles, too. 

No more double entries. The centralized inventory and catalog allow you to easily add, update, or remove an item in Hike, and changes are reflected in your WooCommerce store. 

5. FooSales 

Run your business from anywhere in the world with FooSales. This POS system automatically syncs your WooCommerce product inventory, order, and customer data.  

This WooCommerce POS app takes an omnichannel approach, allowing you to access your POS from a web app or native tablet apps. Use FooSales for retail stores, markets, pop-up shops, and mobile events. 

With the intuitive interface, you can create, cancel, and submit new orders. Get important data at your fingertips about past orders, refunds, and daily totals. You also can filter online and offline orders to plan future marketing campaigns. 

Customer profiles are available to track shopping habits and order history at a glance. Youâ€ll know exactly who is buying your products and how often they make purchases. 

FooSales accepts multiple payment options, from Square Readers to direct bank transfers to checks. It also integrates with popular printers and scanners to turn your online store into an enterprise-level retail business.  

Upgrade How You Do Business With These WooCommerce POS Extensions

Store management automation makes it easier for you to process transactions and update your inventory. Consider how you can take your business to the next level with a POS solution for WooCommerce. 

Looking for more ways to improve your WooCommerce website? Check out these top WooCommerce plugins for online stores.

The post Best Point of Sale (POS) Plugins for WooCommerce appeared first on HostGator.

Oh, right. 

You still need someone to see your photos.

After all, if you take a photograph of a forest and no oneâ€s around, can anyone hear the camera click? 

Weâ€ll leave that question to the philosophers. As for you, you know what stands between you and your audience: a well-crafted, well-designed blog. Letâ€s take you from the darkroom to the showroom by explaining how to build a spectacular photography blog.

Step One: Get The Essentials

You might have the visual know-how of an Ansel Adams or Margaret Bourke-White, but that doesnâ€t mean you know how to start a blog from scratch. Fortunately, we live in a world of millions of blogs, which means there are simple solutions to get you there.

Pick a domain name

For many photographers, their website is simply FirstnameLastname.com. There. Step one is done. 

The problem? There are hundreds of millions of domain name registrations. What if your name is Abby Smith or Al Jones? Those are probably taken. There are a few options here:

• Use initials. Find a unique pairing of your initials and your full name to see if you arrive at a solution thatâ€s simple enough for people to find.
• Use an alternative domain suffix. For example, “.co” is increasingly popular.
• Get creative. If youâ€re Abby Smith, maybe itâ€s more memorable for you to use AbbySnaps or PicturesByAbby as a brand name. 

Get more tips on choosing a domain name for your photography blog. 

Purchase a web hosting package

Register your domain and sign up for hosting in the same place—itâ€ll keep your life simpler. That means your primary decision will be to choose which web host you want. 

But as a photographer who just spent $3,000 on a camera, your pockets may be full of lint. Good news: hereâ€s a place you can finally cheap out: just pick a reliable shared hosting plan that gets your site up and running as affordably as possible.

Install WordPress

We could go on and on about the different options for your blogging platform. But if you spent your college years studying photography rather than web design, thereâ€s no need to overcomplicate things or reinvent the wheel. We offer one-click WordPress installation here at HostGator. Itâ€s a great place to start.

Step Two: Build Your Photography Blog

There are two possible approaches here. Technically, you could skip straight to step three without sorting out the details first. This might appeal to you if youâ€re a guerilla-style photographer, always letting spontaneity lead to creativity.

But what if youâ€re a wedding photographer? Then you understand the importance of scheduling, consistency, and advanced planning.

Thatâ€s why itâ€s worth slowing down and considering your goals. You donâ€t want to get ahead of yourself and switch blog themes six months down the line. Itâ€s much easier to make these decisions now.

Match your WordPress theme to your niche

True: you may already know your niche. But WordPress doesnâ€t. Youâ€ll have to identify a WordPress theme for photography blogs that neatly aligns with your goals.

• For personal photography: You can go minimalist. No contact page, no blog, no nothing. Just a theme like PhotoMe with extensive gallery layouts. This will keep the focus on the photos—and little else.
• For professional photography: Look for WordPress themes with “portfolio” in the description. Youâ€re also going to need intuitive navigation so people can find out how to reach you. Diamond features a photography slider with a sidebar for people who want to know more about you.
• For wedding photography: You can adhere to the same principles as most professional photographers. But keep in mind who your target audience is: brides and grooms. Theyâ€re on sites like TheKnot, and they want their photographs to reflect that. Youâ€re going to have to pick a theme that screams “wedding,” like Vega.

These are just examples, of course. You can browse sites like ThemeForest, TemplateMonster, and even WordPress itself to explore whatâ€s out there.

Learn your way around WordPress

WordPress is going to be your new best friend. And like any friend, youâ€ll have to learn its quirks to have a great relationship with it. Get particularly used to the following menu items:

• Pages: This is where you design and manage site-level sections of your blog, including the Home page, your “About” page, and contact forms.
• Posts: This is where youâ€ll upload your photos. Depending on the theme you chose, you might include brief stories. Some wedding photographers, for example, attach little explanations about the couple theyâ€re highlighting.
• Appearance: This is where you install and customize the look of your blog. If youâ€re primarily using a template from a theme, you may not have to use this much.
• Plugins: Hereâ€s where you can customize your photography blog with add-ons to enhance the user experience.

The best WordPress plugins for photographers

Plugins are to WordPress what clothes are to people—sure, you can technically get by without them, but itâ€s probably a good idea to use them. 

If youâ€re unsure of how your site looks, why not add a photography plugin? 

EnviraGallery is one of the foremost names in the photography biz. It adds a drag-and-drop builder for creating video or picture galleries. You can choose prebuilt templates to build good-looking photo galleries in a few clicks. And you donâ€t have to worry about mobile design; EnviraGallery takes care of that.

On the backend, WordPressâ€s own plugin Regenerate Thumbnails will automatically create photos of different sizes once you upload them. This will save you the time and effort in editing your own thumbnails—often with complicated and unnecessary software. Even more importantly, it will keep the time you spend posting photos to a minimum. 

Finally, youâ€ll have to remember your audience. Ultimately, people visiting a photography blog just want to click. To indulge them, youâ€ll want to create sliders with Soliloquy. It features a drag-and-drop design on the back and perfect mobile compatibility for your viewers.

Step Three: Stay Consistent (and a Few Other Tips)

Thatâ€s it. Once youâ€ve done everything above, youâ€ll have a website for your photography blog. Thereâ€s good news and thereâ€s bad news. The good news is that itâ€s easy to get to this point. The bad news is that from now on, your success depends entirely on your approach.

The most important thing is to post consistently. If you donâ€t regularly update your photography blog, youâ€ll never know which photographs are going to resonate with people. 

Hereâ€s a neat trick for consistency: give yourself a big number for when youâ€ll stop posting new photos if the blog hasnâ€t gained any transaction. Go on, pick one. Make it big and make it round. Now stick to it. Even if you havenâ€t gotten any attention after posting 99 photos, it wonâ€t seem so much if the number you picked at the beginning was 1,000.

Finally, here are a few other tips to use your blog in constructive ways.

First, try experimenting! Sometimes great art can come from experiments. Monetâ€s impressionist paintings Haystacks were a series of ordinary subject matter. But Monet was less interested in the haystacks themselves than in painting an object from different sources of light. Take an experimental approach yourself; commit to growing your skills along with the blog.

You might also try new markets. Only photographed weddings? Experiment with cooking ordinary, everyday things like recipes or tabletops. Hire your first model for a session. Create new categories in your blog so itâ€s easy for your audience to keep up with all the different things youâ€re doing.

Whatever you do, it wonâ€t work unless you follow these basic steps. And keep in mind we have more to say about starting a blog from scratch if you ever feel like any of these steps tripped you up. 

Get your Photography Blog Up and Running with HostGator

Once youâ€re ready to start your photography blog, itâ€s easy to set up web hosting. Sign up for web hosting with HostGator to make your dreams of a photography blog a reality.

The post How to Start a Photography Blog on WordPress appeared first on HostGator.

But thatâ€s for B2C (business to consumer) businesses, right? Youâ€re not selling pet supplies or wine. 

Your business is B2B (business to business), and that makes things more complicated. Doesnâ€t it?

Not necessarily.

B2B Website Personalization is Possible

Personalization seems a lot harder for B2B brands because the entire sales process is a lot more complicated. In many cases—and especially with high-cost products and services—you have to win over a number of different people who each have different roles and priorities within a company. When youâ€ve got a more complex buyerâ€s journey that involves a larger number of people, how is personalization supposed to work within that?

But it can. Optimizely experimented with creating personalized homepages for 26 different companies they knew they wanted to work with. The results showed how powerful B2B website personalization can be. They saw a 113% increase in conversions for their Solutions page, and a 117% increase in conversions for setting up an account. 

Their case study proves that not only is B2B website personalization possible, but itâ€s lucrative. 

How to Use Personalization on Your B2B Website

In order to start providing your visitors with personalized experiences on your website, you need to figure out a couple of main things: first, what forms of personalization you want to implement; and second, what technology you need to select to make it happen. 

5 Ways to Personalize Your B2B Website

Some of the main website personalization tactics available to B2B brands are:

Tailored landing pages

Landing pages are one of the easiest parts of your website to personalize, because knowing how a person comes to the page already tells you something about what theyâ€re looking for. 

When you know what the ads, emails, or social media posts that drive people to a page say, you can make sure the page itself is tailored to match what your visitors are interested in.

Geographic personalization

One of the easier pieces of data to access about visitors is where theyâ€re coming from, geographically speaking. For a lot of businesses, knowing whether a visitor is browsing your website from California or Spain can provide you some useful information about what kind of prospect they are. 

You could personalize what they see so that the site content most closely matches the situation where theyâ€re based—addressing any local regulations they deal with, or providing contact information for the salesperson in their area, for instance. 

Relevant content suggestions

The content a visitor looks at tells you something about what theyâ€re interested in, and may provide some useful clues about who they are. If your website has content targeting a few different audiences—say, CEOs, marketing managers, and HR representatives—then you can make an educated guess about which category a visitor falls into based on which articles they read.

Providing content suggestions based on the page a visitor is on or past pages theyâ€ve visited gives you an opportunity to nudge visitors further along the purchasing process and keep them interacting with your brand longer. And by specifically showing them additional content thatâ€s relevant to their interests, you make their overall experience on the website better. 

Interactive chatbots

Interactive chatbots give you a way to personalize a visitorâ€s website experience by letting the visitor directly tell you what they want to know. 

A chatbot can be programmed to ask questions about what a visitor is interested in, and serve up relevant answers and/or suggested content based on how they respond. It provides B2B visitors an engaging way to find what theyâ€re looking for more easily, and makes it easier for you to urge them toward the resources that are most valuable based on their needs. 

Personalized homepages

This is the form of personalization Optimizely used in the example shared above. It requires more advanced technology than some of these other options, but when used well can be powerful. 

Using reverse IP lookup technology, you can tell when a visitorâ€s coming from a specific location, like an office building. For businesses that do ABM (account based marketing), if the office an IP is associated with is one of your main target accounts, you can serve up a homepage made specifically to speak to that companyâ€s situation. The visitorâ€s immediate perception of your website will then be one thatâ€s all about them and their needs, which increases the likelihood that theyâ€ll stick around and be impressed with what you have to offer. 

5 Products that Power B2B Website Personalization

To make website personalization happen, you need the right technology. Here are a few of the main tech products out there powering B2B personalization:

• HubSpot – Most B2B marketers will already have some awareness of HubSpot—its content management system (CMS) is widely used and well known. Personalization is far from the only feature HubSpot offers, but the tool makes it possible to tailor the content you show to new visitors based on their location, device, or referral source. And for known visitors, you can serve up even more personalized content based on what you already know about them.
  
• LogicHop – For WordPress users, LogicHop is an easy-to-use tool that lets you personalize the content visitors see based on dozens of criteria. You can personalize copy, images, buttons, banners, etc. to make your webpages speak to what you know about different visitors.  

• Optimizely – Optimizelyâ€s main selling point is A/B testing, but the same technology that allows you to serve up two different versions of a page to see which one performs better can be used to serve up different versions of a page based on whoâ€s looking at it. 

• Clearbit Reveal – Clearbit Reveal is a tool that will match the IP of your website visitors to the business theyâ€re associated with, allowing you to better provide personalized content based on the business details you have. 

• Drift – Drift provides a live chatbot that powers real-time personalization through conversation. Not only do visitors get easier access to relevant answers and content, but the interactive nature of live chat means they have a more engaging experience on your website at the same time. 

These arenâ€t the only tools on the market offering personalization features, but theyâ€re a good place to start your search. Figure out what type of website personalization you want to offer, and let that guide your search for the technology that provides what you need.

Make it Personal

Personalization isnâ€t just for the consumer brands of the world. With the right technology and strategy, you can find creative ways to reach the business customers you most want to work with more directly, with messaging thatâ€s relevant to their needs. That leads to better experiences for them, and higher conversions for you. 

The post Yes, B2B Websites Can Use Personalization Too [Here’s How] appeared first on HostGator.

Then you go home, bring up their website, and find out itâ€s a total dud. It looks ten years out of date. It gives your browser errors. 

Are you really going to hire that coach now? Probably not. How can they help you out if they canâ€t even put together a decent website?

If youâ€re a coach, your website says everything about you. If you canâ€t build a great website, then why should someone trust you with the problems they need to address? Fortunately, building a coaching website is easy if you turn to one of the most popular platforms on the market: WordPress.

Why Build a Coaching Website on WordPress?

Before the pandemic, 48% of coaches “frequently” engaged with their clients in person. But the trends are starting to reverse. Starting in 2020, about 40% of coaches started offering their services online-only. In a survey of coaches, the same statistics found that 77% of all coaches expect the COVID-driven trends to last at least a year.

But itâ€s easy to talk about an “online pivot” as if itâ€s a flip you can switch. Not every coach might be so lucky in their site-building skills to think of it that way. 

The reason WordPress is so helpful is it provides a foundation for any website you might want to build. As a CMS—content management system—it owns the vast majority of the market share for a reason. WordPress is one of the easiest and most intuitive ways to manage your website.

WordPress helps you handle everything: blog updates, newsletter subscriptions, page design, contact forms. If you want to offer coaching services online, think of WordPress as the foundation for everything else you want to accomplish. Once you have WordPress installed, you can add any number of add-ons or applications to make your site do what you want.

• Want to create useful “how-to” blog posts? You can do that in WordPress.
• Want to launch a free newsletter, including a scrollbar at the top to draw in potential new clients? You can do that in WordPress.
• Want to drive buzz for webinars? Integrate your social media feed to automatically update your website? Schedule site updates weeks in advance? 

You can do it all—if you have WordPress installed.

How to Install WordPress on Your Website

Even if youâ€re new to building websites, the good news about WordPress is itâ€s become so ubiquitous, some hosting companies (including us here at HostGator) offer one-click installation. We know you want WordPress, and weâ€re not going to make it difficult on you.

Even so, that leaves the question as to how to get started. If youâ€re a new customer with a new hosting package, you can use one-click installation with HostGator.

• Log into your Customer Portal.
• Click Create Website.
• This takes you to a fresh page, labeled Build your site with WordPress. 
• Click Get Started.

Next, consult your HostGator manual for steps 5 through 1,076. Just kidding. Itâ€s really that easy. But there is one thing left to do. 

The site will automatically generate your WordPress login credentials, as well as furnish you with a temporary URL. Copy all of this information down for your reference. Once you have those down, click Go to WordPress. Thatâ€s really the last step—youâ€re officially building your coaching website on WordPress.

Watch this video for a quick walk-through of the entire process:

What Should You Add to Your Coaching Website?

The temptation will be to deck out your WordPress page with every add-on and plugin imaginable. And thatâ€s going to be fun. But before we get to that, letâ€s consider the meat and potatoes of the site itself. 

Letâ€s say you already have a domain name on your business card. When you hand that card to a prospective coaching client, imagine what they do next. Do they sit at home, take out the business card, and type in your domain name? If so, what do they see? What donâ€t they see? Hereâ€s everything you should include when you build the site:

A home page

As a coach, your home page has to accomplish two important things: capture attention and establish trust. That makes every decision on your websiteâ€s homepage that much more critical.

If youâ€re not sure what that looks like, use these two simple values to guide your website design.

• Credibility. Right off the bat, your website should list several sources where you have appeared, whether itâ€s a podcast, local newspaper, or community association. That builds trust right off the bat: itâ€s hard to get quotes if you donâ€t have some credibility as a coach.
• Connection. A large photograph should greet visitors above the fold—in other words, above the point we start scrolling down. A “mission statement” on the front page tells your prospective coaching clients what youâ€re all about. 

If you picture a funnel that filters potential coaching clients to your “contact” page, the home page is the very top of that funnel. Itâ€s the widest point. It answers the biggest questions. It assumes the visitor doesnâ€t know you. And it makes the big, broad strokes of introductions that build intrigue for what kind of coaching you offer.

A coaching services page

Once someone reads up on you, a logical next question is how you can work together. 

Itâ€s going to be tempting to put the onus on your potential clients. But “contact me and we can work something out” isnâ€t ideal. It gives off the impression that you donâ€t do this often.

Your services page remedies that. Hereâ€s what youâ€ll need to include:

• A list of potential clients. Do you only want to coach C-suite executives? Are you open to any one-on-one client? Make that clear.
• List your offerings. One-on-one zoom meetings? Webinars? Public speeches? Whatever your approach to coaching, make sure itâ€s clear what you have on offer.

A contact page

Now weâ€re narrowing the funnel. Itâ€s time for your potential client to take action. 

As such, your contact page should be the simplest on your entire website. There should only be one step forward for the visitor: reaching out. That means a basic contact form with name, email, and a brief message.

If you offer different services, you can customize your WordPress contact form to include a drop-down menu. This way, you can avoid vague messages from prospective clients who arenâ€t sure what they want. As you go further in your coaching career, youâ€ll find tools like these are invaluable for properly qualifying prospects before they become clients.

Recommended WordPress Plugins and Themes for Coaching Websites

Okay, weâ€ve denied you the bells and whistles too long. With the rest in place, you can start adding the fun plugins and fancy-schmancy design themes that make your coaching website pop.

WordPress themes for coaches

• Astra. Astra will give you an eye-popping home page; upload your professional photograph to help establish that trust and authority off the bat.
• Divi. Advertising as the “ultimate WordPress page builder,” Divi is a visual-based site builder that takes the design guesswork out of your page building. After all, you got into coaching, not web design.
• Authority Pro. You wonâ€t get many clients if you canâ€t establish your authority as a professional coach. Authority Pro is all about building that connection from the beginning.

WordPress plugins for coaches

• WPForms. Your website has all sorts of goals, but ultimately, itâ€s about one thing: getting people to click “contact.” You donâ€t get coaching work until you can build well-performing contact forms.
• MemberPress. Have a growing list of clientele in search of a community of like-minded individuals? MemberPress could be the next step in your online evolution, allowing you to create a community centered around the concepts you teach.
• PushEngage. Letâ€s say you need to hype an upcoming keynote speech or webinar. How do you generate buzz using your site alone? PushEngage helps you post announcements over your regular content, driving the urgent attention you need.

Build Your Coaching Website with HostGator

Drawing in coaching clients is all about authority and credibility. Todayâ€s website is a modern version of the business card. You can either take it seriously, build a great presence, and hand out that address with pride—or you can hope for the best. 

With WordPress, youâ€ll find out itâ€s incredibly easy to choose the former. And thatâ€s especially true when you have one of HostGatorâ€s reliable WordPress hosting packages that make setting up WordPress a breeze.

The post How to Build a Coaching Website on WordPress [Expert Guide] appeared first on HostGator.

It also matters because people feel more comfortable hiring freelancers who show they understand their customers†needs—and smart branding does that.

Hereâ€s how to create your freelance brand. 

1. Identify your professional strengths

Listing your skills can be a confidence boost if youâ€re a new freelancer. Even if youâ€re already working as a freelancer, go ahead and make a quick list of all the skills you can offer your customers. 

With this list, see what makes you unique. For example, are you a U.S.-based freelance website designer whoâ€s fluent in Portuguese? You might be able to brand your services for Brazilian companies looking to expand into North America. 

Or if youâ€re a photographer with a background in set design, you might be able to create some amazing backdrops for your clients†photo shoots.

via GIPHY

Whatever your skills mix is, keep it in mind as you develop your brand.

2. Define your ideal freelance customer

Your ideal customer is as important to your brand as your skills are. Why? Because your services plus your logo, messaging, marketing and pricing all need to line up with what your ideal customer is looking for. 

Every freelancerâ€s ideal customer is different. For example, the ideal customer for a wedding photographer is going to be someone whoâ€s engaged, has the budget for good photography, and has lots of connections who may also be getting married soon that can turn into referrals. 

A freelance marketing consultant, on the other hand, will look for growing companies or startups with new funding who need to build, deploy and maintain a marketing strategy. 

Even freelancers within the same niche may have different ideal customers. A copywriter that likes structure and predictability in their workday may seek out freelance clients who have their ad copy needs planned out weeks or months in advance. But a copywriter who thrives on adrenaline and goes with the flow might specialize in rush work projects for clients who pull their campaigns together at the last minute.

Once you have a clear picture of your ideal customer, you can shape your brand to speak to them. That will include messaging about what you can do for these customers.

3. Decide what problems you can solve for your freelance clients

When youâ€re clear on your strengths and your ideal customer, you can decide what you want to offer them. And you base that on the problems your ideal customer is looking to solve. 

via GIPHY

For example, wedding photography clients want great pictures, but everyone has a camera in their pocket now. What these customers also want—the problem a good freelance photographer can help them solve—is organizing posed photos at the event, helping everyone look their best in the shots, and delivering images the couple will enjoy for years.

In other words, these customers want someone who can handle all the photo stuff so they donâ€t have to worry about when to gather the families for photos, whether the lighting is right, or whether Cousin Ava will get around to uploading her 500 reception photos to Google Drive.

Likewise, a company that hires a freelance marketing writer wants someone who can write the copy they need, but the problem theyâ€re trying to solve is not having enough people on their marketing team. A freelancer who can research and pitch copy ideas and work well with other stakeholders solves that problem for them. 

So now, your branding might be shaping up like “Iâ€m a freelance wedding photographer serving couples in the Atlanta area offering comprehensive planning, packages and presentation, so you can relax and enjoy your special day.”

4. Calculate your rates—privately

Wait, are rates part of your branding? Not explicitly, unless you want to go down the road of competing on price instead of value. 

We donâ€t recommend that, BTW. For one thing, clients with money tend to avoid discount-branded services because they worry about quality. 

For another, competing on price means someone can undercut you by a few bucks and steal your customers! Focusing on the value you offer is a better long-term strategy.

via GIPHY

That said, you must know what you need to bring in to pay your bills. If youâ€re not sure about how to calculate this, The Freelancerâ€s Bible breaks it down so you can do the math easily. 

This step can also help you refine your messaging to save time dealing with clients who arenâ€t right for your business. For example, a freelance writer with vague branding like “Have Project, Will Write!” is going to get a lot more inquiries from small businesses with tiny budgets than they are from companies with millions in funding who need “Content Creation for B2C Health Technology Startups.”

Bottom line: Aim your brand at customers who can pay what you need to earn.

5. Build your brand identity and messaging

Now itâ€s time to focus on the elements of your branding that your customers will see: your brand identity and your brand messaging. 

Your brand identity includes your logo, your colors and your fonts. Use them consistently on your website, your social media profiles and your ads. 

Your colors should stand out but not distract from your brand messaging. 

Your fonts should make it easy for people to scan your brand name and message quickly, without having to figure out cursive script or other hard-to-read fonts.

What about messaging? Once you have your business name and your domain name registered, itâ€s time to write your tagline, your elevator pitch and your summary paragraph. 

Your tagline: A one-sentence summary of what you do and who you work with, like “Residential landscape design for the Houston area” or “Custom web design for small e-commerce businesses.” Put it under your logo on your site and business cards.

Your elevator pitch: This is a bit longer summary of what you do, like “I bring 10 years of nursery and garden design experience to homeowners in Houstonâ€s challenging climate” or “I create unique and effective WordPress ecommerce sites for companies in the beauty, fashion and jewelry verticals.” Add this to your social profiles.

Your summary paragraph is a little more about you, in terms that show the value your brand brings to clients. For example:

“After a decade of designing for home landscapes in Houston—including my own—I know what thrives and what looks great in our coastal climate. As a longtime nursery manager, I can quickly pull together lists of what will work best on your site so you can pick the look you want with confidence that it can handle the heat and humidity. And my nursery experience also means I know which wholesalers and farms offer the healthiest plants for your home landscape.” This goes on your “About Me” page.

You may have to go through a few drafts to get your tagline, elevator pitch and summary just right. Take your time and remember to proofread!

Promote your freelance brand

Now you have everything you need to start using your brand to promote your freelance business, connect with your ideal customers and start building your professional portfolio. 

Ready to build your freelance website? Get started with HostGator.

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