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Ask HN: Freelancers of HN, do you get clients/leads from your websites?

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Re: Ask HN: Freelancers of HN, do you get clients/leads from your websites?

#11
In my experience, no. Leads will find you through your online presence, but will rarely, if ever, begin at your site. However, it IS important to maintain a good site (in addition to making yourself known via forums, social networks and job aites) as they will expect to see one before they bother to contact you.

Think of your web site as your business card -- it's how people get in touch with you once they've already been introduced; it seldom works as the introduction itself.

Re: Ask HN: Freelancers of HN, do you get clients/leads from your websites?

#12

You can use twitter advanced search to search for leads: https://twitter.com/search-advanced To make your task easier - you can use tools like Leadify http://leadify.in etc.

Or http://www.Area301.com for even more lead sources in one place

Re: Ask HN: Freelancers of HN, do you get clients/leads from your websites?

#13
post #5
post #4

Do I get quality inquiries from my site: Yes. Would I pay for SEO: No. SEO is not the only way to get traffic to your site. Most of my traffic coming to my site comes from my blog, where I write 1-2 articles per month. I try to make the posts interesting and insightful to the type of crowd that would include my potential clients (startups). An added benefit of blogging is that your name will start to get recognized a…

Interesting. All the replies I got so far (both on HN and /r/freelance) seem to be negative. Do you have an idea what makes a difference in your case? Is it your niche? Maybe, as you said, the fact that you establish yourself as an authority in your field through your blog?

I guess being a user acquisition consultant gives me a bit of an edge with lead acquisition. ;)

Whenever I talk to a new prospect (potential client), I ask them how they found my site and what caught their attention. The answer to the first question is usually my blog or an HN comment (just like this one!). The answer to the second question varies from "your site tells a good story" to something specific such as my ability to push code.

Re: Ask HN: Freelancers of HN, do you get clients/leads from your websites?

#14
Interesting question. Answer for me right now: "no". Most jobs came via personal network. But I am exploring options to expand my freelance business too, and blogged about it: http://thinkingonthinking.com/Elegance-in-a-software-busines... and http://thinkingonthinking.com/Pitching-for-Jobs/ and http://thinkingonthinking.com/customers-jobs/ - it would be great to share/discuss what makes a good freelance website too.
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