Made a freelance website in two weeks!

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quixoticameron

quixoticameron

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I'm pretty proud of myself for this accomplishment and wanted to brag :) It was my goal for December to make a freelance webpage with a blog to attract Googlers, and guess what, it's done! I like the way it looks, too -- go to speechandact.com and take a peek. What do y'all think of the design?

The goal is to create value for potential customers by blogging about writing and translation, and direct them to my services page, where they can book me to edit their creative writing or business copy, or translate Spanish-language material. I've got two blog posts published and a couple more in the queue for next week. Comments are enabled, so if you have any feedback for me on the blog posts, I'd SO love to hear it! One post is about verisimilitude, and the other is about a literary device called listing. The scheduled posts are about the flash-fiction writer Lydia Davis and my experiences translating "The Death of Artemio Cruz" by Carlos Fuentes for a translation mentorship.

With this blog, I'd like to explore connections between linguistic theory and fiction writing. It's going to be lots of fun!
 
EMaree

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Absolutely gorgeous design, I love it. I think your main page is missing a call to action, though. You say that the purpose is to direct people to your services page, but the intro page doesn't do that. And the central question ("Words are action. What do you want to accomplish with yours?") is lovely and poetic but doesn't get across the most important thing: you are an editor, you're here to make books great.

Think of it this way: if a total stranger arrives on that first page with money in their pocket for editing, are they going to be enticed to buy your services? Compare your homepage to Jenny Glencross (clearly describes *why* you should pick her in a gloriously succinct intro paragraph, details her services, shows books worked on), Ava Jae (pitches self, pitches why you should buy editing, pitches prices and packages), Julie Hutchings (pitches self, pitches why you need to buy editing, then prices).

Other editors like Anna Genoese and Julie Crisp have sparser sites, because they have reputation and word of mouth and tend to attract a crowd already familiar with the industry.

If you're comfortable with it, I'd encourage you to put yourself front and foremost as the face of your business. The side-menu bio and bottom-bar descriptions are both lovely, but very tucked away. If you can, focus on selling yourself as an editor: qualifications, testimonials, etc.
 
cmhbob

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With the pipe characters around your two menu choices, it took me a minute to realize there was not a third choice between them. Maybe just one pipe between them, and nothing on the ends?

I also wonder about mentioning your language specialty right up front. Maybe EDITING | SPANISH TRANSLATION | BLOG ?
 
stephenf

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Hi
I can only repeat what has already been said

The site is nice looking , but the first page needs a bit more contrast. You have just a few seconds to capture the person looking at your site for the first time . You can see if you have a high bounce rate on google analytics.

Your URL has an uncertain meaning until it is explained, that might be a handicap . If someone is looking for the service you are offering, seeing you in a list of searches , may pass you over . Confusing you with dramatics or something else.

There is over a billion sites on the net. It is really hard to create a successful web sit . You obviously have good taste and you might have something viable on offer . Good luck
 
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Bacchus

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What others have said - a very nice look and feel but some of the details need tweaking; as EMaree said, it needs to be more obvious what you are trying to achieve, that you have a service to sell and that the viewer wants to but it! A few existing projects or accreditations might also help with that?

The blogging style felt a bit "back to school" for my tastes, it felt a bit like a lesson especially when you finish up with exercises - maybe separate that into a different section?

From a techie point of view you must add "title" attributes (tooltips); not sure what tool you used to create the page (it doesn't look hand-written unless you are an HTML guru) but there must be a facility somewhere to add these. It needs to be very clear where the links will take you and you should have "alt" tags for images so that partially-sighted viewers using screen readers etc get an idea of what is on the page.

HTH. Self promotion on the internet is notoriously difficult and I will be curious to see how you get on - very best of luck!
 
quixoticameron

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cmhbob said:
With the pipe characters around your two menu choices, it took me a minute to realize there was not a third choice between them. Maybe just one pipe between them, and nothing on the ends?

I also wonder about mentioning your language specialty right up front. Maybe EDITING | SPANISH TRANSLATION | BLOG ?
Click to expand...

I liked this suggestion and went for it!
 
quixoticameron

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Thank you very much for the feedback! I added an explanation of the site title to a sidebar on my blog to help with the potential confusion you mentioned.
 
quixoticameron

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stephenf said:
Your URL has an uncertain meaning until it is explained, that might be a handicap . If someone is looking for the service you are offering, seeing you in a list of searches , may pass you over . Confusing you with dramatics or something else.
Click to expand...

Thank you very much for the feedback! I added an explanation of the site title to a sidebar on my blog to help with the potential confusion you mentioned.
 
quixoticameron

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Bacchus said:
What others have said - a very nice look and feel but some of the details need tweaking; as EMaree said, it needs to be more obvious what you are trying to achieve, that you have a service to sell and that the viewer wants to but it! A few existing projects or accreditations might also help with that?

The blogging style felt a bit "back to school" for my tastes, it felt a bit like a lesson especially when you finish up with exercises - maybe separate that into a different section?

From a techie point of view you must add "title" attributes (tooltips); not sure what tool you used to create the page (it doesn't look hand-written unless you are an HTML guru) but there must be a facility somewhere to add these. It needs to be very clear where the links will take you and you should have "alt" tags for images so that partially-sighted viewers using screen readers etc get an idea of what is on the page.
Click to expand...

Thanks for the feedback! Still working out the blogging style I want to go for, and your reactions were helpful. And you're right, the site is definitely not handwritten, although my techie boyfriend's been offering to teach me CSS for ages. I used Squarespace, highly recommend. I expect it does have title attributes and alt tags -- I'm not familiar with what those are, though, so thank you for giving me something to Google and learn about today :granny:
 
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