How I Thrived As A Freelancer
When I was starting out, I had no idea what I was doing when I built my first Squarespace website.
It was a portfolio gallery for my photography, which then evolved into a Blog. I was a freelance Travel Blogger and Adventure Photographer at the time - and also in my early twenties with a serious case of the Travel Bug!
I used to tell people I was a Freelancing Nomad because I fancied the term and just really wanted to be a successful freelancer so that I could live anywhere in the world, while working remotely (doing something creative), learning new languages, making new local friends, and experiencing beautiful places... all on my terms! (... is that so much to ask for?! 🙈)
On connecting the dots and pursuit of my niche…
Freedom, Creativity and Connection are my top 3 core values - if you couldn't already tell! 😜
I’d look at all the thriving Freelancers and successful Solopreneurs and wonder how they got to where they were.
How were they offering such valuable services and courses, living such wonderful lives, and able to achieve locational and financial freedom??? What SECRET was I missing?!
But slowly, I started to link up the dots and realised that they had a few extra things that I didn't. They happened to be the same areas I was struggling with at the time:
how to portray my value online to potential clients
how to brand myself when I was just a freelancer starting out
how to showcase my work aesthetically and effectively
how to optimise for SEO so that clients could find ME
and how to make my website look less generic and more cool (ya know?! coz standing out is important! and so is being on-brand)
Tbh, I felt rather confined by the generic layouts on Squarespace and by my general lack of coding knowledge (aka. ZERO).
I felt like my dream of being a creative nomadic freelancer would never come true because I lacked the skills in presenting my value online via branding, design and website.
… But then things changed.
How I found my stride…
I spent the next few years developing my website skills, learning CSS coding, branding and design to get myself up to that level.
Honestly, THAT made a MASSIVE difference! And doing so has helped me in numerous ways, like being able to:
triple my monthly traffic in just one year of implementing better website & SEO practices
land high-paying dream clients who find my website and want to work with me because they feel aligned with my brand and how I portray it
MOVE TO AND LIVE IN EUROPE!! Long-term and without freaking out that I'll run out of money because my website is getting really good at bringing me business!
Except... I didn’t want to keep this knowledge all to myself!! Which is why (somewhere along the line), I decided to become a Squarespace Website Designer and help more people achieve amazing website results!
But something still felt … missing.
While I absolutely LOVE working 1:1 with small business and creating custom websites... I know that not everyone has a few thousand dollars lying around to invest in a new custom website!
So I felt this pull towards creating something that would help fellow my freelancers thrive in this crazy time.
Trust me, I KNOW how hard it is to be a freelancer without a website that truly showcases your value at its potential.
I wanted other freelancers to have this same feeling. To know that you, too, have the potential to thrive and achieve the locational and financial freedom that you so desire.
So, I created NOMADIC - a Squarespace 7.1 Template!
This is in honour of all you amazing freelancers out there, who have big dreams... I believe in you ✨
And I hope my template will help you take a massive step towards that.
The Nomadic template is designed to help you showcase your portfolio, present your services and highlight your creative expertise in an aesthetic and compelling way.
You may grab it here: Nomadic Template
Time to reflect!
I want you to take a moment to think about something that’s been holding you back from thriving as a freelancer…
are you embarrassed to show-off your website?
maybe it's the non-existence OF your website?
or perhaps it's lacking SEO optimisation or aligned branding?
Then, imagine what it would feel like to bust the ceiling on those limitations and finally have a website you're proud to show-off to your potential clients! (let's say… in less than one week?)
AND have clients contact YOU wanting to work together because they could find your website EFFORTLESSLY? (thanks to SEO) and because your website branding is just SO on-point?! 😉
Write it down and journal on it. Or tell me here: @arohavisuals