7 Ways to Create Your Freelance Website Fast

Do you have a website for your freelance business?

Not a profile on Upwork or Dribbble, but an actual site?

If you don’t have a website yet, you’re missing out on a huge chance to make your personal brand known.

Statistics show that 40% of people don’t trust businesses and service providers who don’t have online presence. 

It’s also interesting to point out that 75% of internet users who seek services online judge brands by their web design and how it fits with their overall business.

This means that you need a freelance website and it needs to look good.

Even if you can’t spend a lot of money on professional website development, there are opportunities to create a solid online presence fast.

In some instances, you’ll only have to spend a bit of cash on hosting and domain registration.

If you’re looking for ways to put together a freelance website quickly and without spending a ton of money, here are some of the best ways and tools you should be using.

WordPress: The Best Option

Let’s start with one of the most popular choices first – WordPress. You can decide on building a WordPress website right now and have it ready by the end of the day.

WordPress is a free platform that gives you an easy way to create a blog or a website fast. It has a simple panel you can master without having any website development experience and it’s used on 455 million sites.

Dragging and dropping elements allows you to customize your website and portfolio in any way you deem appropriate.

When you choose WordPress, you’ll gain access to lots of free designs for your freelance website. And if you don’t like those, you can always purchase a premium template to give your site a more unique vibe.

The only things you’ll need to pay for when using WordPress are a domain name and hosting. You can host your website on WordPress.com but this isn’t the most professional way as your site url will look like this:

wordpress.com/your-business-name

WordPress has lots of plugins and tools you can use to enhance your website, do marketing or search engine optimization.

Once again, there are premium options that you can buy via a single payment or monthly subscriptions. These make sense for more complex sites, but you can always start out for free and buy plugins or premium tools as you go.

Use a Free Website Builder

The good news is that the website builder market is becoming more diversified and you can find many solutions that are free or very inexpensive.

Here are some of the best website builders you can try out to put together your online portfolio. Once again, you’ll only need to buy a domain and pay for hosting for most of these.

Wix: over time, Wix has established itself as one of the best free website builders out there. You can opt out for premium subscription packages that give you access to more features and premium hosting.

The editor is once again a drag and drop tool and you also get various themes to choose from. These can be customized as much as you want to give your website some personality and uniqueness.

Keep in mind that the free Wix account adds an ad at the top portion of your website. If this is something you’d like to avoid, a premium account would be the only way to go.

Weebly: when it comes to free builders, Weebly is also worth testing out. It’s very user-friendly and perfect for small business owners who don’t need to put together a complex site.

Just like Wix, Weebly gives you access to a free plan and there are also premium subscriptions (including hosting) that cost anywhere between $5 and $25.

The free builder gives you access to 500MB of storage, a free SSL security certificate and domain with the Weebly branding.

Once again, you’ll have a drag and drop tool that can be mastered effortlessly and regardless of your experience level.

Jimdo: if you’re looking for some option that’s a bit more high-tech, try Jimdo. It’s advertised as a free website builder that’s powered by artificial intelligence (AI).

What exactly does this mean to you as a freelancer who’s trying to put together an online portfolio?

Well, for a start, Jimdo is supposedly created for those who are self-employed.

It’s perfect for putting together a personal website or a small online shop. The Jimdo coding editor is easy to master but it does give you a bit less control than the previous two choices.

Also, there aren’t as many limited choices for design or templates as the other three sites mentioned above.

The plus is that the free version comes with ads that are a lot more subtle than what you’ll get with other editors. Just check Jimdo out to decide if it’s the one for you.

Site123: anyone looking for excellent 24/7 support will like Site123. This tool is great for beginners who still would like to get a lot of creative freedom and control over the appearance of their website.

Again, there’s a free version with a drag and drop editor. If you opt for it, the website will feature a fairly subtle ad. They also have paid subscriptions that start at $8 per month.

If you upgrade to premium, you’ll benefit from additional storage and bandwidth, a free domain name for one year and e-commerce options that aren’t available for free.

These are just the four well-known alternatives to WordPress. You can test them out and see if they’re something for you, but there are many more website builders out there.

It’s really up to you to check out a few demo versions and determine which one is the best-suited for your needs and portfolio.

Also, if you’re using a particular hosting platform or service provider, make sure that the website builder you choose is compatible with that. Most hosting providers offer a 1-click solution for these sites, but some are more complex.

Hire a Freelancer to Develop Your Site

As a freelancer yourself, you know already that hiring a professional is often a much better option than the DIY approach.

Freelance website developers offer you the best price to quality ratio. If you don’t know how to put a website on your own or you simply lack the time, partnering up with a freelancer or paying for their services would be the best option.

Choosing this opportunity also allows you to grow your professional network – a perk that can potentially pay off in the future.

Large web development agencies often charge upwards of $80 / hr for their services because they’re including all kinds of different services inside their ‘’website development’’ packages.

Freelancers, on the other hand, will give you a more approachable price and offer better one-to-one support.
You have two options when it comes to development

1. Build your site from scratch.

2. Get help to customize a theme. 

It’s a good idea to consult a few people (you can post a project on a website like Upwork or hire someone on Fiverr) to get detailed quotes and a better idea about what can be built for your budget.

If you want your website to be optimized for search engines and rank high in your city, working with a freelance SEO expert will help you get good results.

When the job is completed successfully, you should see an excellent return on investment in the form of visitors and clients to your site.

Learn Basic Coding

Here’s one final idea that can come in handy.

Learning basic coding is a great idea if you want to expand your skill set. There are numerous tutorials and courses online you can complete in your spare time.

Basic coding will allow you to build a simple website from scratch or customize WordPress templates (or any other template for that matter) effortlessly.

Maintaining your online presence is ongoing business. You can’t just put together a portfolio website once and call it a day. In the future, you’ll have to modify the design and the features to reflect the current trends.

Coding isn’t too difficult to master, especially if you’re at least a little bit technically-inclined. And who knows, if you discover that you’re good at it, you can easily broaden the scope of services made available to your clients.

Having a website that you feel proud of isn’t that difficult to accomplish. Just determine which web development approach is best-suited to your needs and budget.

If you have the time, consider creating the website on your own. This way, your online presence will carry your personality. Obviously, that’s the right way to win clients over but only if it looks good and credible.