Use the exercises in our free workbook to identify the right freelance rates for you.
The email you entered is invalid.
Thank you for subscribing.
By entering your email, you indicate that you have read and understood our Privacy Policy and agree to receive marketing from Squarespace.
Running a client-focused business comes with many moving pieces to manage, from building trust in your expertise to engaging leads and managing your projects. With the right tools, you can reach more clients, simplify your intake and invoicing workflows, and dedicate more time to growing your business.
1. A professional online presence
A website is a great tool to signal the legitimacy of your business. Fill it with examples of your work and testimonials, and highlight the experience that makes you an expert in your field.
A website also makes it easier to show every service you offer in one central place and get discovered via search. Use a template designed for service providers to launch a professional-looking site quickly. Then, you can focus on setting up your offerings.
A social media account dedicated to your business is another good way to establish a professional presence for yourself and reach potential clients. Add a link in bio tool that links directly to your intake form to reduce DMs and drive more potential clients back to your website.
See key tips for making a site for your services
2. Marketing strategy
Once your website is up and running, you can start attracting potential clients to your page. There are a few ways to start bringing interested customers to your website.
Optimize your website for SEO. Include phrases in your website copy that would help someone find your site. For example, a wedding photographer might include phrases clients often search—like “wedding photo packages” and “travel, wedding, and elopement photographer”—on their web pages.
Encourage word-of-mouth recommendations. Let friends and family know you’ve started your business and ask for referrals. Add interested referrals to your email list and send them promotions for your services.
Share to social media. Share recent projects and interact with followers and peers to start creating relationships with your followers and potential clients.
See more ways to market your service offerings
3. Collect leads and manage projects
To turn your website visitors into leads, make sure there’s an easy-to-find intake form on your website. Intake forms allow clients to reach out to you and help you to get important client information upfront. When a lead submits a form on a Squarespace site, it gets stored in your account and you can quickly review the form and start working with your potential client.
You can start out with a simple form and basic questions, then expand upon it as you start to find common questions coming up with leads. Or add form fields that will help you vet whether you and a client will be a good fit.
In websites designed for booking services, intake forms already include questions that are important to growing businesses. If you want to make edits, form customization options are optimized for client booking, so you can add questions and form fields for key details like budget and file uploads.
After form submission you can share more information with your client about your services with proposals and use project tracking tools to help you organize your work. You can track upcoming milestones and deadlines, as well as project notes, all from the project detail page.
4. Proposals, estimates, and contracts
From vetting a client to working with them, Squarespace’s proposals, estimates, and contracts help you show off your work and lock in your agreement in a way that is professional and reflects your brand.
Our proposals allow you to showcase what you offer, how you work, previous clients, and pricing or packages. Estimates are more common for custom projects, where pricing is more variable. When you’re ready to make it official, your contract is a way to set clear expectations for you and your client.
On Squarespace, you can create any of these documents and link them to a project, then send them to a client for signature from your dashboard. You’ll get a template agreement to customize with relevant details and your branding, which you can duplicate for future projects.
Learn more about creating client documents
5. Invoicing and payment tracking
On Squarespace, you can easily get paid. From initial deposits to secure your project with the client to payments for the full scope of work, you can use the client invoicing dashboard to send and track invoices.
Invoices make it easy to accept payments from clients in a secure, professional format. And you can maintain a consistent brand presence with an invoice that matches your brand design. In one click, you can customize your invoice to match your site styles.
On Squarespace, you can manage every invoice from the dashboard and allow clients to pay easily. If you take payments with Squarespace Payments, you can offer multiple payment methods, including ACH Direct Debit. That gives clients trusted options to choose from and can help you reduce payment processing fees while looking professional.
After the final invoice, remember to send your client a thank you note and request feedback or a testimonial while you’re still top-of-mind.
Ready to start offering your services on Squarespace?