Being transparent is very important for any business, in fact, I believe it should be a fundamental part of every human being. Being honest and upfront will always pay off and be a huge advantage.
In translation is no different, especially when a lot of us work as freelancers and we are the face of our business. It is paramount that we sell our services in an honest and transparent way, this is also part of our Code of Ethics.
A very important part of this is having a presence online. Everything “happens online” these days and we need to be there, so possible clients see us and know who we are. In other words, the website is the shopfront of the 21st Century.
But having a website alone is not enough if we don’t provide all possible information to possible clients, so they can make up their mind. And there’s where transparency comes about. An honest, simple, clean and transparent website will show our possible clients who we are and how serious we are about our business.
In my opinion, the main features of a website in this industry should be our professional information, the services we provide, our pricing and a contact form, so clients can contact us. But why are they so important?
A professional profile page will allow possible clients to learn about us. They will know about our qualifications, interests and other valuable professional information about us and the services we provide. A page dedicated to the services is also very good, as it details all the services provided by us and enables clients to ascertain if we are the right person for them or not. Pricing. I know opinions may diverge on this, and lots of colleagues don’t provide pricing in their pages. There’s no right or wrong here, each professional conducts their business the way they think fit. At Updated Words, we agreed it would be more transparent to have a price list page, that would enable our clients to make their own calculations and have an idea of the costs they would incur if they hired us. This also allows clients to compare the prices quoted to our published price list and verify it is exactly the same. This way, they are assured there won’t be any surprises. To finish, a simple contact form will be an immediate point of contact between us and our clients and a way of simplifying things.
At Updated Words we also have Terms & Conditions. This is a document that will help us reinforce the rules in our Code of Ethics, such as privacy, professionalism and honesty, but also enables the client to know our rules.
At the end of the day, if the clients feel confident and happy about us, they will come back.
Cátia