I talked myself out of a web design job today, and I did it deliberately. The lady simply didn’t NEED a full website, so I recommended she use her LinkedIn profile instead. Perhaps this strategy might be appropriate for you or someone you know.
The lady – I’ll call her Pat – is retired and does consulting. Most of her work comes from word of mouth and the connections she’s made over the years. But occasionally someone asks if she has a website, so Pat decided it was time to look into what was involved in getting one.
Pat wants nothing more than an online brochure, so to speak. She doesn’t see herself using the site as a marketing tool and doesn’t care if it comes up in searches for consultants in her industry. She doesn’t anticipate updating it often. Pat just wants a professional way to show people her background and credentials, and wants to make it easy for them to contact her.
Fleshing out her LinkedIn profile would be an easy – and free – way to deliver all the content she needs. So I suggested that as her first step.
Then what she can do is buy a domain name – preferably her own name, in her case – at a domain name registrar such as Godaddy. But instead of buying hosting and developing a site, she can redirect (forward) that new domain name so that it takes people to her LinkedIn page.
That’s it! She’ll have a professional domain name to put on her business cards, at a cost of less than $15/year. She can get a matching email address for $12/year. So for less than $30 she has all she needs.
Of course going this route doesn’t give you the flexibility that developing your own website does. You’re locked into using LinkedIn’s format and there’s no guarantee it won’t change tomorrow.
But she can always develop a website later, and in the meantime it should work just fine for her.