When freelancers decide to build a personal website, the first instinct is often to add everything: a long list of pages, a skills chart, a shop and a newsletter pop-up. Most of it quietly works against you. Visitors have little time and little patience, so every page has to earn its place.
Here are the six pages I would build for almost any freelancer, what each one should do, and a few extras you can safely skip.
1. Home: the five-second pitch
Your home page is a summary, not a biography. Include a headline that says what you do and for whom, two or three of your best projects, a short list of services, one testimonial and a clear contact button. Everything else lives on its own page. Resist the urge to cram: white space is not wasted space, it tells visitors you are confident enough not to shout.
2. Work: your proof
A single page showing six to nine projects as image cards is enough. Let people filter if you cover several disciplines. Order matters, so lead with the work that looks like the jobs you want. If you are short of client work, a few well-explained personal projects are better than silence. Label each card with the client, your role and the year, because those three details answer most of a prospect’s quiet questions before they click.
3. Case studies: your thinking
Give your best projects their own pages. Explain the problem, your approach, the solution and what changed afterwards. The Meridian Studio redesign is a good model: short, visual and focused on decisions rather than software.
4. About: the human behind the work
People hire people. Share a real photo, a short story, how you like to work and a few details that make you memorable. Keep skills and tools as plain text with examples. A bar showing “90% Photoshop” tells a client nothing, while a sentence about what you made with it does. You can see one approach on the about page here.
5. Services: what they can buy
Clients should never have to guess what you offer. On a small site, services work well as a section on the home page. Give each one a plain name, a sentence on the benefit and a typical deliverable. Add a starting price or timeline if you are comfortable, because it filters out poor fits.
6. Contact: the reason the site exists
A short form, an email address and one quick channel such as WhatsApp are plenty. Ask only for name, email, project type, budget and a message. Say when people can expect a reply, and send yourself a test message from your phone before launch, because a broken form silently costs more projects than any design flaw. The contact page on this site also shows a call-booking idea you can borrow.
The six pages at a glance
| Page | Its job | Must include |
|---|---|---|
| Home | Create interest fast | Headline, best work, one testimonial, contact button |
| Work | Show range and quality | Six to nine projects, clear categories |
| Case study | Prove your thinking | Problem, approach, solution, result |
| About | Build trust | Photo, story, how you work |
| Services | Remove guesswork | Offers, deliverables, starting point |
| Contact | Start the conversation | Form, email, reply time |
What you can skip, at least at first
- A shop. Unless you sell products, it adds maintenance and little else.
- A giant blog. A few genuinely useful articles beat fifty thin ones. If you write, make each piece practical, like the posts on my blog.
- Skill percentage bars. They are impossible to compare and easy to doubt.
- Pop-ups and auto-playing music. They interrupt the one thing visitors came to do.
Two small pages people forget
Add a friendly 404 page that links back to your work and contact details, so a mistyped address does not become a dead end. If your form collects personal data, add a short privacy note explaining what you do with it.
Start small, then grow
Launch with these pages, collect feedback from a few friendly clients, and add more only when you notice a real gap. If you would like a hand shaping your own site, tell me about it and I will point you in the right direction. Treat the first version as a draft you will improve, not a monument: sites that go live imperfectly beat perfect ones that never leave your laptop.
