You Get More Clients When Your Brain Is Searchable

Search is ubiquitous.

We all search when we need information, then we use that information to make a decision. Simply put, there’s power in search.

Search is a simple task, but it’s also comprehensive enough to give us important data that is not otherwise presented to us.

As a freelancer — whether you’re an artist, designer, writer, or web developer that works with small businesses — the people hiring you love search. They use it to qualify you for a deal. Others might use it to check your website for credentials.

This means if your potential clients are using a website search to evaluate you, there’s an opportunity available.

You can think three steps ahead by controlling the client process.

1. Create content detailing everything you know on your site.
2. Add search code that makes it easy for visitors to find everything about you.
3. Present a well-polished design on each page and be viewed as a professional.

But there’s a problem with these steps.

It’s a lot of work to create enough content that is searchable.

This is exactly why I created ChipBot. There’s an easy, convenient way to take everything you know (i.e.: your brain) and copy it into a bot. You don’t need novels of content. And you can do it without constantly predicting what people might ask about your services.

Here are three examples ChipBot can better inform potential clients and get you more deals.

Throughout the post, we’ll use Lauren H.’s ChipBot, a freelance writer.

Most of us create long-form content because that’s how you fill out a page and make it look presentable. In ChipBot, it’s the opposite. Having short-form content can cover many topics and allows the user to search and browse with precision.

Why?

A single topic with 1-3 sentences is just enough information to satisfy a user’s question, but not too much where it distracts the user’s intent. Remember, you’re are on a time limit with the user’s attention span. Coincidentally, short content is also easy to write, usually around 60 seconds to address an answer.

Here’s Lauren, using ChipBot to create short-form content and present a searchable topic about copy editing and eBooks.

Having short-form content and making it searchable does 4 things for you:

1. Creates a sense of depth on the expertise you’re selling.
2. Makes it easy to pair with a question.
3. Incentivizes visitors to ask more questions.
4. Aims to guide users and not distract them from their ultimate destination.

You can take it one step further with ChipBot by adding image visuals and video responses for a more personal and professional touch.

Next, we’ll explore how to get your website visitors working for you by asking you questions, instead of you guessing what they’ll ask.

The first example demonstrated how short-form content can be used for search. This next example is going to demonstrate how to it with minimal resistance. It’s broken up into two key steps:

1. Automatically ask your users questions
2. At any time, see what those questions are

One of the key issues with content is what to write about. When you have both of these processes enabled on your website, you solve this problem.

Make your visitors tell you what they want.

Here’s an example of a notification showing up on Lauren’s blog when they scroll to a certain position.

This small notification augments the common dialog: “Do you have any questions for me?” …”yes I do, have you done any copy editing for Ebooks?”

When your website is automating this, you’re taking full advantage of technology collecting valuable audience data.

The second step is viewing these questions.

With ChipBot, every time your visitor asks a question, it logs it into a report that’s updated in real-time. Giving you intelligence on the context of these questions.

Email. LinkedIn Messages. Facebook Messenger. Twitter Replies.

There are so many communication channels and its draining repeating common answers every time.

So instead, anytime you get questions through other channels, redirect them to your short-form content instead of copying/pasting answers back to them.

When you link ChipBot content to other channels, it helps you:

1. Answer questions from email or social media without repeating yourself.
2. Collect feedback on that content.
3. Drive visitors to your website (i.e. when they close ChipBot, they get redirected to your website).

Here’s an example that’s split into two parts.

Say Lauren receives an email about the details of her Copywriting and Editing service. She can open to the specific ChipBot content then hit the “Expand” button to see a larger view of the topic.

She then clicks the “Copy Link” button on the right and then pastes this as part of her email response. The recipient in her messages then clicks the link, which opens her website up with the ChipBot content in a popup.

A couple of tips about linking content within messages:

• Only link back to ChipBot when the question needs a deeper response. Tease a bit of the content and then link to the full response. For example “I work on copy editing for eBooks, for more details, click this…”
• When you link out an answer, you can make the background content your portfolio content. So once they close the answer, they can see what you’ve done for other clients.

One final note about linkable content within ChipBot.

If you look at the last screenshot, you can see there’s an option to leave feedback. This is another way you can enable your audience to work for you. With ChipBot, it’s easy for your viewers to report typos, broken link issues, and missing content problems. All the feedback lands in your dashboard and your email.

Help your visitors make that important decision to hire you by giving them all the resources they need to qualify you. Don’t make them dig it out on the internet. Instead, gift it to them upfront with ChipBot without compromising on time or website design.

Add ChipBot and give your users a searchable brain that helps make you more money.