Websites
Website for solo professionals: the minimum that brings clients
The five pages a freelancer or solo practitioner needs, how to add booking and reviews, and what each budget under $5,000 buys, from do-it-yourself to custom.
A solo professional needs a smaller website than most people think: five pages, a way to book or contact you in two taps, proof that other clients trusted you, and a Google Business Profile that points to it. That's enough for a coach, therapist, photographer, consultant, tutor, designer or tradesperson working alone to turn searches and referrals into booked clients. Everything beyond that is optional until the basics work. Here is the minimum page set, the booking and review setup, and what you get at each budget under $5,000.
What the site has to do
For most solo professionals, new clients come from three places: referrals, a Google search for the service in their area, and social media. In all three cases, the person lands on your site already half-interested and checks three things before contacting you:
- Is this person good at what I need?
- Can I afford them, or at least, are they in my range?
- How do I book, and how fast?
A site that answers those three questions in under a minute on a phone does its job. A site with ten pages of philosophy and a contact form at the bottom doesn't.
The minimum page set
Home
The first screen states what you do, for whom, and where (or "online"), with one main button: book, call or request a quote. Below it: a short list of services, two or three short client reviews, a photo of you, and the same button again.
Services and prices
One section per service: what it includes, how long it takes, who it's for, and a price or a "from" price. Publishing prices filters out people outside your range and saves you discovery calls that go nowhere. If your work is custom, give typical ranges and what moves the price.
About
A real photo of you, your background in a few sentences, your training or certifications, and why you do this work. For a solo professional, the About page is often the second most visited page: clients are hiring a person, not a company.
Proof
A portfolio, case examples, before-and-after photos, credits, or detailed client reviews, depending on your field. Quality beats quantity: five strong examples with a sentence of context each are better than forty thumbnails.
Contact and booking
Your booking calendar, phone number, email, the area you serve, and your response time. On a phone, the button to book or call should never be more than one scroll away.
Privacy policy
If your site collects names and emails through a form or a booking tool, it needs a privacy policy that says what you collect, why, and who else receives it (your booking or email tool, for example).
Booking: let people commit while they're interested
The biggest improvement most solo professionals can make is replacing "contact me to book" with a real booking calendar. People decide in the moment, often in the evening, and an email exchange to find a time loses some of them.
- A free tier is often enough to start. Calendly's free plan, for example, includes one event type, one calendar connection and a customizable booking page. Paid plans start at US$10 per seat per month and add more event types and integrations.
- Offer one or two appointment types, such as a free 20-minute call and a paid first session. Too many choices slows people down.
- Add buffers between appointments and a minimum notice period, so you don't get booked for tomorrow at 8 a.m. at 11 p.m. tonight.
- Ask two or three questions at booking (what they need, how they heard about you), not ten.
- Turn on reminders. Reminder emails or texts reduce no-shows.
- Take a deposit for paid sessions if no-shows are a problem in your field.
Reviews: where they live and how to get them
Reviews do more for a solo professional than any design choice.
- Set up your Google Business Profile. You don't need a storefront: Google lets businesses that visit or serve clients without a public address create a profile as a service-area business and hide the address. If you work from a shared clinic or studio, Google's guidelines explain how individual practitioners are listed.
- Ask every client, at the right moment (right after a good outcome), with a direct link. Make it one tap.
- Follow Google's rules. Google's policy forbids offering incentives such as discounts or free services for reviews, and forbids selectively asking only happy clients. Ask everyone, and reply to every review, including the critical ones.
- Show the best ones on your site with the client's first name and context, with their permission.
What each budget buys
Do it yourself
About $300 to $700 for the first year: a website builder plus your own time. Squarespace, for example, lists plans from CA$21 a month on annual billing (CA$30 month to month), and its annual plans include a free domain for the first year. Add a free or low-cost booking tool.
Good for: testing an idea, a very simple service, or a tight budget. The risk is the time it takes and a generic result that looks like every other template in your field.
A freelancer or a template-based build
About $1,500 to $3,000. A designer sets up a template with your content, photos and booking. Usually five to eight pages, one language.
Good for: most solo professionals starting out. Check who owns the domain and the builder account (it should be you), and whether you can edit text yourself.
Custom design
About $3,000 to $5,000 for a site designed around your field and your clients, with writing help, better photography direction, booking, a review section and basic search setup. In Canada, a second language usually fits in this range only if the site stays small.
Good for: professionals whose clients compare carefully before choosing (therapists, consultants, high-end creatives), or anyone whose current site is losing them work.
These ranges reflect what we see quoted to solo professionals in Canada. Above $5,000, you're usually paying for e-commerce, a custom content system, film or illustration, or several languages.
What you can skip at first
- A blog, unless you will actually publish every month. An empty blog dated two years ago hurts more than no blog.
- A newsletter signup, until you have something to send.
- Animations and video backgrounds that slow the site down on a phone.
- Ten service pages when you sell three things.
When the minimum isn't enough
Add more when one of these is true: you sell products or packages online, you serve clients in two languages, your field is very competitive in local search, or you rely on content to attract clients. Even then, start from the five pages above and add only what has a clear job.
Two examples from PNE's work
Matina reads tarot, astrology and numerology at her table in Athens or by video call, and makes candles and rituals. Her site, built by PNE in Greek and English, lets clients book a session and shop the candles from the same place. See the Matina's Ritual project.
For Firuz Ali Nazar, an actor, the audience is casting directors who give a site about thirty seconds, usually on a phone between auditions. The site loads headshots, reels and credits fast, plays reels without downloads, and lets him update credits himself. Different field, same principle: the site does one job for one reader, quickly. See the Firuz Ali Nazar project.
PNE's website design service builds sites like these for solo professionals: custom design, booking, a content system you can update yourself, and the search setup that helps clients find you.