Ten Tips for building your business in 2015 with Perch

Our focus with Perch and Runway is to be the best option for freelancers and agencies who build websites for clients. Working as an agency was our background, and we love to help our Perchers develop successful businesses. Here are ten tips to help you and your business have a brilliant 2015.

1: Check in with past clients

If you tend to work on a project basis, it can be easy to complete a job and then move on. Past clients may well have things in mind that you could help with – but might not think to ask. Look over your client list from the past couple of years, if there is anyone you haven’t spoken to in the last few months drop them a line – find out how things are going for them.

Some of the ideas in the rest of this post might help you think up additional services to offer.

2: Start a regular email list

Email is a really important way to keep your services in front of people. A regular email can be a simple way to ensure people don’t forget what you do. Send out small tips or links to things that would be useful to clients or the type of people who would be ideal clients Also include a mention of any new services you offer with an invitation to get in touch.

Take a look at the Perch MailChimp App, which can make it easy for you to integrate MailChimp with your site.

3: Check your SEO

SEO can sometimes have a bit of a bad name, however all of us who run websites or build them for clients need to keep what Google and friends are up to in mind. This great article on 24 ways explains more.

We’ve been adding to Perch recently some features that can really help you fine-tune SEO. For example why not include the markup for Rich Snippets in your templates?

Spend some time fine-tuning your own site and then you can offer those services to clients too.

4: Offer clients a free “annual review”

January is a fantastic time to offer clients an annual review. This can take the form of a short questionnaire asking your client about their goals for the coming year. In return you send them back some advice – which naturally will include things you could help with.

You could do the review via Skype, or even face to face if you work with local clients.

Your client will feel they have had a little bit of free consultancy, they will be reminded of what you do – and about extra things you can help with. You will also know more about the goals your clients have, putting you in a great position to sell them services that match up with those goals.

5: Updating out of date Perch sites

It’s always a great idea to keep an third party software that you use up to date. While we haven’t had an security issue with Perch that means you need to upgrade, we fix little things all of the time.

If you don’t have an ongoing contract with a client – why not drop them a line and offer an inexpensive update at a fixed price? You may find that opens the door to further work.

Remember that if you do have any clients using Perch 1, we’re ending support for that product in May 2015.

6: Review your processes

Perch lead developer Drew McLellan opened 24 ways this year with a roundup of tips for modern website development.

Whether you are planning a move to using Vagrant locally, want to get started with Git, or think it might be time to give your contract a once-over there are tips in this article for you.

7: Move to more robust deployment strategies

Also on 24 ways is my guide to moving away from using FTP to deploy your websites. Implementing the process I describe in that article will only take a few hours and should save you time and energy all year.

8: Making the move to Perch Runway

If you or any of your clients have a site that has grown a lot since launch, then an upgrade to Perch Runway has many benefits.

We’ve worked hard to make sure that upgrading is as easy as possible. Your templates and design shouldn’t need changing and you will get all of the great features such as backup to Dropbox, Collections and more. Upgrading a site just means paying the difference between the cost of a Perch license and a Runway one (we don’t think you should pay a penalty for having a site that has grown!)

9: Grab a deal for your personal portfolio or agency site

If you are not currently using Perch for your own portfolio site then we have a deal for you. Take a look here and drop us a line if you fancy updating your own site ready for a busy New Year.

10: Tell the Perch team how we can help you!


In order to be the best solution for freelancers and agencies, the most important thing we can do is to talk to you. Over the last year most of the additions and changes to Perch have been down to the things you asked for.

Post feature requests to the forum, ask us questions for the podcast by emailing hello@grabaperch.com and make sure we know what will make Perch even better for you. We look forward to working with you in 2015!