Wanted: Web designer to build 7-page website. All designs are finalized, just need someone to create site from PSD files. Need work done within 7 days for between $250 and $750.
Then there were all the bids from the various freelancers who wanted to work on the job. There were some bids to finish in 7 days for $750. Most bids were 2-3 days for around $350-$500. But there were 2 bids for 1 day turnaround and $250.
As a client, unless I could see some obvious reason not to hire them (like really bad ratings or no experience or I knew them and didn't like their work), I would go with the 1-day $250 bid. That's a no-brainer for most people.
But as a freelancer, how do you compete with something like that? What are the techniques that you use to compete with these low-ball bidders? Personally, I made a choice many years ago to not get business from those types of sites. My bids would never be in the lowest price-range and chances are I'd never get hired anyway, so I decided not to use them. And I've done alright. But how do you handle it?
There’s no mention in the product spec for elegance of implementation, so what’s to stop you from using a simple photoshop based plugin to translate the PSD provided into raw html, and then integrate that into a simple template for a standard CMS? It would be ugly, but it would be fast and it would work and nobody who didn’t click “view source” would probably ever notice how badly done it was.
You get what you pay for, in the end.
I actually came to your site today to get a question like this answered. I love, love, love web design and development; and I’ve finally chosen to buckle down and study it with an intent on changing careers. However, these freelance sites (which I’m familiar with because of the work I currently do) have made me question whether or not I’m making the right decision.
Will I make it as a newbie designer/developer when there are others who will charge less (for whatever reason)?
The answer? Who knows! But as long as I bring ethical business sense to the table, I should be okay…..I hope :/
I have done some sites that were provided as psd files. The pages were all the same so I created a template from one page, so only the main content changed. As long as the PSD is not extremely complex and maintains consistence, not too bad. 250 for a 1-day turnaround is just insane though.
Here is an excerpt from the transcript of a podcast episode on Web Design Services and Price for release in 2009:
Don’t buy, or sell, your custom web design services based on price. At least one of you is likely to end up disappointed.
My advice for novice designers is don’t give up or be discouraged if you want a career in web design. Learn your craft to the latest standards of xhtml with css, and then aim for a tableless design that complies to W3C standards for valid code without errors, or near zero errors. Then you will have an edge selling web design services based on quality at a fair price.
From experience, your happy clients will send you more customers.
@K – I can understand why this concerns you, but unless part of your business plan is to gain work through these sites, don’t worry about it. If the client values you that low do you want to work with them?
A sustainable web design business should be based on building relationships with your clients. Getting to know them, thier business and producing a high quality of work will soon enable you to build up a core of good quality repeat clients for whom you are a trusted adviser as well as teh ‘geek in the corner’.
I position myself as an internet marketing expert, and study everything that I can get my hands on pertaining to web marketing, especially for small business. When I bid a job, I make certain the client understands that I will be helping them create an effective site. I also will mention right up front that some of my competitors charge lower prices, if their only goal is to have a site.
I lose jobs to low-ballers, but the jobs I get are great clients who understand my worth. The low-ballers are not going away, so website developers/designers need to make a choice: compete on price, or separate yourself from the crowd.
I think that $250 for a days work is pretty awesome if you are just building a site. 7 pages and it’s all done for you is a no brainer. What are you complaining about? Im curious. Becuase anyone who should be bidding on a job like that should be able to get that done in like 4 hours… max!
How do you compete against such an offer of $250 with a one day turn around? A money back guarantee is one such way. Another way is through offering optimized, validated coding. There is nothing worse then spending money and having no visitors because the site does not work under their platform (browser and operating system). Gone are the days when one can assume the end-user is using the ever popular Windows/IE combination. What about users of other operating systems/browsers? What about users using screen readers. You can lose a lot of users if the site is not optimized.
There are also optimizations on the business end that can be made. Lower your overhead. Or better yet, not compete with those low-ballers at all.
How about offering incentives if they are not satisfied with the lower-price offer? Thinking outside the box is perhaps the key. You need to have something that separates you from the rest and it better not be price/turn around alone.