Promotion is Important for Freelance Web Designers

I saw free one too many times. People who offer free sites mess it up for those who charge for a site. Many times, clients will gravitate towards the free sites and the sites are not well structured. Just an overall bad name for designers. Plus, it brings down the price for skilled designers.

If you want to get clients, you can offer special deals. But don’t offer free web sites.

I couldn’t agree more. I have, in the past, offered a few free sites to get my name out there and have wound up regretting each and everyone of these deals, as these wound up being the most demanding and hardest to please customers I have.

I agree that it’s not a good idea to get into the habit of offering your services for free.

But on the other hand, I don’t know any Web designers who became successful freelancers without designing some Web sites for no money, especially the first ones they ever did.

If you are a successful (read full-time and or making a living wage) freelance Web designer who has never built any Web pages for no money, I’d love to hear how you did it. What was your secret? How did you convince your first clients that you knew enough to build a site for them?

I worked in a company as a web designer.

Instead of offering sites for free, a freelancer could design template sites as a display. I have a friend who blogged and earned client’s trust from his writings on the blog. He also participated in several forums which helped. Another friend volunteered as a web designer for a non-profit. This is different from offering a free site to clients.

Honestly, I feel that having company experience makes a freelancer that much better than jumping straight into freelancing.

Some great tips here. In Melbourne and Sydney in Australia there is stiff competition between web designers and developers. You have to have an edge to stick out from the pack. SEO and click campaigns might get you exposure but converting those visits to a qualified lead is not always easy. Thanks for the advice!

Do all your various articles and tutorials
have any help for someone trying to erect a
site for personal details etc?

Hi Walter,

In terms of the details to learn, such as design, HTML, and CSS, there is no difference between building a business site and a personal site.

I don’t have any articles suggesting what you might write on a personal site. But About.com does have a Personal Web Pages Guide who does talk about that type of thing. http://personalweb.about.com/ She also discusses some of the HTML and CSS you might use on a personal Web page, although not in as much detail as I do. She also covers other tools like blogging tools and things like MySpace that I don’t go into much at all.

Another way is to go on some freelance sites. (google it), and offer your services for a discount price. The competition is hard, as people will bid very low against you on a project, but there is plenty of work, and you get your name out. I’m 19, and thats how I started. Now my business is getting me through college at least.

I decided from day one to have a niche market, web design & SEO marketing for women. This has proven to be very beneficial, as I knew I could not compete with the “big guys.” I also offer free SEO and marketing analysis for exisiting websites. Blogging, forums, and article writing in my niche has provided trust and networking. I offer 3 free websites to non-profits for groups I care about. Very beneficial for everyone involved!

Almost all of my clients are local (within like 50 miles)and I live in a very rural area. Join the local chambers of commerce who will always promote their members. Many chambers promote the idea of “thinking local” and supporting your local businesses. In spite of being able to get a designer anywhere worldwide, most clients are much more comfortable choosing a local designer. And let’s face it, word of mouth is better than any advertising! If you do a good job locally, the “word” will spread – and it’s a great feeling helping a business owner you might run into around town. A casual conversation with him/her often turns into more business.

Joining the local chamber is a great idea unless of course you live in a tech-savvy city like Austin.

Everyone in this town is a graphic designer, or everyone here is a web designer, or everyone here thinks they can make their own fully functional site using MS Word, Publisher or even worse FrontPage

I also recommend going after a local niche market. I have geared my business towards the music industry and have found that while musicians rank highly among starving artists, they also dont mind paying reasonable prices for professional services!

Instead of giving away your service for free, use your skills for your own benefit.

With a good skill set and the time that unemployment offers, you could create several projects that will show of your skills without undermining the work.

Your primary goal is your own website, and if you do not have a large portfolio of other sites to put on it, try to use it to show off your skills instead. Blog style sites work great for this, and while your content might be boring (no one likes to read about your cat), you can make the design and function outstanding.

The same goes for your hobby. If you are a web designer, you are likely a creative type. Start up a photography website that shows off your Flash skills.

You might be a video game lover! Create a fansite for your favorite video game. Market it so that you have a large user base or high number of daily hits.

While doing websites for free is one way, you are both under selling yourself, and the industry. Besides, if you had a few examples already, those clients might have paid for your work!

Working with clients can also be very frustrating, and the end results of your site may not look anything like what you want it to, and you may end up not wanting to show it to anyone! With your own creative control, the sky is the limit.

Web design is a very competitive industry, but those who are very good at it, tend to reap the rewards. If you don’t find yourself producing work that is of a very high standard, you can find yourself out in the rain.

Practice makes better. No one’s perfect.

I agree with Jason. I did all my first sites for myself. I mean if you are going to go into business for yourself, then you’ve got what it takes to start a few niche affiliate sites.

I’m still making money from the first site I ever did. I’m not showing it becuae it isn’t very pretty and I don’t care too much as it pays me a decent check (at one time it was bringing me $1000 per month) not bad for a portfolio site.

Never do free unless like Lori, you have an intrinsic reason for doing so.

I’ve found in several businesses (I used to be a personal trainer, insurance broker, microbiologist, ad copywriter)…that charging more actually gets me better clients who complain less and are more easily pleased. It’s the low budget people who complain the most, are the hardest to please and generally make life miserable.

Kevin:

Great point: I’ve found in several businesses (I used to be a personal trainer, insurance broker, microbiologist, ad copywriter)…that charging more actually gets me better clients who complain less and are more easily pleased. It’s the low budget people who complain the most, are the hardest to please and generally make life miserable.

I have found that as well. People who want things for free often want everything for free, while people who are willing to pay recognize the value of what they’re buying.

I have found that creating your own portfolio of sites can give you something to show. Make up a few ‘imaginary’ businesses and design a front page for those businesses. Or do a full out website for these ‘imaginary’ endeavours. It not only gives you a portfolio to show, but it also gives you some templates to work with if somebody should like one of them. If they were to choose one of the templates you already have fixed up, then you could drop the price and save them some money.

Trying to advertiste to local media, google adwords, newspapers and also send flyers to companies that you know that have not any website

Just make lots of sites free of cost for advertising agencies news papers and otther campaining agencies in leiu of free adertising contract with them.

PROVEN AND TESTED SOLUTION

Another great site for finding web design customers is MyNerdSearch.com. People who are looking to have a website built go there and submit their project details, and then web designers cn use the information to contact them with a quote.

When I first started i had to design sites for free for almost a year just to have some kind of portfolio, if your designs are good it will pay off

Here in Toronto, competition is fierce. You really need to stand out from the rest. To do this, you must have a combination of both great creative and technical skills. The M5V area code has roughly 100 web design companies/agencies.

I actually have some college examples and some I did on my own just to get some kind of portfolio but still no business. I changed my website to a blog site in Word press but all I get is advertisements. I really have no idea what to do to get business besides driving around the city putting out flyers and business cards, any ideas?

I think we should not provide service for free neither do we should provide it for very low cost.the way i figured out is that we should charge very low in starting and as we grow up and have big contacts we can come to normal rates

Use your skills for your own benefit and creat great campaigns

Send an emails to other web design and development companies around your area to set up referral relationships. Other developers appreciate the interest and contact even if it doesn’t work out.

Never volunteer or work for free. The “client” will use you and discard you. They don’t value what they get for free and think it’s a joke. Most small business owners do not understand the hours of work that go into building a beautiful functioning website and don’t know WordPress from Joomla and do not care. If you offer something for nothing, you get back nothing and disrespect yourself. I have tried to build “partnerships” with other companies offering my services for free in exchange for referrals and they literally laugh at you; and then they wanted a perfect website, a custom logo design, ten to fifteen pages of text with resized images in each page, a custom Constant contact form and subscription page, e-commerce and so on. I was the one not valuing what I could do. I will never work for free again or volunteer again, even if it means I never work again as a web developer.