For many freelance web designers, there comes a point in your career when you decide to renew your focus, tighten up your business, and find new ways to scale up and grow. One way to do that is to focus on a niche market. For more on that, see my previous article, Skyrocket Your Freelance Business by Going Niche.

In this video, I look at the differences and advantages between a general web design business compared to a niche web design business.

In a general web design business, every client has different goals, every project has different requirements, and you as the web designer craft a different solution for each. In a niche web design business, we target a specific market who tends to have a similar set of goals and requirements. This way, you can design a similar solution that can be easily replicated to more clients.

What do you think? Let’s talk about it in the comments.

I had a problem. Two problems, actually. The first problem was that my wife and I needed to come up with just over $26,000 to meet our goal of getting out of debt in the next 3 1/2 months.

That was a problem because I was making just enough at my day job to get by. Which leads to my second problem, time, or rather – the lack thereof. Between a full-time job and a family, the time I had left to work towards our goal was limited.

We did it though. In the beginning of December, 2011, we paid off our last debt and, for the first time in our marriage, we were debt free.

How? On weeknights and on Sundays I built websites for clients. My time was limited and the amount of money I needed to make was high, so it was important to maximize the time that I spent on task. It meant a lot of late nights and sleep deprivation, to be sure, but we made it through and, looking back, I only regret that I didn’t do it sooner.

As I recently reflected back on that experience, I realized that the lessons I learned and the strategies I used to get my family out of debt were applicable beyond my situation. You can use them too.

If you need money and you’re short on time, I can’t think of anything better than building websites part time. Let’s look at how to do that efficiently with maximizing profit a top priority. Continue Reading

So you have worked hard to align every pixel, harmonize the white space, and to finalize the perfect logo. Now to launch your website….hmmm, how exactly?

I was getting closer to launching my first website. The site launch checklist had more and more lines scratched through the tasks. And yet there was a slight sense of doom gathering. I didn’t really know how to announce to the world that my site was about to go live, so I could then sit back and let the clients come knock’n at my door.

So you have worked hard to align every pixel, harmonize the white space, and to finalize the perfect logo. Now to launch your website….hmmm, how exactly?

In fact, I was sure that I couldn’t throw all my files into the FTP client and cross my fingers. I was also pretty sure that all the angst and anticipation of working hard on my ready to be launched site would end up a small squeak and a fizzle with me checking every 5 seconds to see if anyone had looked at it. I knew I needed a comprehensive plan on how to launch my freelance website.

I began searching every day for advice. Many articles online talk about the checklist of your website launch, the invaluable SEO keywords, etc. Ideally it would be nice to read how other people launched their sites without too many generalities.

So after working with clients to launch their start up sites, collecting tidbits from online, and preparing to launch my own site, I brainstormed different techniques and listed the steps I used to successfully launch my freelance site. Let’s take a look at this comprehensive list. Continue Reading

If you’re a freelance web designer like me, it’s likely that you have read a post online and put into practice an ultimate checklist for launching a website.

While it’s very important to proof read your website, do cross browser checks and validate your code before launching, there are also some important steps that must be taken with your client post launch. In this article, we’ll focus on how to handle the post site launch client communication and how to develop a strategy for this stage of follow-up.

This post project client follow-up was something I had taken lightly in the past. When a site was launched I’d send an email to my client that basically said “Your website is up and running, please email or call with issues or any small changes you require”.

What’s wrong with this?

I’ll tell you what’s wrong with it, it lacks feeling and it lacks important information that the client should be reminded of. So I sat down one day and constructed a canned response template in my email that empowered the all mighty greatness of launching a website.

First, I had to jot down some important facets I wanted in the email. What did I want the client to know? What kind of feedback do I want from the client? So I came up with the following list:

• Provide for the Client. Provide the client with the tools they will need to access their site and the tools to help them in the event you cannot. This is when I provide the client with all their account passwords and login information. I give them awesome links like the WP101 Basix Training or WP Ecommerce Video Tutorials.
• Remind the Client. One of my services is offering a short term complimentary maintenance of any website I design and launch. In reminding the client that I will be maintaining it, this ensures that the client knows I will not work for free after the 30 days. This gives them a small window of time to check the site for any changes they require. Within the email the date is recorded so this helps ease any miscommunication.

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You’re an adept, professional and fortunate freelance developer. As such, you’ve got loads of work on and everyone wants a part of you. But like all things, too much of something can also be a curse.

Early in your career, when your freelance business was smaller, and had only a handful of clients, life was simpler. You didn’t need an intense workflow to manage your projects from inception to delivery. But now all of that’s changed; you’re busy and it’s taking its toll.

Perhaps you, regularly, ask yourself some of these questions:

• Where does my time go?
• How can I spend more time in development and less time in administration?
• Why do I waste spend so much time administering projects instead of building and billing them?
• How can I simplify my workflow?
• How can I do what I do, but simpler, quicker, easier?

Well, there are a number of great resources available, but I want to focus on just one. If you’re familiar with Github (or even if you’re not) then today you’re in for a treat. A while ago Github introduced a new feature called Organizations and it’s a real godsend for us freelance developers.

The basic setup is quite good. The personal features allow us to share and collaborate fairly well. But the permission structure is, well to say the least, simple.

For example, recently I wanted to give a client view access only to one of my projects. Unfortunately, given that it was under a personal profile, they could either get full access or nothing. There was no middle ground. But organizations changes all that and I’m sure you’re going to love it. Here’s why:

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View engaging conference lectures, interesting how to discussions, and high quality freelance advice via video here on FreelanceSwitch.

This week we look at Startups on the Side with Toni Gemayel by FreelanceJam. In this inspiring video the FreelanceJam duo interview Toni Gemayel who has loads of experience as a freelancer and with launching successful ventures. He’s a full-time “startup scout” for Coloma Ventures which involves regular travel. He’s also someone who launches a lot of startups on the side, including ventures such as Fonadu. Continue Reading



I would like an e-commerce site just like someothershop.com – how much would that cost me?

It’s a common enough question, and one that always leads your average freelance web designer to take a deep breath and sigh ‘Well, let me see …’. There are many factors that influence the cost of an ecommerce web project, but when you communicate the vagaries to clients, there tend to be three that can have a huge impact – and are often only dealt with summarily: products, postage and payments. Continue Reading

Welcome to development 101. If you’ve been eyeing Ruby on Rails or HTML/CSS freelance positions popping up across the web, but don’t have the full skills yet, here are the best resources to help you gain trust, experience and know-how.

Front-End Web Development

Front-end development seems like the early tie in for freelancers transiting into web development. There is usually a ton of opportunity around this space, and the skills to be functional don’t take long to grasp. Becoming great at it does though.

Beginning as a front-end developer is a fantastic way to quickly make a difference in your approach to freelance work, and will hopefully get you started down the path of transitioning your freelance career moving forward.

Don’t Reinvent the Wheel

It’s extremely important to not re-invent the wheel when it comes to learning a new skill, especially when it comes to web development. It’s a difficult concept to sometimes rationalize, only because school’s have really emphasized that sharing and using someone else’s work are akin to stealing.

Definitely not the case here. There are some amazing, open source, frameworks you can begin using immediately to help launch you as a front-end freelancer.

Bootstrap

Bootstrap was created and released by Twitter specifically with you in mind. It’s an entirely open framework that handles all the foundational elements you need as a front-end developer.

They offer a great grid system to handle the structure of your website, they offer fluid and responsive design to build mobile versions, and offer a template of beautifully designed buttons, fields and more. Continue Reading

So you want to become a freelance web developer. Maybe you’re already a front-end developer and want to dig deeper into web applications, or maybe you’re a copy wiz and are eyeing the countless developer positions out there. Either way, it’s an entirely new skill you’ll be picking up. Here’s how to do it successfully.

The challenge for most is finding the right resources, understanding them, and staying motivated when you hit walls. While learning from quality resources is needed, it’s the process behind learning that will set you apart. It’s important to create the best learning environment to ensure your success. Continue Reading

So, you want to be a freelance web designer? Ah, the glamor of it all.

Your own boss, answering only to the call of your creative muse… get up, feel inspired, do some work, go for a walk, laugh knowingly with other freelancers who have also discovered The Secret of: high profile projects, the big bucks, expensive coffee, conferences in glamorous European cities, laughing at the corporate rats you’ve left behind… enjoying the high life that you so richly deserve. Hurrah!

Or… welcome to a world of uncertainty, of irregular income, of blurred lines between work and home. Where, instead of having just one boss telling you what to do, you have 20 bosses across 3 different time zones who want their logo bigger now, dammit!

The truth lies somewhere in between, of course – but you’re more likely to achieve the success you would like (and the balance you strive for) if you can create a plan and structure for your freelance business early on.

In this post you’ll learn the main issues you need to consider to set up your freelance web design business. Up front though, I’m going to make some assumptions about you – I’m going to assume that you’re motivated to do this. It’s not something you want to fall into by accident.

I’m going to assume that you have some basic skills in web design – that you’ve learned your craft and that you’re ready to promote your services to potential paying clients. And I’m going to assume that you have a little business savvy, a good amount of time, and a real commitment to doing this. Okay? Okay! Let’s get started. Continue Reading

View engaging conference lectures, interesting how to discussions, and high quality freelance advice via video here on FreelanceSwitch.

This week we look at WP101 Video Training Part 1: The Dashboard by Shawn Hesketh. In this video he reviews the WordPress Dashboard, in the backend administration area. This is part of a 16 part series over on our WPtuts+ site. It’s perfect for those of you new to WordPress and need to get familiar with it quickly.

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