Ways to Make Money as a Web Designer

Web designing is an ideal occupation for those who seek self-employment in general and for those who seek home-based jobs in particular. Though many people take up web designing as a side job to make additional income it has the potential to provide full-time job and full-time income. As long as you take good care of your clients by doing nice things such as sending personalised Christmas cards to your clients you can keep them happy and build your long term employment. Self-employed web designers whose service charges are reasonable can earn not less than $23000 in a year by working as a part-time freelance web designer. Web designing ensures substantial income from each client and hence it is wrong to say that one can be a successful web designer only if he gets a lot of clients. Moreover, the web designer can earn more from each client by providing the client on-going services. As a web designer one can offer the clients different types of services all of which come under a single umbrella. Those who want to start their web designing career must be clear about the various services they want to offer. When they talk to a client they must make it clear as to what all services they offer. In due course they can change them or add more new services to the list.

How to start?

Prior to giving the assignments, the potential clients may want to know about the experience and expertise of the web designer. They may ask for a few samples of the creations done by the web designer. Those who have practically nothing to showcase their skills are likely to find it difficult to convince the potential customers. Hence, for the novice web designers it is advisable to start serving their friends, well-wishers and family members. Friends and family members may not mind giving them an opportunity without seeing their past works. Those who run small businesses or startups may prefer the service provided by upcoming web designers. Hence those who want to start their web designing career may try to develop such people as their clients. At that stage their aim must be to attract more number of clients and get work from them and create a track record. Hence they must offer their services for the most competitive prices. Using the opportunities provided by the few initial clients the web designer must be able to build his portfolio and gain experience in the entire process of web designing.

Showcase your works through your own website

After successfully completing a few projects, the web designer must create his portfolio website. Apart from mentioning about the services offered by him, a few samples of his completed works also should be provided on the website. While providing information through the website one has to give priority to quality over quantity. The web designer has to select the very best works by him and showcase only those works even if they are only a few in number. More examples of completed projects can be shown if asked by the potential clients.

Promote your services vigorously

Those who want to get regular and substantial income from their web designing services should make all efforts to drive maximum number of potential clients to their portfolio website. The web designer should create social media profiles and also through his personal profiles on social media he must share his portfolio website and bring to the notice of others the services offered by him. In addition to that, one can promote his services through his personal blog, contact people who are in his net work either in person or over phone and talk to them about his web designing services, post his services to Craigslist, establish contacts with local business groups, visit various freelance job sites in search of web designing assignments and approach potential clients proactively.

Where to find web design clients?

The most urgent as well as important task of a new web designer is to get clients who will assign him web designing and developing jobs. The first thing to do is to create social profiles and also to create a portfolio website. It is advisable not to spend too much time on developing the portfolio website. One can make the website using a template and the logo and phone number must be there on the header. Spend more time for creating the "About" page since most of those who visit the site read that page. The social profiles are also important for developing more new clients. Most of the potential clients will go through the Facebook Page as well as the LinkedIn profile. Hence, the Facebook Page should contain the logo, cover photo and description of the services that you offer. By way of including a few posts one can convince the viewers that he has been active. From the LinkedIn Profile the reader should understand why the potential clients should contact this web designer.

Website reflecting past history

The past history of the web designer with specific reference to the projects he had undertaken is very important. Those who go through the profile should be convinced that the web designer has good technical skills and he has complete knowledge of web designing and developing. From his history, they should know that he promptly executes the projects to their completion and never leave the jobs half-finished and he will not disappear all of a sudden without notice. The potential clients should be convinced that the web designer never fails to respond to phone calls and emails. The web designer must be committed to improve by learning the latest technology and using the most advanced tools. He must make use of new Plugins, themes and tools. By way of caring all these aspects, the web designer can make his portfolio website a source of potential clients.

Take advantage of networking events

Identify a few suitable networking groups like Meetup.com, Facebook groups, Chambers of Commerce and Coworking spaces, etc. The web designer must reach the venue a little earlier and must meet those who organize and run the show. They will introduce him to many people who can be his valuable contacts in future. One should give his cards only to those who ask for the same. At the same time, he can collect the cards of all others and using the cards he can get in touch with them the next day or the next week. He must listen to others and talk about his web designing service only when asked by somebody. Once he comes across with a few potential clients he should impress them and make them feel happy about what he is doing. From the next day, he can follow up with everyone with whom he spoke during the event.

Referrals

When the web designer  is already a member of a network, the referrals from that group come as the best leads for him. When a person refers the web designer it is obvious that he trusts the web designer. When the trust is there the conversion is very easy. When the network of the web designer grows and he becomes popular in that particular place the referrals start coming. One can fetch more referrals by way of providing the best service. The web designer should communicate effectively, complete the job in time and make the client happy and satisfied.

The Benefits of a Project Management Software for Web Designers

The reasons why a webpage might need redesigning could be rather varied. The page might be part of a rebranding process; it might need to be more user friendly; maybe the focus of the business has changed or the website might simply be outdated.

In any of these cases, the idea is to change the website without losing SEO. It’s a big project and as a web design company, it is probably something that you are asked to do frequently.

So how to handle this is the most efficient way is a question that should be on your mind.

The whole process will go through several stages and we highly recommend the use of a good Project Management Software Tool to help you streamline it all. It spares you from communication breakdown both with customers and team members ; it allows for accurate time tracking of the project, it ensures accurate budgeting and last but not least it just takes all the hard work out of a complex project. You can focus on getting it done rather than throwing your hands up in frustration while trying to manage it all. On top of that, it will save you a good amount of money in the long run.

Because we suspect redesigning a website is something you do on a regular basis, we recommend setting up a template with all the required steps. All that’s needed when the time comes, is fine-tune the specifics (budget, time needed) and customize any steps as required. The point is that there’s no need to do the same work over and over again.

 What are the steps that you might like to see in your template?

1.      Pre-launch-Prepare

a.      Set-up a temporary URL for developing and testing.

b.      Create a new password protected Robots.txt file.

2.      Per-Launch-Analyse and Clean up the old site

a.      Analyse website and bench mark current metrics such as bounce rate, traffic, ranking for post-launch comparison.

b.      Crawl the old site and audit it. Check for missing image alt tags, titles, meta descriptions etc.

c.       Make a list of all the backlinks. (This will be very useful later on.)

d.      Map all the keywords. Review the keyword strategy. Replace where necessary.

e.      Fix broken internal and external links.

f.        Remove meta keywords

3.      Pre-Launch-Design new webpage

a.      Check if the server supports the new site.

b.      Review all the titles. Are they SEO friendly? Unique?

c.       Write content and proofread

d.      Make sure all URL’s are as short as possible.

e.      Check for blank pages

f.        Map 301 URL, make a redirect list and redirect.

                                                              i.            Check static content URLs such as images and videos. Redirect if needed.

                                                             ii.            Redirect deleted pages

                                                           iii.            Prioritize URLs. Use Analytics to decide on the most important pages.

g.      Plan a CMS.

h.      Check all HTML annotations for all pages. Add or update as needed.

i.        Check that each page has a self-directing canonical tag.

j.        Prepare a site map

k.       Check mobile compatibility

l.        Check page speed

m.    Check the sizes of the images

n.      Check all terms and conditions, contact details and about pages for accuracy.

o.      Create a good 404 page that suits the company’s style.

p.      Introduce share buttons and Subscribe buttons where needed.

4.      Launch

a.      Do a visual inspection of the site

b.      Have a warning message ready in case something goes wrong

c.       Start tracking the website ranking. Insert Google Analytics tracking tags  etc. Set Analytics goals

d.      Launch the new website during a low traffic time of the day (after midnight for instance)

e.      Remove any passwords that were set previously. Also check the Robots.txt file.

f.         Set-up all 301 redirects from the old website to the new one.

g.      Submit site map to Google and Bing

h.      Check orphan pages 404

i.        Check for broken links

5.      Post-Launch

a.      Check and fix search console errors

b.      Crawl the site and audit it

c.       Check server logs for 404 pages

d.      Update Social Media URLs

e.      Update backlinks

f.        Compare traffic, SEO ranking with previous website

g.      Just keep monitoring

 Here's a few more tips that may be helpful when redesigning a website:

Is web design a good career?

The field of web designing is so vast that a professional web designer with proficiency in a variety of programming languages and knowledge of the most advanced digital tools can easily develop clients from different parts of the world. As a result of phenomenal increase in the application of mobile devices as well as e-commerce, there will be great demand for web designers all over the world and during the period 2012 - 2022, employment opportunities for web designers are expected to go up by 20%. In fact the growth rate of Web developer job is clearly more than most of the other jobs and those who have taken up web designing as their profession have indeed made a wonderful career choice. Web designing and development is among the fastest growing fields in today's world and web designers who are able to get updated themselves with the latest technologies as well as web designing skills are assured of a highly rewarding career. The average annual income of an entry level web designer in the US is not less than $42000. A highly promising future is predicted for the web designing industry since it is a very crucial part of the IT industry. Skilled web designers with good knowledge of HTML and CSS can easily build up a highly lucrative career. Web designers play a crucial role in the field of Information Technology since they take care of the two vital aspects of a website - technical and graphical.

Growing demand and more flexibility

Designing, developing and maintenance of website is a vital requirement of industries of all sectors - manufacturing, finance, logistics, education, healthcare, construction, marketing and more. A qualified and professionally trained web designer can choose the industrial field of his choice and can easily find out potential clients. Those who wish to serve the healthcare industry can find a lot of opportunities in hospitals and nursing homes, those who are interested to work in the field of education can get web designing jobs in schools, colleges, universities and various other institutions and so on. According to the latest statistics, qualified and experienced web designers earn an average annual salary of not less than $33000. There are many web designers who earn up to $105, 000 in a year. The greatest advantage of the web designing job is that the web designers can execute their jobs online and they can work from their home. Web designers can take up highly lucrative outsourced projects offered by various freelance companies. The freelance web designer can have his own working hours and he can price his services as he thinks. Those web designers who are on traditional jobs can also make additional income by way of taking up suitable freelance jobs which are available in plenty.

Web designing is a good career. Why?

More new websites are created every day and as a result the demand for skilled web designers is growing rapidly. A career in the field of web designing assures comfortable life, lucrative salary, employment security and plenty of opportunities for career advancement. The number of people who use Smartphones, Tablets and other mobile devices is increasing day by day and as a result there is growing demand for designers and developers who can create mobile responsive websites. Hence in the web designing field there is 100% job security. As a web designer one can work from anywhere for a client who can be at any other part of the world. The web designer can work as a freelancer and can run his own business. Since web designers can have clients from multiple industries, they can have a wide portfolio and they never get bored with same type of job. There are thousands of online companies the world over that provide online projects to the individual web designers regularly.