where to find clients

Placebo

I'm going through a rough patch with money so thinking of doing some freelance work after hours, just wondering whats the best way to rake up clients,

does one contact business without side or ones with out dated sites?
friends family?
or is there a site for this kinda of stuff?

p

freelanceswitch.com for advice

freelandireland.com for jobs

Sully

getafreelancer.com. They have another one, eufreelancer or something. Its usually big project low budget work though.

Webmonkey

Im on getafreelancer.com but after a while I just decided to stop, hardly worth it. There others would always drive the price down to nothing

Axwell

Sully wrote: »

getafreelancer.com. They have another one, eufreelancer or something. Its usually big project low budget work though.

This is a problem on them all, same as webmonkey says below. The price just keeps dropping or is just so low to start with that you cant compete or it wouldnt be worth your while doing the project for the money you would get. Really there arent any good freelance sites that I have come across where you could earn decent money for the time and work you put in and not get undercut by others.

Hydrosylator

I'm a full-time web freelancer, never got a job from a freelancers website. I'd be inclined to agree with the above posters about them. They're over-run with a mix that's hard to compete with on price.
You have:

• people in third world countries who know as much code as you do but don't need as much money
• people in Ireland who will install a blog with a free template and sell it as a website for 300 quid
• students who just want to build up their portfolio
• pure cowboys
• wild combinations of some or all of the above

I tell ya, this'd be the best job in the world if it wasn't for the internet.

Word of mouth has been of most value to me so far, working in a bar at night helped me survive while that built up slowly. I know other freelancers who've done Enterprise Board courses and found them to be both a great way of getting a business plan together and a great source of work early on. New businesses talk to each other and they need promotion. Actually I'm kicking myself for not doing likewise this Spring, but there's always October.

Other than that, flyers are a reasonably cheap, and easily targeted, method of promotion.

Honestly though, it's not the best time to be a free-lancer right now. I've only been at it two years, but things are at their slowest so far. I know people who've thrown their hat at the whole thing and gone back to college.

hellbent

The thing about web design is that, with Drupal, Joomla, Wordpress, etc., there's really no great need for an expensive website design/designer nowadays, at least for the AVERAGE website. Hosting has become easy for the uninitiated to understand and implement, and uploading to websites/ dealing with hosting companies is not the Holy Grail it once was.
Using, say, Wordpress with a free template, and getting €300 for it, as mentioned, is often a better proposition for a small website than having the usual ripoff prices quoted by so-called "Web Designers/Developers" who use the same Wordpress CMS and a free template, with a few hours customisation thrown in - mostly given to hiding any references to the source of the free CMS and template.

The world of web design has changed. Charge for time spent and not for a notional (and overpriced) figure from the past!

Mick Regan

Hmmm, just wondering who wants an 'average' website?

Axwell

hellbent wrote: »

The thing about web design is that, with Drupal, Joomla, Wordpress, etc., there's really no great need for an expensive website design/designer nowadays, at least for the AVERAGE website.

As the person above me said, if someone wants a site for their business which is going to rent them online then why would they want an "average" website. It doesnt matter what its designed in whether it be wordpress,joomla or anything else, its how it is implemented and put together to comply with standards. Joe bloggs who decides he can install wordpress and get a free template more than likely has reached the end of his web design knowledge at this stage, know nothing about standards or SEO for example and has a site that looks like a template from drupal, joomla or wordpress.

Using, say, Wordpress with a free template, and getting €300 for it, as mentioned, is often a better proposition for a small website than having the usual ripoff prices quoted by so-called "Web Designers/Developers" who use the same Wordpress CMS and a free template, with a few hours customisation thrown in - mostly given to hiding any references to the source of the free CMS and template.

Again if you are going to do a website with a cms for €300 then you are offering a service to match that price, which delivers the average websites you mention above with a template which hasnt been changed or any other real work done. A professional business should be looking for a professional site and willing to pay for it, like anything else you get what you pay for. Whether its created through wordpress for example is pretty irrelevant, a professional company will make better use of wordpress, the plugins, create a custom template, create content that makes use of SEO techniques and validate a website to meet standards - someone who throws together a site for 200-300 more than likely will only do some if any of these.

Indeed the world of web design has changed - businesses now want more from their websites, they want to be able to make changes themselves, they want features that didnt exist before..to get all this done professionally you still have to pay for them, 200-300 is not going to cut it to be fair. I do agree that there are a lot of companies that do charge very high prices but at the other end of the table there are a lot of people charging peanuts but producing poor work which can only be considered as cowboys.

Hydrosylator

hellbent wrote: »

The world of web design has changed. Charge for time spent and not for a notional (and overpriced) figure from the past!

What the hell is that supposed to mean? Web design involves more work these days, not less. The standard of work has gone up, not down.

I give my clients the site that's best for them, not the site that's cheapest.
All my websites are unique visually, and I charge for the code I write, not the code I use. That's the only way to do it if you're going to call yourself a professional.

Anyone who goes using free templates is an eejit, because once you're caught at that, a client won't beleive that you do any original designs.

Like Axwell said above, you do a professional job for a professional price.
If a client wants me to do a half-arsed site for **** all money, I just tell them no, I'm a professional. Nobody ever questions me when I say, "This is what I do for a living, this is how much it costs", except for a few chancers, the like of which I've since learned to avoid.

bigjohnny80

Mick Regan wrote: »

Hmmm, just wondering who wants an 'average' website?

Loads of people do, in the same way that loads of people want an average car.

Most designers/developers in my experience really do believe that a website is the most important thing for a company. Its just that well, its not sometimes.

Mick Regan

Ok, i see the angle you're taking but a couple of considerations:

a. A website is a professional representation of a business (in the same way as you might think about a logo, a letterhead, etc etc).

b. Whilst not being the most critical thing (yes, you've got to have a solid business as the foundation), a website is becoming more important as it is often the first impression your potential customer gets.

Put it this way, if you go to a business meeting - jeans or suit?
Why create a hurdle from the outset?

littlegreenman

I tend to offer a fixed price (usually less than 300) for a custom design and hosting. If then want a logo its extra. If they want an SSL cert that's extra. If they want us to insert the content that's extra. If they want a domain name that's extra. If they want support that's extra... Bit of the ryanair model. But ultimatly the lowest price will gaurantee you a top quality website with hosting. If the customer wants to source their own domain name and save themselves €10 good luck to them.

Those that have a budget may go with the custom design and hosting, but will probably decide to enter in all their content and not subscribe to the support.

Those that do have the budget may go for the support. It is better that all websites created are of top quality (remember you'll be using these as referals) - however I've found you can accomodate the two divides this way.