How to Start a Career as a Freelance Webmaster
For some people, going freelance is the best way to start up a new career. And why not? By becoming a freelancer, you don’t have only one boss, you don’t have restricted working hours and schedule, and you won't even have dress up and go to the office because you can earn money by working inside the confines of your own abode.
FINDING A WHOLE NEW WORLD
One of the industries wherein freelancing is highly in demand is being a webmaster. With the help of the Internet, more and more webmasters are given opportunities to find livelihood and projects. Delving into design and web development as a professional and even as a part timer will require a certain amount of planning and preparation. If you are a webmaster or if you have a background in developing websites and you want to work as a freelancer, here are some of the things you might want to consider.
1. Consider working on your own site. By now, you should be working on your own site because it is your shop front where people and potential clients would be looking at. As much as possible, your site should be free of errors and mistakes both in the code and the copy.
It should also be cross-browser compatible, easy to use, readable and at least formal or professional looking. If you already have a personal site, don’t use to promote your services as a web designer. It is best of you create or build a new site with a different domain dedicated in promoting your services as a web master or designer.
2. Start building your portfolio. Since you will promote your services virtually, it is advisable that you come up with a portfolio that will showcase the best of your work. If you are just a beginner in the world of freelance web designing, most freelance webmasters will suggest that you offer your services for free to voluntary groups that don’t have a site yet.
You can also build sites for your friends, relatives, and family members. By doing this, you can promote your services and talent to those who visit their sites.
3. Sell your portfolio. Aside from building good and reputable portfolio, you should do everything you can to build up your portfolio. By doing this, you can showcase you work while you gain experience in building sites.
4. Setup your business plan. Check around your local area and on the web to find the best pricing for your services. Be prepared to offer packages of services.
Package 1: Basic services could be setting up a basic html, Joomla or Wordpress site. If you are using Joomla or Wordpress you might add in database backup services.
Package 2: You might not only offer to setup websites but offer to design graphics packages for your client. Most businesses will need a logo and a header banner for their site as well as header graphic for their optin page.
Package 3: In addition to installing the client's website, offering them graphic packages, you might offer to setup a squeeze page, a sales page, a thankyou (download) page for their product.
Package 4: Now that the client has a new install, a squeeze page, a product sales page, a thankyou page, you might suggest that the client will need articles written to promote the product. Articles for the clients website and articles to send out to article directories for free traffic back to the client's website.
Package 5: Now that the client's website is setup and they have some content on their website, you might suggest to the client that they use SEO optimization (search engine optimization). This is where you make sure all the meta tags have the client's product keywords listed. You can then submit the URL to search engines to receive more free traffic.
Package 6: Some clients will want to use paid advertising. Using the search engines for pay for click is an art. Some web masters hire other people to promote the client's website by providing backlinks to the client's site. You have to be careful of what types of backlink you do however as some search engines actually delist the websites that they claim have backlinks that are paid for.
Package 7: Specializing in certain niches can often bring you into a higher income level. Creating wedding websites, creating dentist websites, plastic surgury websites. This is because people pay a lot for special events such as a wedding. Certain professions charge their client more, so getting more clients to their website means more money to the dentist, laywer, plastic surgeon or doctor.
Being a freelance webmaster can help you earn a lot—that is if you already have a stable and steady list of clients and a reputation in the field. Since you are just starting, don’t expect that projects will be rushing in this early. You are lucky if you get your paying clients this early. For the meantime, just continue building sites and who knows, potential clients will be inquiring about your services soon?
5. Keep a day job. Since you are just starting your career in the world of freelance web design, it is wise to keep a day just to sustain your financial needs. Although it may mean that you have to work double time, don’t worry because it will pay off soon as you get a paying client. If you can keep a day job and still maintain doing your freelance stint, then it will be better because freelance work by nature is unpredictable.
If you don’t get clients, giving up a regular pay check will only make your financial constraints worse. Even if you already have paying clients, it will still be a wise decision to keep a day job because the marketplace can change quickly. Having a job to safely fallback upon is probably a wise decision as most companies provide health benefits, but as a freelancer you will have to pay for your own health insurance. Once you develop a steady stream of income from part-time web developing then you might consider going fulltime or maybe hiring an outsourcer to do the work for you. You could train the outsourcer and then take on more work as you have more resources available to you. It is also advisable to use the early payments you have earned in doing freelance web design in other projects or by keeping it in a bank so you can use some of it when emergency comes.
There are always websites that need fixing. So keep an eye open for broken websites and offer to fix them for the client. Offer upsell services to the client once you have established trust with the client.