Selling Designs? *Advice Needed*

Okay just want to say thanks in advance for anyone who takes time to read this and posts your advice. I have been dabbling with webdesign for a couple of months & would possibly like to get good enough to sell something eventually. Since I'm totally new to all this marketing & the whole forums scene all together I really don't know anything about pricing or how to even go about selling anything. What advice would you give to someone thats just starting out? I don't really think im good enough right now to sell anything but if anyone is interested in seeing anything im sure I could throw something together or post screen shots of some stuff I have done!

 

I would spend a ton of time in the contests forum. Not only will you have a chance to do real projects for real clients, but you can learn a ton by looking at other people's entries. There's a wealth of talent here on DP.

Hope it helps

 

A great way to begin which is part of what I did when selling My design and marketing services at first is to do stuff for free.
Go to local charities, churches, hospitals, schools etc and offer up your spare time. They will very often give you a refferal or even pay you some money even if you dont want it.

Talk to your family members, tell everyone you talk to about what you do. Family members are a great place to start networking. Neighbors you name so many people are looking for a website or an upgrade to their own.

Dont worry about "not being good enough to charge money" You would be very surprised at what passes for a good design. Also many people simply want you to upgrade tehir existing site which is much much easier than starting from scratch (sometimes it's harder LOL).

Just be honest, tell people you are just starting out and be honest about what you really believe you can do for them and at the same time dont be afraid to stretch your abilities and learn as you go.

Clients for the most part end up happy in the end, especially if you are willing to go through a few revisions. They appreciate that. Customer service is still king. People love it and will remember you for it.

I can usually pull off between $75 and $100 per page for my sites. I also resell hosting which you should do as well, many hosting companies have very easy ways to do this and you can make some extra passive income with this as well.

I find that my initial package of a 5 page static business website with a year of hosting included for $500 is attractive to many people.

Dont sell yourself short, believe in your product and what you can do. Remember most people know absolutely nothing about what you will be doing for them so to them your a pro either way.

I hope this helps you if you have any other questions pm me or repost

 

Thank you ninja i have been participating in the contests. Its alot of fun. I actually entered a site its the 1st one.


heres some that i have done in the past and working on now. Just Wanna is my personal site that im working on that hasn't been finished.

Heres one that i did for a contest on this site its the latest one i threw together









please dont be to critical lol im new

 

jrd1mra thank you very much for your post. I always love chatting with people who enjoy doing the same things as I do & if I can learn new things or a better way to do something its even more rewarding. I would love to see some of your work if you have it posted or have sites that i can view. Thanks again.

 

hey Pink, I find the best way for me to learn is to take the design of my favorite website and start learning how to recreate it. When you get to aspects that you may feel are out of your leage, go to the public library to read about it, come to the forums to chat about it, and in no time you'll master it!

 

I agree, I never went to school for webdesign or html. I took one online course for CSS and one for PHP and thats it. I learned by tearing apart others websites. It was kind of a slow process but I would say now 5 years later I am pretty good at webdesign about the same time I would have gone to school for the same!

Internet Marketing and SEO are my main breadwinners but here are some site designs I have made

My very first design:
www.webuyusedtape.net

some others:
www.ccsad.com
www.treatmentsolutions411.com
www.detoxfromdrugs.com
www.mjtsales.com
www.dtc1.com

 

Here's my advice for all newbies.
1. My favorite tutorial website is good-tutorials.com. You will find hundreds of unique tutorials to follow.
2. I call this site the web developers bible-http://www.alvit.de/handbook/
3. Try to recreate design's from the best designer's in the business. Here's an couple for your enjoyment.
http://www.beautifully-webdesign.net/
http://www.piepmatzel.de/
4. My last tip is very important-tabless web design is what's in. especially web 2.0 in style. http://www.webdesignfromscratch.com/web-2.0-design-style-guide.cfm
This is all you will need.

 

where is that contest? can i join too?

 

Hello,
I run my sites with Content Management System (CMS) Drupal.
It's an extremely good CMS and theres a very huge group using it.
I'd start and offer one good design to this group for free and place a link from the footer to your site.
Each time someone takes your theme (design) you'll get a link to your site from each page of the site. This will increase your page rank and increase your number of visitors drastically.
On top you'll also get requests from the Drupal community to develop a new design for them or edit the existing one.

Jim
http://www.credit-card-faq.com/

 

To get used to selling website, you should start working on freelance websites, I have over 2 years of working on such sites, and they have proved a great place to learn, gain experience and make some money.

 

My advice is to keep learning, and market your talents... Like for me, I offer design, and Im also proficient in coding my designs, the hardest part for me is competing with the other people offering the same thing for peanuts, since some clients don't know any better like the importance of placement, color theory or all the mumbo-jumbo stuff I know... I charge almost 2 times the contest prizes here at DP, but I still join contests so I can practice and practice more...

The point still is, even if how good you're gonna be, if you don't know how to market your skills, then theres no business for whatever you can offer.

 

I would say start by trollin' forums and looking for contests. This will help you build up your portfolio. Then, get a domain name and some hosting and create your own site with a portfolio. I just did this exact same thing 10 months ago. If you are looking for help feel free to pm me.

 

The best thing to do is go to your local shops, do them a few freebees, put them in your portfolio (so you'd better make 'em good!) and then go onto proper freelancing sites with a good portfolio behind you. If you keep getting better (because to be honest, your work is good for someone who's been in this for a few months), with your skills and your portfolio, you'll be more likely to get the job, more likely to raise your fee, and more likely to make money.

 

Thanks all i really appreciate the advice and the help. I know some of my work still looks really amateur like the colors not quite matching and things being a bit unorganized but thats why i try to do a different template as often as i can to at least try to better myself. Again i really appreciate the posts.

 

PinkMisfit... you seem like a go-getter. I like that. I run a web hosting/web development company and wouldn't mind working with you as you continue to learn. Let me know if you are interested.

 

Hi Miss Pinkfit
You and I are in a similar boat! I think your pretty much ahead of me though but the advice given here is great - especially about doing some freebies first and working up from there. Whilst web design is my new (ish) project I have been self employed in other areas and it's word of mouth that's always got me work.

I would say stick to what you are reasonably comfortable with and definately don't sell yourself short. Don't worry about what you don't know - just doing the work will show you what you need to learn. Remember that what you do know is a lot more than the person who wants to pay for a website to be made because they haven't a clue how to do it! At the same time don't try and take on projects where you know you are out of your depth - that will just undermine your confidence.

I believe if you approach your business with integrity and honestly whilst challenging yourself you can definately build up your portfolio.

Freelancer - thanks for those links - they are very helpful!

Good luck!

Lily

 

sure gator pm me and we can talk from there ty

 

hiya lily i agree if you contiunue work at your goals to improve yourself then you will succeed in areas that you didnt think you would. The best part of what I do is that I enjoy it, so even if i never sell alot then I still have it as a hobby.

 

75$ to 100$ per page? is it a plain html page?