Hello, thanks for reading my post. I am graphic designer (mostly for print, with some HTML and CSS work) and would really like to get into web design/development. I know how to design and code (client side) web pages, but I have very little experience commercializing them for other people. So to up my knowledge in general, I have decided to build a few for my friends. The questions I have are geared toward protocol and better understanding what clients will expect from their free lance web designer. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- So here are my questions. (*Note: these questions are geared for customers that only want a simple website-HTML, CSS - light Javascript. No server side scripting or database languages, just simple websites that only display the information about their company) Question 1: What questions should I ask these client before starting, besides the obvious design ideas? Or what information should I expect the client to give me, besides content for each page on the site? Question 2: What if the client wants to edit the content of their websites themselves? Is that common for a simple website? Say for example, the client wants to be able to swap out photos whenever they want......Or should I recommend that they funnel all changes through me? And if the client does want to edit their own sites, how do I set that up for them, should I use something like Joomla to build it? (My thinking is that I will design the graphics and write all the code by hand, and just upload it to the web host. But I am afraid I don't know enough of about what clients want) Question 3: I have never hosted more than a personal site a few years ago. Do web hosting companies make it easy for one freelancer to manage a large number of websites? --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Now, I do understand that these questions can have many answers, but I'd really appreciate to hear how you all go about it or any advice for someone who wants to start out freelancing. Thank you very much, Kevin
One thing I would like to push in: You should get a reseller account in order to manage multiple clients on a web host. Many web hosting companies offer reseller plans.
2. Would depend on the client of course. If you do want to give your clients power like that you'll have to build the site with a CMS, or organize the html in a silly simple manor. I would say that Concrete5 would be what your looking for, with the cavit that you will be touching server side code, php.