Working as a Freelancer - Advice Needed!

Depends on how you position yourself and your brand.

If you go after people who understand a website that perfectly resonates with their prospects will make them money for years to come, you could charge more than $2,500 for one gig. And easily do 3 or 4 gigs a month.

But if you go after people who want to get something up ASAP and don't understand that the design needs to compliment the tonality of their brand, copy and target market, then good luck making $250 per gig.

Mark

Maybe you can also offer mobile websites in addition to regular websites.

More and more people are doing searches for businesses on their mobile phones instead of doing searches on their desktop or laptop.

Many business owners who have regular websites still do not have mobile websites.

Mobile websites are easier & quicker to make than regular websites.

There are a few mobile website templates from various WSO's that you may want to look into.

From what I've read in some posts, there are people who have sold mobile websites for $150 - $600 or so and it only took them 1 hr or so using the mobile website templates.

To answer your question # 4, you would not be accountable to a client if you has not stipulated a specific ranking as a result of your design work. It is unlikely that it would even occur to a client to take some legal action against you, unless you had given them the expectation. Most business owners do not have a clue about web design and site ranking dynamics. The overwhelming majority of clients do not know necessarily that there is even a ranking system , let alone blame you for poor results. As long as you are not making false promises, you are highly unlikely to face liability.

Hey. I've been doing web development and freelancing for quite some time now. Feel free to PM me if you want to chat further.

1. What is the going rate on a basic website for a small business (i.e. tire shop) - Wordpress + Logo + Social Media + 5-10 Pages
All across the board. You will find people offering sites for 100$ and others for $15,000. Find a good middle ground where you don't have to do all the work yourself and have some money for sourcing. If you find the client offline, you can often quote around $1500+ and reserve maybe $500 for sourcing to be sure everything gets done properly. Others will say quote at least 3500. Just figure out how much you need to make, and quote accordingly.

If you find the client through a freelancing site such as odesk/elance, you might need to start lower, build trust, and then work toward a better price. For some odes projects I've quoted 800, but the relationship brings in other clients for 1500+ But if you are finding clients through a freelancing site, don't quote too low (don't try to do a custom site for someone for some chump change like 300$). Much better to charge high than to charge low! (not just for you, but also the client so they get reliable service). For every potential client who thinks your price is too high, there are two others out there who think its perfect because they want a premium service.

2. How do you handle hosting? Do you keep everything on your shared hosting? My hosting claims I can have an unlimited # of websites. (HostGator)
Hostgator is fine to start. Once you get a client base and income, consider owning or leasing a dedi

3. How much do you charge clients per month after they pay for the websites? Do you offer any services like a set # per hours a month of website maintenance or social media updates?
You will find that many clients do not want a retainer package, and instead want a flat fee for their web design. But if they want any form of content management etc., I would shoot for 200+ per month depending on how much value you are providing them. But again, this is across the board. Depends on the business. Personally, i charge by character count if I am providing content. If they don't have me doing content management or other forms of management, i just charge them for hosting (more than I am paying of course).

4. Do I need business insurance? What if I was to cause a websites rank to somehow drop by accident, can I be held accountable?
Just like anything else you can be held accountable for your work. Usually the worst that will happen is you will get a bad review. Unless you are doing something really shady. I wouldn't worry to much about this as long as you do what you are good at. DO NOT try to do stuff you don't know anything about. For example, if you are a coder...dont design. Find a good designer and build a relationship with them. If you are a designer...dont do SEO. Find a good SEO specialist and build a relationship with them. Build a team! Learn to delegate! Don't try to do it yourself. Even if you are capable of doing it all yourself (if you are some sort of web god), its still a bunch of work. Why would you want to spend all that time working when you can just do what you are good at, and have other people spend time on the other stuff?

5. Any tips on finding clients? I have been making a list of clients I want to call but not sure if I should try walk-ins first or just give them a quick call to introduce myself?
-Post an ad on craigslist every day that is visually stimulating and makes you stand out as a premium service. I got several 2k clients this way. It may take a month or two of posting daily ads...but trust me its worth it when it only takes 10 seconds to copy paste your ad and put it up. Landing just one client makes it worth it.
-Use freelancing sites to establish relationships with clients and then you will gain referrals. Don't quote cheaply though, make sure you are offering a premium service at a premium price. Much much harder to go up on price then to go down.
-Do cold visits. These work way better than cold calling from my experience. Just set a weekend aside and drive from small business to small business explaining what you do.
People like talking face to face. It builds trust faster. Would you rather have someone walk into your business and introduce themselves? Or would you rather have someone randomly call you? Think about it.
-I dont do cold calling, but depending on your personality you could try. Its much more of a numbers game, and if you are working in a local market you risk tarnishing your image with a business before you even get the chance to walk in. For that reason i recommend cold visits before you try cold calling.

6. How hard would it be to make $2500 a month? That's how much I make now working 40+ hours per week and would be the minimum I need to consider quitting my job.

If you invest time every day its actually not hard at all in my opinion. The key is presentation. If you create a nice site, have a list of your team (coder, designer, social media, SEO, content manager, you can find all these through a freelancing site). Then you can market yourself as a premium web design service. If this is the case, two jobs per month would get you what you are taking about. Or if you are quoting smaller, just increase the job quantity. The client demand is there...trust me. You just have to present yourself in the right way.

If you invest 40 hours per week into doing web development, and you have an excellent image to present to potential clients, I think you can make 5 times what you just mentioned in a fairly short time. If you really know what you are doing...much much more! But 40 hours per week of working with clients and specialists would probably drive you crazy ; ). I put in maybe 3 hours a week into my web design (I'm in the middle of a few other projects), and I make about 1k a month from it. Granted, I just do project management. I don't do the coding/design work myself so the time investment is a bit different for me.


Anyway like i said feel free to pm me. Id be happy to talk with you on Skype about it.

There's no "going rate" as of such - it's really all about the quality you bring to the table and your track record (if you built Amazon.com, then you'll obviously make a lot more money ).

I would say that around ... $200-$500 for the website, more if you design a custom theme. Just ensure that your hourly rate is pretty good ($75+/hour).

You can host the website on HG as you create it, but then you push it to your client's hosting plan (they can't freeload off of you!).

Woah - hold it.

Creating a website is a one-time thing. If you're going to be a freelance website creator, be that.

If you're going to be a freelance social media marketer, then be that.

Sorry, but no idea.

Cold call -- do all you can to get an appointment, and sell them on why they need a website.

If you need more businesses to call, pick up the phonebook and flip to the yellow pages.

It should take a few months, as you build up your reputation, get client testimonials, etc.

So, as of right now, you are making around $60/hour. Focusing on upping that hourly rate as a freelancer.

I would love that! Share the link whenever you get started.

A shared hosting account can handle good number of sites, if they do not have much traffic. The problem is, there won't be separate control panel logins. If you / your clients want to access their cPanel, you may be better off getting a reseller account and adding each client to a new account. May be, start with a shared hosting account and get a reseller account when a client specifically ask for that.

You have to be very clear about what you offer and make it clear in your TOS / contract. Unless you have specific experience of placing sites at top position, don't commit for SEO. SEO is very tricky, and even though it sounds easy, the fact is just opposite. A new site never ranks well in Google and it will takes months to improve an existing site to a good position - that too if you know what you are doing. Unless you are an expert and you are getting paid separately for that, make it clear that you can only build a site, not bring in traffic.

Thanks everyone for you replies, I have sent some of your PM's and I really appreciate all the input and advice. I have a plan of action and will update as I move forward.