Beginner web designer, need some advice

If a client doesn't mind, and you have the option, then go with a CMS!
It's 100x easier than to code and design the entire site yourself.

Now some clients will ask for specific requirements and will not want a site created with a CMS. But if you have the option, why wouldn't you use CMS?

Start it with CMS. There are plenty market out there. If you can not grab all the market, then get the small part of it. Take your first step from the bottom. Good luck.

Thanks guys for your comments, so focus on one aspect just now? Thinking I should stick to CMS just now since it will allow me to get things done quickly, also if the client wants to edit information themselves, that would be a pain in raw code. How do you's charge for hosting? I've read a few of the forums here and it looks like the most popular way is monthly.

Just now I'm about to open a reseller account with hostgator, however while I'm registering my domain it only offers .org .com or .net. How would I go about attaining a .co.uk domain for my main page?

I personally use Wordpress for my clients' sites. One of my selling points is that this gives them the ability to log-in to their site online and edit it themselves. For many this is a huge bonus, especially those whose previous web person had full control and couldn't/wouldn't make changes in a timely fashion!

Although I use Namecheap for most domains, for some reason they can't explain I have never been able to register .co.uk domains with them. Although I have set up accounts there for clients and .co.uk domains have registered without a problem.

So - I use Domain Names,domain name registration, Freeparking for registering my UK domain names.

Hi,

By merely observing other providers' pricing schemes, you can get a feel on how you should price your own services. Here's what I recommend you to do.

1. Visit the 'Warriors For Hire.'
2. Scroll all the way to the bottom.
3. Find the 'Display Options' area.
4. Sort the threads by selecting the prefix 'Programmer.'
5. Hit the 'Show Threads' button.
6. All threads that offer programming services will appear.

You may want to touch-base with the providers themselves. I hope this helps.

By selling your services here, you will get clients easily, but you wont be paid much for it.
If you find "real" clients, like companies, agencies searching to outsources, etc you'll be able to get a much better rate.
The designers I work with never bill less than $350/day. But they can do that because they have a portfolio and real skills.
Do you have a portfolio?
If you don't, that's the first thing you want to do: create your portfolio, and publish it.
Then publish all the good work you've done. If you've done a website but the result is not good, don't publish it. Quality over quantity. Cheap work in your portfolio will decrease your value.

Also, you need to master HTML and CSS, and have basic skills in javascript, so you can deliver HTML versions of your designs, including jQuery plugins when it's needed.

If you don't have anything in your portfolio, you won't be able to bill much, but once you have a fe great designs to show, you may start earning good money for your work.

At first, if you don't have a portfolio, the best way to score your first clients maybe be to design the client's project for no charge to show off what you can do, and charge the client only if he likes your design. If he don't then you don't charge, and he doesn't get the design.

if you have some work to show off, contact me, I'm regularly hiring designers for my clients. I might have a couple of jobs available for August, open for designers even without much experience.

Wow, I gotta say this forum is brilliant . So much valuable information! Just now I have a good understanding html, css, javascript (some jquery), sql, flash and learning php/ajax in the coming months of my course. I also have some skills with photoshop and Illustrator (mostly designing banners/flyers for bands/gigs etc). Also, during the course I will learn to deal with clients. Half of the course is finding/dealing with them so that's a plus. I'm currently building a portfolio, mostly by designing some sites for family businesses etc, just so I have something to show.

Hey guys, what do you's think of the name bonniewebdesign.com?
I'm from Scotland and `bonnie` is a term for beautiful/well presented.

Well to use CMS you normally have to do some hand coding to have everything looking right. The main point i can make is use the forums. If you want to design and gain experience their is a whole horde of people wanting basic to advanced help in the forums. Answering those questions will not only keep your skills but also act as a means of networking and gaining valuable back links to your future website. P.S i would suggest using CMS anyway, even though you are not programing all the time it is the standered web design format and keeps your knowledge going.

I will also reiterate what everyone else is saying I personally use wordpress. Although what I use to do is use dreamweaver along with wordpress to learn the coding and what not.

I can't even explain how wordpress changed my life because doing sites in dreamweaver use to take me FOREVER. With wordpress I can make a lot more money, and believe it or not my sites actually come out nicer too.

Right now I have done somewhere around 14 sites I think (started about 6 months ago in web design) and I am JUST getting over the "hump" or learning curve.

The first few sites I did were somewhat of a nightmare. I had deadlines I had to meet, and several times I was forced to pull all-nighters just to finish up the sites. Those first few sites I would tell myself everyday "I'm not cut out for this ****".

HOWEVER, sticking through that newbie phase was the smartest decision I could ever make in my life. I build up a really quality portfolio, and every single site I busted my ass to make as nice as I can.

The coolest part now is I can work 100xs faster than when I was a newbie. This is something you really need to keep in your mind. The more sites you do, the easier it becomes to make hi quality sites, the more money you make from working faster, the more you charge per site, the more jobs you can take overall... the MORE referals you get etc etc.

This site I'm doing now, I have SO MANY psd graphics/templates saved in photoshop from when I use to bust my ass as a newbie making original graphics. Now it has got to the point where I have so many projects in photoshop, I can make killer graphics within only a few minutes.

My suggestion is just bust your ass for the first 6 months. GO INSANE learning everything you possibly can about css/wordpress and photoshop. The day you sit down to make a site, and you feel like a competent professional... will be the best day of your life. You realize "wow I really have skills that are worth A LOT to business owners now" and it only gets better and better imo.

Like I said it did NOT start off that way, but at this point I make a full time income doing mostly web design. I also took a lot of time figuring out the lead generation aspects of it, and this sure as hell destroys any job I've ever had before in my life. I have also begun selling seo services now, ppc, google places... and I do no advertising for these services. When you build up enough clients over time, you'll find they'll just start calling you asking all types of questions. Well if you serve them right they will. I'm not that designer who just buys a template then uploads a few graphics to it. I start with a free template, then custom code it to my liking. I take time working out the "identity", thinking about "how will this site rock all of its competitors?" The best thing you can possibly hear is a client calling you to thank you WEEKS AFTER you finished their site, then they ask you if you can do one for their friends.

When you hear that, you KNOW you're doing a good job.

They will really start to respect you and once you gain that respect you are set for life imo. I am now schedule all the way till september with web design jobs and I have so much work coming in that soon I will be expanding and hiring an assistant.

I'm just writing this to show you that web design is still alive and kicking, and you can really do well with it if you fully commit yourself.

Good luck!! - Red

Also, would you recommend buying two hosting accounts? I'm thinking of buying Hostgator's Baby Plan for my own websites and also the Reseller aluminium account for clients. Total would be about $30-$35 a month in hosting, or around £20/£25pm. I am just starting in IM and web design, do you think this would be too much?

If you want to develop your career in web development then you should learn some programming languages like html,css,javascript along with php and mysql.

I used to start with CMS,I see that it is easy to use. There are a lots of market for you to choose so you should begin from small market first. Try on ^^

Alex my friend, I would say use a CMS as well. A lot of clients like it this way, and it is also easier for them to make updates on their own. Especially Wordpress!

One thing I would say is price your work accordingly. Don't want to be spending hours doing something and only get paid 30 bucks (10/hr) doesn't matter if your new or not, if you know what your doing then never sell yourself short. You can start @ 20-35/hr or so. One of my mentors always tells me that if you are going to spend an hour working on something, especially web design/development, then you should be getting paid $100 for that hour. Ha, it's true, but never tell the client that!

Good luck with everything, you will do great. Have faith my friend.

First you should create something for presenting your work to the freelancing websites. Because your portfolio is the first interaction for the clients.

I would definately use a CMS, it helps you and the client/s if you were to sell your website in the future, to be able to update and change the website. I have been using the CMS, Wordpress for a long time now, and I think it is by far the best CMS out there.

Thanks guys, i'll be setting it up shortly. Thinking of starting with 3/5 page sites to get a feel for it, an get a few under my belt. Hoping I can make some money with hosting too.

My opinion, you have the skill, so why not create your own CMS. Maybe in the future, your own CMS will be popular such as Wordpress. Wordpress is failed product but success product . Why I said failed? because wordpress use large resource and not efficient. And I said, they are success, because a large people use it for their website.

^I think that's something I'd work on over the next year or two, I've still got an awful lot to learn, and until I'm completely confident in my abilities I'd rather use something tried and tested. Also, does anyone here have a resller and a shared hosting account with hostgator? Thinking of doing both so that I can still put up some blogs/own niche websites but still get some money from hosting for clients without using up all the space on the reseller account... Last thing, how the hell do you's come up with your domain name? I've been at it for the past few days and for the life of me can't find one that would either be spelled incorrectly by some people or uses abbreviations (which I've heard is a bad idea). Any tips would be appreciated!

Use a CMS and like other said Wordpress is a good choice for now.

Hi Alex. Have been building websites for about 15 years. Working in IT in one form or another for about 30 years. Here's my advice...

1. Hosting? Hostgator.com. Far more stable in terms of load times and handling dedicated servers, should you ever require that kind of service. Their staff has the kind of training that allows them to handle really quite technical queries, which I suspect you'll need once you become a Power User dealing with multiple client accounts.

2. Hand-coding or CMS? Your own CMS or WP/Drupal etc.? Clients REALLY don't care! As long as it is easily accessible, and and simple enough to use so that you can train their staff how to get in on a weekly basis for general maintenance (changing out images and modifying text/dates/prices are the most common requests). Often I will choose a CMS based on the level of computer literacy of the client and their staff, so that they're not overwhelmed when they go into it to do future maintenance. If the client is quite clear that they want me, as the web-mistress to do all web-related work, then I'll choose something a little more advanced that will allow me the room I need to do additional coding when I need to. So choose the option that you feel happiest working with.

3. Pricing? I love DesignQuote.net's Web Design Calculator. It's very cool. Perhaps a little too general to be really accurate, but it's a great starting point.

Having said that, pricing will need to be flexible depending on where the clients are. British clients are willing to pay more than US clients. This makes sense as generally, Europe is more expensive than the USA. Outside of these areas, in countries where the living wage is lower - Latin America, Africa, the Far East - prices drop enormously. You can charge the 'usual price' if you wish, but I guarantee that 9 times out of 10 you'll find that people won't pay it and will look for other providers.

Why do I say this? Well, I've lived and worked in 17 different countries, and I've seen again and again that, even though computer and net-based work is 'global' in the truest sense of the word, your prices must reflect what the local market can bear if you wish to get clients and contracts. The most surprising thing for me was when I found that this is the case EVEN WHEN YOU ARE WORKING WITH HUGE/MULTINATIONAL COMPANIES who clearly have the budget to pay the 'usual' prices!

4. Contracts? Join E-lance.com. Don't bother searching for contract work there - there's so much competition that the pricing structure totally devalues the skill and value of the workers. But they have some EXCELLENT sample contracts and proposal outlines buried in their Help Pages that you can modify and use for almost every type of work you can imagine.

Finally... Lots of unemployment on a global scale since 2008 has mean an influx of part-time/hobbyist website designers and coders. So you should be aware that "Web Designers" is a completely saturated market. Competition can be rough, especially with the "$199 Special Offer" designers cluttering up the web.

At the end of the day, you're not merely building websites. You're marketing your skills to people who know nothing about you, and they are entrusting you to market their products and services in such a way that they will be able to feed and clothe their children.

So you need to appear better than the rest. Stand out from the competition by placing yourself as an online marketing expert. Or a Social Media expert. Or a SEO expert. Just some kind of... EXPERT!

You're already better than 95% of the others out there because you're taking the time to study and learn your skills, and are willing and humble enough to learn from others. That's called TAKING ACTION and it will definitely lead to success!

Good luck!

Using a CMS would be great. Just saves a lot of time and in most cases the results are better in using CMS.
For Prices you can refer with sites like freelancer.com and see at what price are people offering their services or at what cost people are looking forward to buy. I myself price at 20$ for a simple design and functionality. When you are offering other services like hosting, SEO and maintenance you may increase your price accordingly.

If you want to create your profession in web growth then you should understand some growth dialects like code,css,javascript along with php and mysql database.