When I marched out on my own to pursue fulltime blogging, one of the side gigs I maintained was freelance web design installing WordPress sites.
This small side hustle enabled me to make anywhere from $100 to $500 additional each month with minimum selling effort.
So today I'm sharing my thoughts on this sort of business in case any of you would like to pursue it. I'll try to answer a few questions that I anticipate you might have. But be at liberty to chime in with your questions (and tips) in the comments below.
What Do You Need To Start?
Glaringly you will need to have (or be pleased to gain) a good understanding of how websites are built. Specifically, WordPress-based sites. This implies, at a minimum, you must understand :
the correct way to register domains and point them at host servers
How to sign up for hosting services
how to install both WordPress (.org) and a theme or theme framework (like Postulation) on your web server
And how to perform basic theme customization.
Most of this data I learned myself by simply making my web sites (e.g. This blog). Nowadays, the above list of minimum abilities is much easier to gain than it might appear.
Isn't WordPress blogging software? In actual fact it's an open-sourced content management system that's primarily utilised by blog writers. Hence yes, it is blogging software, but it could also be quickly customised to have the feel and look of a static website. Simply navigate to "settings / reading" in the WordPress admin panel and set a static page as the default page.
Finding Clients For Your Web Design (in Croatian web dizajn) Business
The more tricky piece of this business, in my opinion, is finding the right clients. One of the active ingredients to being successful initially in this business is awareness of the industry and of your competitors. This is going to help you to aim towards the right clients and manage expectancies and charges.
Here's what I am trying to say. In the world of web design, there is a complete range of types of services offered. On one end you've got the top of the range designers who charge multiple thousands of dollars initially to install a totally custom design and then might or might not charge regular monthly fees for site upkeep. You aren't (at least initially) going to be in competition against these designers.
On the other end, you've got the services catering to the do-it-yourself small business owner. These are the free platforms like Blogger and WordPress.com as well as the regular charge only services like 1and1.com. You can't possibly battle with these free platforms.
What you need is a customer who requires something in the middle of this range. They would like to control the feel and look of their website, presumably even making some changes themselves. They understand the importance of having their own place on the Web ( not only a business that's piggy-backing off a free platform ).
They also do not want to pay for monthly charges, beyond the cost of simple hosting ($8 / mo). They simply need someone else to help them in getting setup and potentially update the site (outside of the blogging functionality) every year. For this, they are ready to spend any amount from $100 to $500, dependent on the amount of customization concerned.
Bonus Services You Can Offer
On top of a basic install, you can offer your customers services like : content production, logo design (I would typically outsource this), social media account set-up, Google local listing, basic on-page S.E.O, and so on. All of these take time, so take care you charge for these separately, or build them into your basic install package price .
How It Is Possible To Get The Clients
It's not always going to be easy, but there are numerous methods to find clients. Post on craigslist. Create a internet site and market it using Facebook and Twitter. Call your self-employed friends and see if they need a new or updated website. Offer your services at 99designs, oDesk, elance, or similar service. Remember to think about your target customer. Where do these people work? How will they be reached? Use that to drive your marketing efforts as reported tagza.
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