So you like the idea of being your own boss, finding your own clients..and hopefully making a enough money to live on.  Well good choice! It’s no easy ride and I hope to both inspire and enlighten in this post. If you’ve got a pc/mac and an internet connection, that’s all you’ll need to learn the basics of becoming a freelance web designer!  You can check out what tools you’ll need here.

1. Have you got the design skills?

Design is subjective, but you need to have a great eye for detail if you want to become a freelance web designer.  You will also need to know how to code html and css.  There are few freelance web designers who can’t code html.  You can learn code, but you can’t really learn design: my first designs were god-awful and I bet the majority of web designers will agree, getting good at design is something that takes time and experience.  Enter design contests, join forums and get your work critiqued.  Don’t get upset when you get negative feedback; it’s not personal! The design part is fun so practice practice practice and eventually people will love your work and you’ll find yourself in demand.

2. Have you got the coding skills?

As mentioned, not only do you need to offer cracking design skills, you also need to learn how to code well.  You can attend classes, or teach yourself, there are some fantastic resources on web design for beginners.  I taught myself over a long summer, using free online resources so you can too!  I aim to write some tutorials in the hopefully-not-so-far future.

3. What sort of competition is there in your area?

Check out the websites of local web design companies to see what you’re up against; of course you can aim your services to anyone around the world, but local businesses area  great way to start, get a little cash and add to your portfolio.  You can always offer your services to them as well!

4. Extend your portfolio.

Your portfolio is one the most important tools in your arsenal, pick out a selection of your best work; QUALITY OVER QUANTITY, that’s right, don’t put everything you’ve ever done in there, it won’t do you any favours.  Offering live links to webpages you’ve built are a great way of showing off your work, so try to have a few decent links in there.  There are lots of ongoing arguments about paid web design contests and spec work, personally when you’re first starting out I think they can offer a very positive experience for the inexperienced.  You get feedback, a portfolio piece and maybe cash if you win.  I sometimes enter contests even now to make sure I’m still beating my competition in terms of design skill.  It can be fun too!  Check out 99designs.com for an idea.

5. Getting work .

So you’ve got the skills, and a swanky, shiny portfolio that you’re very proud of, good for you, but work won’t suddenly start falling in your lap, you need to get it all seen.  Network, both locally (offer business cards to local companies in need of a web presence) and online, all your twitters, flikr’s and other er’s offer a great way to get links to your portfolio and into the public eye.  Hopefully someone will love your work and want you to design them a new website.

6. The pressure to get clients.

The pressure to get work can be pretty intense at first when you’re trying to make rent every month, but this is true in all aspects of the freelance lifestyle, you’re selling yourself as much as your work.  You will need some business/marketing skills if you want to fully monetize your skillset.  This means doing that little bit extra for clients to keep them coming back as well as creating a brand identity; business cards, a decent, recognisable, memorable logo.

7.Don’t expect too much too fast:

Money won’t flow in to your bank accounts right away, or for a while, it’s hard work.  You probably won’t be able to live off freelancing right away, so moonlight if needs be.  It takes a bit of courage going from salary to no guaranteed freelance work, but it’s so rewarding when you’re up and running and well worth all the hard work!

1. Know what you’re worth.

When you first start out, there are never enough leads, so I always found myself taking everything that comes along. A lot of your first leads (and a few later) will be people fishing through multiple freelancers just like yourself. Never assume they’ve only emailed you! There are exceptions but if you’re too cheap they’ll run away, better to overprice than underprice, then at least you’ll get paid what you’re worth and the work won’t suffer because you don’t think you’re getting enough.

2. Get your taxes in order.

Becoming a freelancer means (unless you have your own accountant/FA) you’ll have to document ALL your incomings and outgoings, from a UK standpoint you can use any assets you’ve bought (like PC/software) to lower your tax bracket. I just use Office Accounting and add entries everytime I buy something related to work or get paid. Register as self employed with HMRC ASAP, there is a penalty (of £100 I think) if you leave it too late. Yes taxes are a pain in the ass, no way around it.

3. Promote promote promote.

I initially worked with a partner in a another company and the first thing we did was order thousands of branded business cards and went round our local town asking every shop along the way if they needed a website. Use blogs, social networking, CSS showcase websites (there are now thousands of these). Leads won’t appear from nowhere, your website is your shopfront, use it and publicise it.

4. Sort out a pricing strategy.

In my old company we hadn’t set out any kind of pricing strategy and so when clients asked for more details (such as price etc) we guestimated. Work out what you’re spending and how much you need to earn, add some more and use that as a basis.

5. Get organised, especially your time.

As a freelancer, on many occasions I’ve worked into the early hours, whilst sometimes this is essential to meet a deadline, it’s important to give yourself working hours, and if you’re working per hour, keep track of hours spent working. It can often be hard to give yourself a break, take weekends off, have a decent lunchbreak etc. So be strict with yourself and your clients, you’re only human after all .

6. Recognise a bad client before working with them.

Eventually it becomes second nature to recognise a potential client that will be difficult, you can find out more about identifying clients here: 12 Breeds of client and how to recognise them

7. Stick with what you do best.

You WILL get potential clients asking you to do something you know you cannot do, don’t risk it, it’ll be sloppy work you won’t put in your portfolio and lead to an unhappy client. If you’re a frontend web designer stick to that, you can always learn other skills along the way. If you try and take on too much it’ll be damaging to your rep, brand, work and your client.

8. Avoid spec work.

When I first started, money incomings were slow, so I’d happily do a bit of spec work. I ended up making a bit of money, but the amount of work triples, and more on often than not you’ll get nothing for the work you provide. Better to get a few local clients to put on your portfolio and if your work and promotion is good, you’ll find more work. Most clients I’ve found to be pretty consistent which is good, I know what they like after working with them for so long. This means they’ll stay with you, so keep them happy!

In no particular order:

1. Firefox:

yes, the browser, it’s got so many invaluable add-ons specifically for the web developer/designer.

2. Xenocode cross browser testing:

This is a whole new ballgame, gone are the days of using 5 different PC’s to test each browser on different OS’s, now it can be done from your browser.  I’ve found it a little slow to load, but hell it’s easy and on the whole very efficient!

3. DreamWeaver:

Although it’s a little clunky and not cheap, it’s got everything required to build almost any website. FREE alternative: notepad plus

4. FireFTP Add-on for Firefox:

Another great add-on, does what it says on the tin.  Efficient, effective FTP.

5. Firebug or Web Developer:

Add-ons to firefox which are priceless when finding errors, both are good, but Firebug allows live editing of CSS on any website.

6. Adobe Photoshop:

Obviously for the designers, an image editing program is needed, and Photoshop is, in my opinion the best image editor out there.  The price, again, isn’t cheap, if you have little or no money try the FREE alternative: GIMP. Also check out adobe’s Adobe UK Special Offers Page for some great deals, like student discounts.

7. Google Analytics:

Knowing what your users are looking at, where they come from and a whole host of other features is priceless, very simple to implement and get going.

8. Lorem Ipsum:

To fill in all the blanks, very useful for initial designs.

9. Office accounting:

Free express version and you will definitely require some book keeping software!

10. Itunes:

Without music, I would go mad.

Mentions:

1. Statcounter: Great for specific day to day SEO, can be used in conjunction with Google Analytics.
2. Illustrator: For logo’s, text editing and web vectors.  I could live without it..so haven’t included it.
3. Notepad++: Notepad ++ does a good job, especially if you’re a little short on money (as it’s free!).  Notepad ++ is recommended if you’re starting out as it’s focused on knowing how to code, great practice, and a little less daunting than taking on Dreamweaver straight off.
4. Fireworks: Many swear by it (or did), got some very useful slicing tools, but personally I prefer using Photoshop to cut up all my images as I find it provides me with greater control.
5. IETester: Crackin useful if you’re into testing all IE’s (which you should be if you’re a web designer! IE Tester