Getting Clients Being A Freelance Developer

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This might be the most crucial article I have written until now. Presuming you meet the minimum specifications to work as a freelance developer via the internet: you must know British, have a Paypal account and have an excellent online portfolio… What can all of us do to get a job?

As I often said, promoting your solutions is the key to this business, don’t believe that because you are great, people will come from no place to ask you to work for all of them. IT’S THE BIGGEST MISTAKE YOU MAY MAKE.

This is the idea:

Get the optimum possible people to visit the internet sites.
Have a good relationship with search engines.
Trafic-oriented to possible clients.
Reusing customers: newsletter.
Local publicity.
Obtaining a good representative.
Contacting the businesses directly.
1 . – Obtain the maximum possible people to check out our website.

Why? The silly issue, isn’t it? It’s apparent that while more people check out our website, the more significant the chances to obtain clients. ERROR!!!!

Let me provide a little suspense… an example: SOSFactory, a couple of months ago, had four thousand visits per month; not long ago, I managed to get a link with a lot of site visitors, and now it has more than 25000; you would say the number of consumers has grown?… Well, no, really still the same. But the eaten bandwidth did grow; I’ll probably have to upgrade my hosting plan, which means investing more money. The idea is that until a certain point, the quality of typically the traffic is more critical when compared with quantity.

The question in your mind might be, why do we need them to visit our website? Straightforward, if it has more sessions, it will increase the number of folks talking about you, and more men and women will link to your website (as long as you offer good quality content). This way, you might have a better position in search engines (Google, Yahoo, Msn).

For example, many of us do mascot design, envision we’m a visitor and when we realize them, we like them. When you have a website, in the links part, you will put something like this: “mascot design” (it’s a link to “SOSFactory” with some keywords: mascot design). If many individuals do the same, Google will undoubtedly understand my website is all about “mascot design”, which is an essential website for those search terms; by doing this, Google will put the website in the first outcomes while searching “mascot design”. This traffic is significant… based on the search term, there will be more or less rivals to appear in the first outcomes.

How to get links:

Get individuals to put links to your website offering free, original, and funny content (tutorials, content articles, games… )
Putting yourself the links to your website (forums, weblogs, directories, social networks… ). Usually with respect, eh? No SPAM.
Ask your customers for links. It’s non-reflex, if it accepts, great.
Trading them with other webmasters. Heavy and barely has an effect.
Buying massive backlinks. As far as I know, it isn’t very effective; it can even be bad for your online business.
What you should never do:
Applying Flash, if you do, use it a little bit… no complete Flash internet sites.
Forget about welcome pages or maybe pop-ups. 50% of your website visitors will leave before thirty seconds… so you have to go directly to the actual.
Try that your website is simply not too heavy in design; the more text, the better.
Layout your website below 1024x768px res.
Never design just for a single browser. It has to look good, unlike in Internet Explorer and Opera.
2 . – Have a great relationship with search engines

Within English, it’s called SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION (search engine optimization), in hopes of Google. There are thousands of community forums, manuals, and blogs focused on this so we will clarify only the basics.

Apart from making us important because of links from other websites, we can also make Google get to know what our site is regarding; with this, we increase the likelihood of appearing in the first search engine results.

How can we accomplish this? Nicely, mainly with HTML code along with our website structure (and likewise the links we were talking about in the earlier point):

Page title: Really about putting your keyword phrases in the title; if you take a review of the source code of this site (in IExplorer: View > Source Code), you will observe at the beginning something like this:

Meta Tags: a similar for Meta Tags:

This kind of tells the search engine what your website is about, so we have to use the keywords you want Google to locate your site. The more critical versions are the ones that describe keyword phrases.

Titles “: the search engine appreciates these tags’ relevant expresiones in the internet site’s text. We also have to put each of our keywords here.

Bold along with Italics “and “: we have to repeat the keyword phrases in the content of the website, putting them in intense and italics.

The density of the keywords in the text: we will need to repeat our keywords from the content of our website.

Graphics: Google prefers to text. Nevertheless, we can also optimize graphics. Mainly putting the keyword phrases in the tag “Alt” since the file’s name (example: my-keyword. jpg).

Website structure:

Through your website, Google will follow backlinks to the rest of the pages inside the site, so it’s good to experience a sitemap to make it easier… if Yahoo doesn’t find the page is a lot like if it doesn’t exist.
Brand your titles as keyword phrases (example: my-website. com/my-keyword. HTML)
Name the folders within your site as the keywords (example: my-website. com/my-keyword/my-keyword. HTML)
No longer put your pages in the thousand folders, maximum of several levels.
Use your keywords for you to link between the pages inyour the site.
External links: hyperlink from your texts to webpages with similar content to yours (not competitors, associated with the course)
3. – Clientèle oriented to possible customers

At first, until you have visitors from search engines (generally takes a while) or you aren’t very well known, this will be your email resources source. It’s just about promoting on all those sites with potential customers.

Forums:

You will find two things to remember in forums: first, becoming seen in job offers subforums. Usually, those are low-quality jobs, but they can help you create a good portfolio; on the other hand, you should also try to be seen in the rest of the panels, where you might meet the most incredible clients, help people, and you will obtain good contacts.

Web hosting talk. Com: it’s a forum dedicated to the actual hosting business (and some other things); there are people with big money and thousands of domains… which implies they need lots of designs. They have free and in English. When you are starting, this is an excellent place to generate a good portfolio, with some time frame you can get to clients along with a higher level in this same message board.

Sitepoint. com: almost everywhere the previous one.

Paid internet websites for freelance designers:

Getafreelancer. Com: it’s the typical web page where people post plans and you, as a designer, put money to get the job; everything’s into it, decent jobs and junk. The website is in English and pretty ugly, costing a % of the salary.

Scriptlance. Com: It’s more tightly focused on programmers, but there are jobs for designers. Functions like the previous one, percentage of the sales, but the site has a much better design, is actually in English.

Elance: design and style jobs don’t have an extensive price range, but there is a lot of performance; if you are quick, you can make a lot of cash. They have a complicated system even though it’s in English and extremely expensive, so it’s more like a wise investment… if you are starting, maybe you won’t be able to afford this.

Fine art Communities:

It’s the most hazardous way to search for a job; there are ‘bad’ people searching for young ones to use these individuals. Remember to ask for a monthly payment in advance… ALWAYS!!. The best thing is that one can find partners, have enthusiasm, and have a good time.

Deviantart: it doesn’t have an art community with Cash Letters. The jobs board just isn’t severe, but the rest of the internet site is fantastic; it has great content and an excellent design… if you want to be seen inside the rest of the world, you must sign-up for this website.

GFX designer: there are two kinds of career offers the low-budget clientele and “projects” in the negative sense of the word, and job offers for businesses that want colocation in the country of the offer. This is a bit more elite neighbourhood; you must host images inside your server or pay for any subscription. We could say is actually for more expert people.

Electronic digital Webbing: if you are crazy adequate to live from comics, this is undoubtedly one of the best sites. I would never recommend dedicating simply to comics, as a fond is fantastic; it helps to grow as an artisan… it’s not suitable as a small business unless you are a painter and a well-known one.

4. instructions Reusing clients: newsletter

Ezines or subscriptions are an excellent advertising and marketing instrument, although it’s also a new double-edged weapon.

We can tell an old customer we are available to do any job he/she wants… but you have to be watchful, or it can be classified as seeing that SPAM. I guess there’s no ought to say that to be hired all over again, you have to do good work; for a freelance designer, reputation is important

5. – Local press

It’s always helpful to invest some bucks in printed material, including posters, flyers, and business cards, and leave them in stores related to desktops. I don’t think I need to tell you to put the URL of your profile in everything you print.

The inconvenience is that you might have to spend much more time in meetings with your clients.

The advantage is that you have no brutal competition on the internet, especially from asiatische companies.

6. – Acquiring a good representative

Another option that appears is hiring a representative; it will eventually do all the promotions do the job in exchange for a % in sales. Agents worth the cost are requested, so if you have no excellent portfolio, they don’t work with you… maybe although you may have it.

Folioart. Co. british: they have artists as well-known as Gez Fry or perhaps Jason Brooks, but another medication is mediocre.

Central illustration. Com: hello, search for a bit more alternative performers.

Mendolaart. Com: They are usually artists of all styles, many of which are good, and some others are.

glasshousegraphics. Com: representative generally for comic artists. Presently there are lots of people, so they don’t pay much attention, but you can try it out.

7. – Contacting the firms directly

Job websites:

This website has job gives to work in a company; sometimes, they ask for freelance developers, but it’s rare. Needs are demanding, and you will go to live where the business is located. You will need a Program and a presentation letter.

Coroflot. Com: lots of jobs given, especially in the United States. They may have improved the site lately, but today it looks like an artist’s social media.

Malakye. Com: job delivers exclusively for sports logos: Billabong, Rip Curl, Adio… Who doesn’t want to be employed by trademarks like this? They have an interesting newsletter where they give much advice on the time to prepare your Curriculum.

Gamedev. Net: employment offers for the video games segment.

Yellow pages: for Spain, I reckon that in the rest of the places, they might have similar expert services. If you want to see the hell inside, I advise you to do the job in Spain as a designer, there are countless job offers with bizarre salaries asking for requirements even if it’s just five people could have along: )

Big companies job delivers:

The most direct road concerning two points in the straight brand. Many companies offer jobs on their website… it’s just a matter of researching in the corporative sections and being very good at doing what action you take.

Corporate. Disney. Go. Com: I’m sure this one appears to be familiar.

Pixar. Com/company info/jobs: I have got the lever to get in the following; what are you doing perusing this?

Mattel. Com: if you like games, working here is the best.

Air. com/job opp/: starcraft, the world of warcraft, wow… who doesn’t know that, people?

Marvel. Com/company: for any comic artists.

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