Make $100 an Hour With Your Web Guru Skills or Double That By Knowing Almost Nothing
I took a little break from the world of website development – about a decade – and now that I’m back in it, a lot has changed. In some sense I’m relearning everything so I wanted to write some things out for those of you that may just be starting out in or returning to website development. Despite how confusing things might seem, be diligent and keep working and learning. If you haven’t been introduced, I’d like to introduce you to the world of outsourcing and hiring freelancers.
The first thing you’ll need to begin to grasp is design. Unless you’re a graphic designer already, this is a world all its own. I’ve never been good at it so I let those that are have it. I only know one or two designers personally but I’m connected to hundreds of them through freelance websites like Guru.com and Odesk.com. There you’ll find professional website designers mixed in with legitimate freelancers for hire. The sites lay out the hiring procedure and it’s very simple. The hardest thing about hiring someone is letting go and trusting a stranger. Once you do it a few times, it will get easier.
Once you have the design you want, for yourself or for your client, you can simply send the design (usually a Photoshop file) to another freelancer to code it out. These “coders” can create straight HTML and CSS for you or integrate code into WordPress, Drupal, Joomla, or other content management systems like LightCMS. Usually freelancers charge about double the price for coding into one of these systems. My personal favorites are WordPress and LightCMS.
There are hundreds of WordPress templates and a few dozen for LightCMS. Many are free. Rather than hiring a freelancer, I used to use templates a lot. I had to spend hours tweaking and modifying to get them like I wanted them. So I took some time and learned how to develop the templates myself. I discovered that it’s still much quicker to hire someone else.
Either way you’ll still need some basic knowledge of HTML/CSS because inevitably you’ll need to make some changes. In the same way, you’ll probably need to edited the content if you outsource it. Developing content – that is, text – is tough. Many times clients expect you to read their minds. It’s always best to let them give you at least a rough framework for content. But with that framework you can hire someone to actually create it at about $40 a page depending on the volume.
Launching is little more than purchasing a domain name, signing up for a hosting service, loading the site files to the server and waiting for the Internet magic to happen. It’s absolutely hilarious to me when my clients think that I flip some switch to make a site go “live”. Typically I use a folder on the server just below the domain name to put the site together – something like www.domain.com/site. The site is technically live the whole time it’s just not as easy to find.
Now don’t think that hiring freelancers is the best and only way to go about things but realizes that outsourcing has tremendous advantages. Something I’ve noticed as I approach 40 is that I value my time much more than I used to. Think about this example. A client is willing to pay $5,000 for a site. If I do the site myself, I’m looking at 50 hours of work spread out over 3-4 weeks. This includes getting contracts signed, meeting time, time composing and reading email, design, coding, producing content, editing, training, launching, and invoicing. All of it takes my valuable time. Do the math and I’d be making $100 an hour, which isn’t bad at all.
Now think about the same situation using freelancers. You’ll still spend about 15 hours administrating the site. That will include meetings, emails, phone calls, training, domain registration, and hosting setup. The other 35 hours can be outsourced. Say you pay a designer $250 to design the site, a coder $250 to code it, and a content writer $250 to write content. That would be $750 to create the site which means you’d have $4250 coming to you. For your 15 hours of work that’s $283 an hour and you have 35 hours to spend doing something else – that’s much better living.
You have many opportunities available to you when using freelancers. Take for example the guys at Big Hand Brand. These are professional webs designers that have built a sustainable business using a combination of their own skill and outsourcing. You can do this too with minimal effort – just get started.
Backlinks: I'll write, spin an... 24.97 |  QUALITY ARTICLE WRITING FREE M... 16.95 |  Excellent Article Writing | 50... 5.00 | I'll write a unique article t... 12.97 |
