For many years, website design has actually become more and more a widespread ability. Long gone are the days when a " web designer" supervised of everything -from designing pages to writing material and promoting the site. All while making a great living out of this.
Today everybody is a web designer. Free and spent for software application enable to produce a complete theme, or skin, for a web site without any understanding of XHTML, CSS or Photoshop. Not to discuss all the graduates from public and private courses that were trained to create website, pages and content management systems.
So it may look like there's little to no reason to become a freelance web designer today. But this is not entirely true. As much the tools have advanced, they are still just that: tools. They may randomize background images and produce a pleasing color pattern, but they do not have the mind and the ability of an individual.
And, sadly, so do numerous web designers that produce sites without any visual worth, difficult to browse and take a look at. Websites, in one word, that can not transform their visitors into duplicated visitors. Likewise, in spite of owning perhaps the whole Imaginative Suite, they only fire up Photoshop and overlook such a powerhorse as After Effects is for Web Video development.
Which's all, the three suggestions that will assist you in earning a living from freelancing webdesign are already in front of your eyes, but let's take a look in information to each one of them:
1. Provide value only a qualified human can provide. Machines are fantastic timesavers, and someone utilizing a $100 application can produce twenty website faster than you can plan the very first. However they will all be comparable, cookie-cutter produced, design templates. The sort of site that does not show the site owner's objectives and expectations. So make this clear, and spell it out on your LinkedIn profile or Facebook page: you do look after your customer the way a factory-style designer will never have the ability to do.
2. Make certain you can design sites that convert. Conversion is everything when it pertains to website design. And it does not stop at online marketing. Every web site wants its visitors to convert. Registering for the RSS feed, checking out a sponsored link, or possibly just considering the "Message" the site owner is trying to spread out. Conversion can just be attained when you plan the site for a very specific target visitor. And again this is something just an human can do. Start tidy, do not believe an eCommerce site has to look corporate or a gaming site has to be strong and contrast. Rather, make it clear to your possible company that you'll supply him or her with an exceptional research effort, much earlier than when you'll start jotting down CSS rules and care for DOCTYPES.
3. Be on the forefront to new technologies. Just a few years ago it was difficult not to find "flash intros" and photos of individuals shaking hands. Now they have disappeared from all the websites where trained, intelligent, web designers are at works. But they still live, and I can guarantee you one thing: those site's owners experience a lack of conversion that annoys them. Show them you can alleviate their pain with a case study, or even better a video case study. Chances are you own a webcam, so have a good haircut, buy some licorice (it works wonders when it comes to improving your voice recordings) and record a brief sector where you describe how and why they can benefit from a modern, well believed out technique.
Do not overdo it with a Powerpoint discussion, keep it professional but on a personal level. And show, program, reveal them how an awful site can be developed into a well oiled transforming maker. All since you have actually spent a few hours looking at how to turn a static Photoshop logo into business looking video with After Results' 3D electronic camera movements and a little bit of screen recording.
In summary, all you need to do is to offer here something an unskilled individual with the right tool can not provide: a creative, individual benefit. Obviously this indicates you'll have to spend some evenings in front of your Mac or Pc, scratch your head over After Effects structures or the ins and outs of digital video postproduction. However it's well worth it and will provide you a boost in no time. Remember this formula: Creativity plus Knowledge equates to Success.