Over the years, web designing has actually ended up being a growing number of a extensive skill. Long gone are the days when a "webmaster" was in charge of whatever -from creating pages to writing content and promoting the site. All while making a good living out of this.
Today everyone is a web designer. Free and spent for software application enable to produce a complete theme, or skin, for a website without any knowledge of XHTML, CSS or Photoshop. Not to mention all the graduates from public and private courses that were trained to develop web websites, pages and content management systems.
So it may look like there's little to no factor to end up being a freelance web designer today. However this is not completely true. As much the tools have actually advanced, they are still simply that: tools. They may randomize background images and create a pleasing color pattern, however they do not have the mind and the skill of an individual.
And, regrettably, so do lots of web designers that produce websites with no visual worth, hard to navigate and take a look at. Websites, in one word, that can not convert their visitors into repeated visitors. Likewise, in spite of owning perhaps the entire Imaginative Suite, they just fire up Photoshop and overlook such a powerhorse as After Results is for Web Video production.
Which's all, the 3 suggestions that will help you in earning a living from freelancing webdesign are currently in front of your eyes, but let's take a look in detail to each one of them:
1. Provide value only a trained human can supply. Makers are fantastic timesavers, and someone utilizing a $100 application can produce twenty web websites quicker than you can plan the very first. However they will all be similar, cookie-cutter produced, design templates. The sort of site that doesn't reflect the site owner's objectives and expectations. So make this clear, and spell it out on your LinkedIn profile or Facebook page: you do take care of your customer the method a factory-style designer will never ever be able to do.
2. Make sure you can design websites that convert. Conversion is everything when it pertains to website design. And it does not stop at internet marketing. Every website desires its visitors to click here convert. Registering for the RSS feed, checking out a sponsored link, or perhaps just thinking of the "Message" the site owner is trying to spread. Conversion can just be accomplished when you plan the site for a really specific target visitor. And again this is something just an human can do. Start clean, don't believe an eCommerce site needs to look corporate or a video gaming site needs to be bold and contrast. Rather, make it clear to your prospective employer that you'll supply him or her with an remarkable research effort, much earlier than when you'll begin documenting CSS rules and care for DOCTYPES.
3. Be on the leading edge to new technologies. Simply a few years ago it was hard not to discover "flash intros" and photos of individuals shaking hands. Now they have disappeared from all the sites where trained, intelligent, web designers are at works. However they still live, and I can guarantee you one thing: those site's owners experience a absence of conversion that annoys them. Show them you can eliminate their discomfort with a case study, or perhaps much better a video case study. Opportunities are you own a web cam, so have a good hairstyle, buy some licorice (it works wonders when it comes to improving your voice recordings) and tape a brief segment where you explain how and why they can gain from a contemporary, well thought out technique.
Don't go overboard with a Powerpoint presentation, keep it professional however on a personal level. And program, show, show them how an ugly site can be developed into a well oiled transforming machine. All due to the fact that you have invested a couple of hours looking at how to turn a fixed Photoshop logo design into corporate looking video with After Effects' 3D electronic camera movements and a little bit of screen catching.
In summary, all you have to do is to supply something an unskilled person with the best tool can not provide: a imaginative, individual advantage. Of course this suggests you'll have to invest some nights 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 Understanding equals Success.