Hi Po,
I'm a part time web developer ( www.johnpitchers.com.au ). I work as a sales consultant 4 days a week and spend the other 3 days and most evenings doing web development.
A few things;
Become as fluent as possible with HTML(obviously), PHP, MYSQL and CSS.
Qube advised above to refer to yourself as a company not an individual and I can see the reasoning. On the other hand, most of my customers are small businesses and I find that customers like to know who they are dealing with and prefer a personal approach. I've had a better response from my web page since I started referring to myself as an individual.
Your website is important but don't rely on it as your primary source of business. The vast majority of my work comes from word of mouth. About 80% of my work over the past 2 years has been refered to me by computer retailers. You will be surprised how many business people buy a new PC from a retailer and ask "Do you do websites?" So, get down to your local computer shop and ask if you can leave a business card stand on their counter. Be sure to service that client. Buy things from them every now and then or offer to do some work for them for free or at a discount. It's the Law of Reciprocation. They will refer everyone to you in return.
As a solo web developer, actually SELLING your service is as important as the service itself. Conventional advertising is a waste of money in my opinion. Give your business card to every one you meet - the mechanic, the newsagent, the gardener, your kids school teachers, everyone. Entice them. The back of my card says. "SAVE $2000 OFF THE DEVELOPMENT OF YOUR NEW SITE! HOW? WWW.JOHNPITCHERS.COM.AU". One of my clients owns a flooring shop a few suburbs away. He didn't have a web site so I built him a simple 3 page site without telling him, uploaded it to my server and sent him the link. Three days later he signed up for a new site for $800. Took me about 4 hours.
Most customers will ask you if it's hard to update or add pages to their website. And for most customers with a static website and no html experience it's going to be impossible for them.
For this I use and highly recommend Mambo (www.mamboserver.com ). Mambo is an open source content management system based on php and mysql. There are a wealth of add ons for it, a fantastic online communtiy, and it's easy to setup and customise. There is a mambo-phpshop component which instantly add ecommerce functionallity. Unlike other CMS's mambo websites don't all look the same. You will need a good understanding of CSS and PHP to design custom templates.
What I really love about Mambo, is that customers who have very little computer know how can add content to their website almost as easily as typing a Word document.
I can charge $1800-$2500 for a site made with Mambo where I would have previously developed a static site for about $600.
A friend once told me "Be aware of copyright. If it's right,copy it!" Now, I don't mean blatantly copy other peoples work. Just, be inspired by good works. If you like the look or functionallity of a particular site and think it could work in one of your own then emulate without copying. It's a great way to learn new techniques.
Lastly, there are alot of highschool kids out there with a copy of Frontpage calling themselves web developers. Be different. Offer people the ability to update their own site, on site training, ecommerce or if ecommerce is not required then sell them the ability to easily add ecommerce to their existing site when they are ready, saving them money in the future. Offer them free configuration of their email client to their new email addresses, search engine optimisation and ongoing support.
That's about it. Sorry if I've rambled.
Good luck.
Regards
John Pitchers
I'm a part time web developer ( www.johnpitchers.com.au ). I work as a sales consultant 4 days a week and spend the other 3 days and most evenings doing web development.
A few things;
Become as fluent as possible with HTML(obviously), PHP, MYSQL and CSS.
Qube advised above to refer to yourself as a company not an individual and I can see the reasoning. On the other hand, most of my customers are small businesses and I find that customers like to know who they are dealing with and prefer a personal approach. I've had a better response from my web page since I started referring to myself as an individual.
Your website is important but don't rely on it as your primary source of business. The vast majority of my work comes from word of mouth. About 80% of my work over the past 2 years has been refered to me by computer retailers. You will be surprised how many business people buy a new PC from a retailer and ask "Do you do websites?" So, get down to your local computer shop and ask if you can leave a business card stand on their counter. Be sure to service that client. Buy things from them every now and then or offer to do some work for them for free or at a discount. It's the Law of Reciprocation. They will refer everyone to you in return.
As a solo web developer, actually SELLING your service is as important as the service itself. Conventional advertising is a waste of money in my opinion. Give your business card to every one you meet - the mechanic, the newsagent, the gardener, your kids school teachers, everyone. Entice them. The back of my card says. "SAVE $2000 OFF THE DEVELOPMENT OF YOUR NEW SITE! HOW? WWW.JOHNPITCHERS.COM.AU". One of my clients owns a flooring shop a few suburbs away. He didn't have a web site so I built him a simple 3 page site without telling him, uploaded it to my server and sent him the link. Three days later he signed up for a new site for $800. Took me about 4 hours.
Most customers will ask you if it's hard to update or add pages to their website. And for most customers with a static website and no html experience it's going to be impossible for them.
For this I use and highly recommend Mambo (www.mamboserver.com ). Mambo is an open source content management system based on php and mysql. There are a wealth of add ons for it, a fantastic online communtiy, and it's easy to setup and customise. There is a mambo-phpshop component which instantly add ecommerce functionallity. Unlike other CMS's mambo websites don't all look the same. You will need a good understanding of CSS and PHP to design custom templates.
What I really love about Mambo, is that customers who have very little computer know how can add content to their website almost as easily as typing a Word document.
I can charge $1800-$2500 for a site made with Mambo where I would have previously developed a static site for about $600.
A friend once told me "Be aware of copyright. If it's right,copy it!" Now, I don't mean blatantly copy other peoples work. Just, be inspired by good works. If you like the look or functionallity of a particular site and think it could work in one of your own then emulate without copying. It's a great way to learn new techniques.
Lastly, there are alot of highschool kids out there with a copy of Frontpage calling themselves web developers. Be different. Offer people the ability to update their own site, on site training, ecommerce or if ecommerce is not required then sell them the ability to easily add ecommerce to their existing site when they are ready, saving them money in the future. Offer them free configuration of their email client to their new email addresses, search engine optimisation and ongoing support.
That's about it. Sorry if I've rambled.
Good luck.
Regards
John Pitchers