By now, you’ve likely encountered and worked your way out one of the more common problems freelancers face. In moving your business model from one that bills by the hour to value-based pricing, you become a trusted resource for clients instead of one they call on to tackle nitpicky requests. As a result, everyone stops focusing on the number of hours you put into a website and starts looking at the outcomes you deliver. By setting a rate that...

Last year, Rachel McPherson shared 9 ways to organize successful creative projects. It’s a very useful article that highlights the main things to do if you want to bring greater control and organization to your web design workflow. Tip #2: Take Advantage of a Project Management Tool, is the one I want to focus on today. Specifically, I want to look at some of the best tools for web designers, how to choose the right one for you, as well as give you...

One of the perks of freelancing is that you can work from pretty much anywhere. However, the pressures of staying connected to work may leave you stuck behind a computer all day anyway. While there’s something to be said for the levels of productivity and output you achieve from a dedicated workspace, there’s no reason you can’t keep the momentum going while you’re out and about. The following list of tools and mobile apps will help you...

When you take the leap into freelancing and self-employment, it’s really exciting at the start. Eventually, the honeymoon phase wears off and you comfortably adjust to life as a freelancer, which, in all honesty, is a really great deal. You get to run your design business the way you want. Work with clients you like. Make as much money as your schedule allows for. Live and work from anywhere in the world (and move as frequently as you want!) This...

Businesses have more options today in terms of how they get their goods and services out to customers: strictly brick-and-mortar, 100% online, or a combination of the two. Because of this, web design isn’t necessarily as straightforward as we’d like it to be. Of course, there will always be certain best practices to abide by—abundant white space; responsive and mobile-first design; easy-to-find CTAs; streamlined user flow; consistent...

Web designers are some of the hardest working people I know. Which is why I don’t envy them having to design websites and other content for clients while managing their freelance design business and continually being on the lookout for new clients. Something I’m reminded of when I think about this, however, is the fact that it’s 25% more expensive to find new clients than retain the ones you already have. It makes sense when you think about...

Stepping into a website that’s already well-established isn’t always easy. For starters, you have to be careful about not stepping on anyone’s toes (the client’s or even the previous designer’s) when providing feedback or suggestions on a new direction for the site. Secondly, there’s much more at stake with a redesign. Not only could a wrong turn hurt an established brand’s identity, but there’s also the disruption to...

An OnDeck Vacation Study reported that only 57% of small business owners planned on taking a vacation last year. Further, only about a quarter of these owners would allow themselves a few days away from work. There were a couple more disturbing facts that came out of this infographic. The first being that the majority of small business owners wouldn’t fully disconnect from work while on vacation; another discouraging statistic showed a...

A website is a place where a business can educate its audience about its brand. What it does. Why it does it. What they’ll get out of being there. That, in and of itself, is a lot of information. When designing a website for your clients, the last thing you want is to overdo it. The web is not a place for excess and its users typically don’t have the patience to sift through pages and pages stuffed full of information just to get to the relevant bits....

The 17th May 2018 is Global Accessibility Awareness day, which makes today the ideal time to consider how inclusive our experiences are for those users who may be disabled, differently-abled, or temporarily inconvenienced. 2017 was a big year for website accessibility lawsuits. Seyfarth and Shaw reported that, by year’s end, there were 814 ADA Title III federal lawsuits filed against websites in the United States alone. Perhaps the...

When you think about social media marketing for your web design business, you may be inclined to focus on platforms like Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, and Dribbble. After all, visuals play a major part in the conversations that take place there and you are in the business of creating engaging visual content. That said, I would argue that Twitter is the best social media marketing platform for a web designer. This is especially so if you’re...

It’s every business owner’s goal to provide a fantastic experience for every client or customer and ensure that each of them walks away happy. But when you work in a service-based capacity, these aren’t just clients you deal with once. As a web designer, you have to develop a relationship with them as projects could last anywhere from a couple weeks to months, and you need that positive rapport and trust to carry you through the end of the...

Starting any new business venture is exciting. You’re free from the shackles of corporate life and you’re finally able to control your own schedule, rates, client base, and workflow. Life as a freelance web design professional rocks, doesn’t it? But what happens when you rock it too hard? In other words, you have too much work coming in and not enough time or energy to throw at it without compromising on quality. You want to be a successful...