Help needed please!!

[gg1234]

Hi All -

Just starting out as a web designer. Done a few sites for local businessess but want to build up clients and would like to know were other web designers adveretise - and what success rate seems to be??

Im thinking about either local newspapers or yellow pages - ive thoguht of leaflet dropping but i know someone that owns their own accounting business and leaflet droppng brought no success and no leads


GG

[Alpha]

Hi gg

I 'm not a web designer so am not speaking from experience but

Consider where your market place is and how your suspects would go about choosing your service.

If people want a website designing they are most likely to be searching for you on the internet.
Your own website will be your biggest advertisement, you will therefore need to employ as many SEO techniques as possible to drive traffic to your website.
It goes almost without saying that (but I will say it)you will also need to ensure that your website is up to scratch.

Secondly

Your best source of advertising will be referrals from satisfied customers. Make sure that you always ask them to refer you(if you don't ask they probably will not think about it)

Always stay in touch with clients, offer to extend their sites develop current clients business.

As for leaflet drops

Complete waste of time, if they do not require your service at the time that they receive the leaflet it is likely to end up straight in the bin (What is the probability of them requiring the service when it drops through their door?)

Leaflet drops basically say to the potential client....Cheap and Amateurish and for the type of service you are offering this is not the message that you want to give.

As for yellow pages I'm not sure of the effectiveness for your business.

How many others offering the service are in your edition of the yeallow pages and would your advertisement stand out?

A client of mine when starting out put a £5k set of adverts in yellow pages for similar work and got no business whatsoever from it.

The rest I'll leave to all the other web designers on here to fill in their experiences.

Good Luck

:D

[epiphany]

Local clients face to face, it's far easier to build a proper relationship with them where they come back to you again and again. SEO is something we gain a lot of clients from but it's getting harder to break into all the time as so many people are at it

[MorethanWords]

Check out networking events in your area - meeting people in the flesh is always the best way to build a relationship. Also try approaching big design houses to see if they every outsource when they've got too much work on.

freelancers.net is also a good site for finding out about freelance jobs and things, as well as another forum for creative types. I think the address is http://freelancer.happybiscuit.com/index.php

It is quite a good forum and will put you in touch with other designers too.

HTH

Lulu x

[gg1234]

Hey thanx everyone for the advice - it's really appreciated. I kind of thought the response from yellow pages was not as good as it used to be

Does anyone have any experience in advertising this sought of service in local papers?


GG

[Alpha]

Does anyone have any experience in advertising this sought of service in local papers?

Again how effective is it?

You would have to either advertise every week or within a sponsored article to gain the amount of exposure that you require.

[Steve Roberts]

My nephew used to be a web designer, he's currently a "professional hacker" - whereby companies pay him to try and hack into their system and find weaknesses!!

Anyway, the lad had an interesting sales approach when he was still at school. In the evenings he'd surf the net looking for companies which had rubbish web-sites. He'd spend a couple of evenings re-designing their web-site (so it was FAR better) and then save it as a password protected web-page. He'd then email the MD of the company telling them he felt their web-site could be better and gave them the link and password - offering to sell it (or a version of it). He was making a couple of hundred quid a week for something he enjoyed doing. Not bad for a 15 year old schoolboy!!

[elite123]

Have a look at our website www.elitecollections.net.

Were looking to upgrade the site but small budget - let me know what you could suggest for it and how much you would charge.