Getting started as a Freelance Web Developer

[Anon4352]

Hello,

It seems that years working in an office and for a small number of clients as freelancer has not given me enough experience to go for it.

Here is my personal background:

I have a personal website

I have the software development skills required for web development. If only I could show most of it.

I have a few local companies that I work with/for.

I can handle the accounting side of things, my wife is really good at it.

How can I get out there more and bring more necessary attention to myself to show that I am capable and able and not really awfully bad at what I do. I just don't have enough connections, perhaps living in a small town doesn't help, or maybe I need to be a designer even though my passion is with coding?

Do I need to get involved with an organisation that provides work to freelancers, like an agency? How do I reach out?

Best Regards.

 

[fisicx]

Advertise. Local papers, parish magazines, supermarket postcards, Google Adwords, local directories, banners on websites. Posters on walls. In other words, do exactly the same as every other website designer/developer.

 

[websensejim]

You might want to reconsider freelancing after today's budget. An absolute bloodbath for freelancers

 

[Anon4352]

Thanks fisicx. Advertising is something that I would prefer to happen naturally, through providing a good service to the right people. I do have 5 projects to release of my own which should bring me some revenue. I've been working on them all a bit at a time for 2 years now.

I will have to check that out then websensejim. What's the short? Let me guess, huge increase in tax?

 

[websensejim]

The short of it is a hike in NICs and a huge slashing of the dividend allowance from 5k to just 2k.
They've also moved the goalposts with the flat rate VAT scheme so there's no longer decent savings to be made there if you're VAT registered.

 

[KimH]

Not sure if you have heard of behance, you can upload your portfolio and link to it via linkedin, facebook etc. My son uses it exclusively to showcase his design projects and seems perfectly content with it. Good luck!

 

[Anon4352]

I see websensejim, basically freelancers will be paying more just because of the way they work? Totally unfair!

Thanks for the tip, RavenRidge Recruitment, I have just joined Behance using my Adobe account

 

[KimH]

You can call me Kim It's a pleasure - and again, best of luck with your new venture.

 

[AllUpHere]

An absolute bloodbath for freelancers

You've led a very sheltered life if you think having to pay a bit more tax and NI is 'a bloodbath'.

 

[fisicx]

Thanks fisicx. Advertising is something that I would prefer to happen naturally, through providing a good service to the right people.

Referrals are a good source of quality leads but you need to get the initial clients. And to do that you need to market your services. But you are competing with thousands of others who all offer the same as you. Do you even know your target client? Is it Bob the Builder, Derek selling cheap socks online, an SME or a company with a 6 figure budget?

 

[Anon4352]

I am currently working for a few clients that have companies that turnover a bit of cash. I am looking for more work because they are not permanent positions, perhaps I will be called back to update from time to time but I do need to keep work coming in. So I do have the initial clients. My targets are packaging, manufacturing and construction and also anything to do with physics and astronomy as I want to learn more about it. I also have written an AI program that has 100 intelligent artificial minds that communicate with each other. I also have 5 websites to release which offer a range of services to different industries. I just need to keep the short-term cash coming in. I'm not sure how to reach out to packaging, manufacturing and construction companies, maybe I need to create another site that specifically targets them?