I’ve been a big fan of social media for quite a while now, using it in some shape or form for the past 5 years or so, although much more heavily in the last 2 or 3 years. One of my main uses of social media has been to pick up freelance work, which I have discussed briefly in a previous post.

There is a lot of talk across the web on how employers or recruiters can use Social Media to find new talent, but there is very little advising jobseekers how to best use Social Media to help them land their next move. So I am going to offer a few tips on how to best use Social Media to help you in your job hunt.

The most important tip…

It’s more than likely that any potential employer WILL look at your Facebook profile, when deciding whether to a) interview you, or b) offer you a job. Those drunken pictures of you playing the Lying Down Game outside the Taxi rank at 4am may not exactly be looked on favourably by your would-be boss. Now I’m not saying for one minute that you should moderate the content on your Facebook account, but what I am saying is that you should make sure you have the right Facebook Privacy Settings to ensure that only your friends are able to see your Facebook activities.

LinkedIn

Whilst a lot of people have a LinkedIn account, they don’t necessarily know how to use it properly. LinkedIn can act as a job board, a networking tool, your CV and a search tool – there’s a bit more to it than creating a profile and adding a few connections.

First things first, make sure your profile is as accurate and as up to date as possible, you should take as much care getting this right as you would your CV. Choose a photograph for your profile that is professional yet not too ‘corporate’, try to find a good balance between the two. Take advantage of the new “Add Sections” feature, in particular the Skills feature and the Certifications feature to mention any recognised qualifications that you may have.

Next up you should ask any current or former colleagues for a recommendation on your LinkedIn account. Recommendations are more than just traditional references, they can be from anybody you’ve worked with – colleagues, team members, your managers, pretty much anybody you’ve ever done business with. Try to get a good mix of people to recommend you, sometimes it’s not just the number of recommendations or what has been written that matters most; the connection between you and the person writing the recommendation often carries a lot of weight. Recommendations can act as ‘proof’ of your achievements, they help add weight and credibility to your profile.

Now this is the point where a lot of people then sit back, relax and think they have LinkedIn well and truly boxed off. Yes you’ll appear in some search results, and if hiring managers happen to stumble across your profile I’m sure that they’ll be very impressed. However, unless you have a moderately sized network, the chances of being found and contactable are slim unless you take some action.

This is where I get to talk about one of my favourite parts of LinkedIn – LinkedIn Answers. Recently I’ve found myself asking questions on LinkedIn on certain topics rather than just searching Google for a quick answer. Sure it takes a lot longer to find a good answer, but the quality of some of the answers are fantastic. In the last week or so I have asked questions on Web Development, HR Law and Social Media Marketing and I haven’t been left disappointed in the responses I’ve received. You can also check the credibility of those answering your questions by viewing their profile. So what has this got to do with your Job Search? You can be the person answering the questions, sharing your expertise, engaging with other professionals in your industry – getting your name out there and proving that you know what you’re talking about. Social Media is about engagement with other users, communicating with them, providing your audience with some value, in this case by answering their questions.

LinkedIn also has a pretty good job board, it doesn’t have as many jobs advertised as some of the more mainstream job boards, but one advantage is that if you have a decent sized network you can see how you are connected to the hiring manager.

Twitter

How can 140 characters help you find your next job?. When I very first starting using Twitter, my main aim was to use it as more of an RSS feed of useful information, so I followed a lot of web designers, knowing that they always shared useful tutorials and articles. Then I started to reply to Tweets where I thought I could provide some value to the Tweeter, if they sought advice on something, I’d point them in the right direction if I could. Over a relatively short space of time I’d began to build up quite a valuable network, which lead to me picking up more freelance work – the same could be applied to finding a new job.

The most difficult aspect of Twitter is building up a quality following. Notice the word quality, I would much rather have 20 quality followers who I can engage with, than have 20,000 followers who do nothing but pretty much stalk me and contribute nothing. The best way to build up quality following is to follow people with whom you share interests, that way their tweets should be of value to you and you’re more likely to be able to provide value back.

LinkedIn have not too long ago introduced a tool that checks your connections to see if they are on Twitter, this may be a good starting point when deciding on who to follow.

Another tip which I have found particularly useful, although initially time consuming – use Google Maps to search for companies in your local area that may hire people with your skills at some point in the future. If that company is using Twitter, then a link to their account will usually be on their website, next them they’re hiring there’s a good chance they’ll tweet about it!

These are just some very basic tips on using social media to find a new job, the main thing is to be active and remember that whilst you may be using social networking to land a job, don’t be selfish in your approach and make your social activity all about your goals. Engage with your audience, provide them with valuable content and they will no doubt return the favour, that favour could very well be a job interview or recommendation!

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When most people think of social media, they think of Twitter, Facebook and Linkedin. To a lesser extent they may also think of Digg and StumbleUpon. One of the ‘newer’ social networking sites that I have been playing around with for the last few weeks is Empire Avenue. 

Empire Avenue at it’s very simplest is (to quote Wikipedia) a ‘stock market simulation social network game’. In other words, you buy and sell shares in other users to increase your own share price, wealth and overall influence. However after a couple of hours searching the site, joining communities and interacting with other users, you begin to realise that Empire Avenue is so much more than a game, in fact I wouldn’t describe it as a game at all.

Empire Avenue hasn’t really taken off in the UK yet in the same way that it has in the States, but it will, and I think it will in a big way. Some major brands are already using Empire Avenue to increase their online presence, just a few examples of companies using Empire Avenue are BMW, Nokia, XBox and Betfair.

Signing up is as easy as connecting your Facebook, LinkedIn or Twitter accounts – or you can add all 3 plus your YouTube and Flickr accounts, the more you add the better. You can even add your blog feeds too. The more you add to your social media account, the quicker your ‘Empire’ will grow. All of your Tweets, FB updates and blog posts are visible for anybody on Empire Avenue to see – increasing the overall ‘reach’ of your social media efforts and thus increasing your overall value and share price. The higher your value, the more shareholders and recommendations you are likely to receive, increasing your social media reach even more.

It’s also encouraging me to be more socially active, communicating with more people and sharing more valuable content, but not in a ‘spammy’ way. Empire Avenue rewards social media activity, but not just by quantity but more importantly by quality. You can send out tweet after tweet, or update your Facebook status every 5 minutes, but if people aren’t retweeting, mentioning you, liking or commenting on your status, then you won’t see your share price increase as much as someone who is providing ‘valuable content’. As I mentioned above, the higher your share price, the more people will notice you and invest in you, increasing your overall influence.

The main benefit of Empire Avenue for me has been that it has connected me to people that I would never have normally come into contact with via Twitter, LinkedIn or Facebook. People such as David Cable who has some really interesting ideas on Seo and Social Media, and Marketing Managers such as James Parton who is involved with some really exciting mobile app work with O2.

Empire Avenue has provided me with a good few benefits already on both a professional level and a personal level. I’m making some good connections but at the same time I’m sharing with people with similar interests to my own.

If you’re using Empire Avenue, it would be good to hear any success stories, or indeed answer any questions, in the comments below.

If you’re not using Empire Avenue yet, I’d suggest you give it a go, it can be a little overwhelming at first but definitely worthwhile. If you do sign up, use this link so that we both get extra Eaves when you register – that’s pretend money to buy shares  http://empireavenue.com/?t=ss3uvbrt

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One of the most difficult aspects of being a freelance web designer is finding and maintaining a steady stream of work. This is especially true for newbie freelancers, one of the biggest mistakes you can make is to sit back and wait for projects to find you – this will almost never happen, at least not when you are starting out.

There are a number of different ways you can go about finding work.

Create a website

First things first, create a website so that you can showcase your work professionally with a killer portfolio. In order to attract visitors to your site, embed widgets that connect to your blog and social network sites. If you are not sure how to build a website don’t worry, because there are many web hosting platforms out there that are able to help you build a website easily, such as Basekit which enables you to build a personalized web site without any coding.

There is very little point in creating a killer portfolio site if you are not driving traffic and potential clients towards it. One of the best ways to get more visitors to your site is to start and maintain a blog. Not only is a regularly updated content great for SEO, but it also shows potential clients that you are knowledgeable in your field.

A blog can be used to start discussions with fellow designers and developers, all of which may be a potential source of work for you in the future.Do you specialise in or have knowledge of a particular industry that is not directly related to design? Writing articles on these types of subjects may also help bring less technical potential clients to your site, since you already know a lot about their field they may just approach you for their next web project.

Utilise social media

Everyone is trying to use social media to promote their business and freelancers are no different. The problem is that a lot of people are unaware of the best ways to fully exploit the benefits of social media. Of all the social media sites that are available, these are the main three that you should use:

1. Twitter

The mistake a lot of people make is to just follow other designers and to tweet useful design related links. Whilst this is a great way to learn from others and to contribute to the community, it’s not going to help you find much work. Try to get involved in discussions, with both designers and people in a particular field you are interested in. For example if you are passionate about gaming or fashion, get involved in discussions with industry experts whilst letting them know what you do. It may lead to potential new clients.

2.Facebook

Update your profile, let all of your friends know what you do for a living. Create a page promoting your business and invite all your friends to become fans. The efficiency and effectiveness of word of mouth has never been better thanks to Facebook. Put pictures of your work online for all to see, but just make sure that picture of you and your 3am kebab is not visible to everyone!

3. Linkedin

Like Twitter, a lot of people don’t know how to take full advantage of Linkedin. Linkedin is so much more than making a few connections and hoping they’ll maybe one day turn into potential clients. You can use it as a search tool to find future clients,
search Q&A to contribute and share your knowledge, you can integrate your blog, start discussions and even become a member of the hundreds of groups. It’s worth spending a few hours getting to grips with Linkedin – it has been a greater source of traffic to my site than Facebook and Twitter combined.

Comment on Blogs

This doesn’t mean commenting on blogs just for the sake of it. As a designer, you probably spend a good chunk of time reading design blogs anyway – if you have an opinion then it’s worth spending a few minutes making a comment. Not only will this help increase traffic to your site but commenting on blogs is also a form of networking. You are contributing to discussions and letting a wider audience know what you are talking about.

Like I mentioned earlier in regards to your own blog and people you follow on Twitter – try to expand into commenting on a broader range of subjects – you never know who might be reading!

Targeted Email Campaign

It is worth spending time compiling a list of local businesses in your area, along with email addresses. Whether that means searching the Yellow Pages, local papers or business directories, it’s a good idea to build a list of potential local companies who could benefit from your services. You can even export your Linkedin contacts into a csv file to add to your mailing list.

Then simply send out an email to all the businesses informing them of the services you offer and a link to your portfolio. Sure it takes a good amount of time to build up a quality mailing list, but you’d be surprised at the results you do it right.

Flyers, Leaflets & Business Cards

Don’t underestimate the power of traditional marketing methods. A well placed flyer in the window of a local computer shop can do wonders for promoting your business locally.

What methods do you use to promote your freelance business?

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After reading the above you may think that there are no similarities between designing websites and managing a football team. However, bear with me and hopefully by the end of this post I’ll have convinced you.

Formation

A manager spends a large chunk of his time looking at the best way to set out his team, where the players will be positioned when they have the ball, when they don’t have the ball and during set pieces. He will look at the space between the midfield and the front line; look how to close as many gaps as possible and in what position to play his key players. The formation he ultimately decides on will depend on the players as his disposal.

A web designer will spend a lot of time during the design process determining how best to layout the elements of a website. Which elements work best in what position, how much space to leave between elements, if certain spaces need filling or if more whitespace will work better. The layout that the designer ultimately decides on will depend heavily on the content at his disposal.

So whilst a football manager will spend time deciding whether to play a 4-4-2 or a more defensive 4-1-3-1-1, a designer will spend his time deciding whether to go with a 1 column layout, a 2 column or maybe even a more structured 3 column layout.

Reaction

How will players act in certain situations? If the team is suddenly two nil down will they be more offensive in their approach, will the wingers push harder to get to the byline and put some quality crosses into the box? If the opposing team substitutes their nippy agile winger for their 6ft 5 striker, will the manager decide to counteract this by bringing on their equally big central defender? A manager will have to decide how their team and players should react to certain situations.

A web designer will have to decide how the elements of his web page will react to certain user actions. What happens when a user hovers their mouse over a link, what happens if a user tries to visit a broken link, what happens if a user enters invalid information in a web form? These are all different situations that a designer will have to anticipate, and decide how these different elements will react.

Pleasing the Fans

Any football manager will tell you that the best way to please the team’s fans is to win games, win trophies and by playing attractive fluid football. A manager who doesn’t listen to the fans won’t last long at the club, he doesn’t necessarily have to act on every piece of advice or criticism he may receive, but he certainly has to listen to it and acknowledge it. If he doesn’t act on it, he needs to explain why and prove he was right to stick to his guns.
A good manager will also manage the expectations of the fans, you won’t hear the manager of a newly promoted side tell the fans that they will be challenging for a European place or the title.

A web designer’s fans are his clients and their users, and the best way to please your clients and their users is to produce a good final result. Like a football manager, a web designer has to listen to his fans, find out what they want, what they expect, but at the same time be brave enough to tell them when they are wrong, why they don’t need Flash landing page, and then prove to them why he was right.

A good web designer will have to manage their client’s expectations, they need to know and understand that you can’t produce a trophy winning website with unrealistic deadlines and a small budget.

Earning the Big Jobs

You don’t get to be the manager of a global footballing institute without having earned it. If you want to be the manager of Liverpool, Real Madrid or Inter Milan, you will have probably had to have managed Yeovil Town, Las Palmas or Reggina. You have to start with the smaller jobs and work your way up to the bigger jobs, and earn the right to manage a big club. If you try and win the big job too soon, and manage to, it’s very likely that you will soon find yourself out of your depth and struggling to please the fans.

The same can be said for a web designer. You’ll probably begin your career working on smaller not so interesting jobs that don’t pay too well whilst you are learning your trade. However after a few year’s experience and pleasing your ‘fans’ along the way, you’ll be ready for some bigger jobs. Jobs that have more demanding fans and jobs that will require you to put to good use all of the experience you gained on the smaller jobs. After a few more years, you should be ready for the biggest jobs. These clients have the highest of expectations and only the best will do, but by now you should be well equipped to handle this job, and you’ll be winning trophies in no time.

The question to ask yourself at the end of all this, if you were to compare your design processes and knowledge as a designer to that of a football manager – what type of manager would you be, a manager of team who is tactically astute, plays attractive football and has the full support of the fan base; or the manager of a struggling underachieving side whose fans are calling for your resignation?

Imagine going to a restaurant and enjoying one of the best meals that you have ever eaten, but the service was lousy, I mean really lousy. You had to wait over an hour for your food; the waiter was inattentive and he even got part of your order wrong. Would you go back to the restaurant again or recommend it to a friend? If you’re anything like me, you’ll remember the entire experience rather than just the end product.

If You Say You’ll Do Something, Do It

If you make a commitment to a project, whether it’s a particular deadline or a piece of functionality, ensure you follow through. If you promised the client a website with a full content management system within two weeks, you better make sure you deliver on time. Failing to do so could have a massive knock on effect on your client’s business – say for example your client is expecting the final bug free version of a site in two weeks time and has planned an extensive marketing campaign on this basis and you miss the deadline. You have caused your client both valuable time and money. Somehow I don’t think they’ll be too happy and I doubt they’ll want to work with you again.

When it comes to dealing with a new client you are only as good as your word and not living up to your word will more than likely earn you a bad reputation and lose you repeat business.

Be Honest

Your client wants a full e-commerce website that they can update themselves and they are willing to pay big bucks for it. You’ve never designed, let alone built an e-commerce site before; do you take on the project even though you are unsure whether you will be able to do a great job in the time available?

I’m a huge advocate of taking on challenging projects and using them as an opportunity to learn new skills as well being paid for doing it. However there is a big difference between taking on challenging project and being well out of your depth. Taking on a job that introduces a big learning curve will pretty much guarantee that the end product won’t be as good as it should be.

If you can’t do a particular job, be upfront and honest with the client. Maybe you know somebody else in the industry who has the experience that you don’t. You can outsource the parts of the project that you can’t do well, whilst you focus on the areas that you know you can deliver.

Stay in Touch

Every client is different; some will expect regular updates whilst others will be a lot more relaxed and leave you to it. I like to provide my clients with regular updates, whether it’s just a short email to let them know that we are still on track and things are going well or screenshots or the URL on my test server where I will give them access to areas of the site that are almost ready.

I find that by providing my clients with regular updates that it helps to put their mind at ease that the project is in safe hands and all is going to plan. If the client has seen the work in progress and is pleased what they’ve seen, it also gives me peace of mind that they won’t be asking for massive changes towards the end of the project.

If a client sends you an email or leaves you a message, you should always try to get back to them within 24 hours at the most, especially during the working week. Whilst it’s important for the client to understand that you do have other projects and they shouldn’t expect your world to revolve around them; it’s equally important that you be contactable during working hours. If you prove impossible to get a hold of, you will more than likely be perceived by your client as unreliable.

Don’t Just Design – Advise

There are times when you can give the client exactly what they want and times when you need to advise them that what they want isn’t the best idea. A lot of clients, particularly those who have entrusted you to build their first website, don’t always know what is best for them. For example they insist you use a certain set of colours or layout style, you know that it just isn’t going to work; although they seem convinced it’s a brilliant idea. Do you just do what they ask or do you advise them against it and explain the reasons why? I like to think of that a large part of my job as a designer is to advise and if necessary educate my clients. Not only will they appreciate your honesty, but they’ll also be happy to know that you care about their website just as much as they do.

Get And Understand The Facts

It sounds like an obvious point, but do you fully understand exactly what your client’s needs are? Do you know who your clients competitors are, who their target audience is, what they want their website to achieve, are there specific functionality requirements? You’d be surprised how many designers don’t fully understand their client’s needs before starting work on a project. The result is an unhappy client who hasn’t got what they asked for and a designer who won’t be walking away with a glowing reference.

Go the Extra Mile

The freelance design industry is fierce with competition; there are countless design agencies and designers who offer quick and very low cost design services. Competing as a freelance designer and making a good living can be extremely difficult unless you stand out from the crowd. Offering outstanding customer service to your clients is just one of the ways you can make sure you do stand out, earn repeat business and receive glowing recommendations from your clients.

There are a number of different ways you can go about finding work.

Create a website

First things first, create a website so that you can showcase your work professionally with a killer portfolio. In order to attract visitors to your site, embed widgets that connect to your blog and social network sites. If you are not sure how to build a website don’t worry, because there are many web hosting platforms out there that are able to help you build a website easily, such as Basekit which enables you to build a personalized web site without any coding.

There is very little point in creating a killer portfolio site if you are not driving traffic and potential clients towards it. One of the best ways to get more visitors to your site is to start and maintain a blog. Not only is a regularly updated content great for SEO, but it also shows potential clients that you are knowledgeable in your field.

A blog can be used to start discussions with fellow designers and developers, all of which may be a potential source of work for you in the future.Do you specialise in or have knowledge of a particular industry that is not directly related to design? Writing articles on these types of subjects may also help bring less technical potential clients to your site, since you already know a lot about their field they may just approach you for their next web project.

Utilise social media

Everyone is trying to use social media to promote their business and freelancers are no different. The problem is that a lot of people are unaware of the best ways to fully exploit the benefits of social media. Of all the social media sites that are available, these are the main three that you should use:

1. Twitter

The mistake a lot of people make is to just follow other designers and to tweet useful design related links. Whilst this is a great way to learn from others and to contribute to the community, it’s not going to help you find much work. Try to get involved in discussions, with both designers and people in a particular field you are interested in. For example if you are passionate about gaming or fashion, get involved in discussions with industry experts whilst letting them know what you do. It may lead to
potential new clients.

Another way to utilise the power of Twitter is to benefit from tools such as TweepSearch and NoisyRobin. TweepSearch allows you to search the profiles of fellow users to help you find people to follow, for example you could search for the creative directors of design studios in your area, no doubt these are great contacts to have.

NoisyRobin searches individual tweets and emails you information. The next time somebody tweets the immortal words ‘I’m looking for a freelance web designer’ you could be the first to know!

2.Facebook

Update your profile, let all of your friends know what you do for a living. Create a page promoting your business and invite all your friends to become fans. The efficiency and effectiveness of word of mouth has never been better thanks to Facebook. Put pictures of your work online for all to see, but just make sure that picture of you and your 3am kebab is not visible to everyone!

3. Linkedin

Like Twitter, a lot of people don’t know how to take full advantage of Linkedin. Linkedin is so much more than making a few connections and hoping they’ll maybe one day turn into potential clients. You can use it as a search tool to find future clients,
search Q&A to contribute and share your knowledge, you can integrate your blog, start discussions and even become a member of the hundreds of groups. It’s worth spending a few hours getting to grips with Linkedin – it has been a greater source of traffic to my site than Facebook and Twitter combined.

Comment on Blogs

This doesn’t mean commenting on blogs just for the sake of it. As a designer, you probably spend a good chunk of time reading design blogs anyway – if you have an opinion then it’s worth spending a few minutes making a comment. Not only will this help increase traffic to your site but commenting on blogs is also a form of networking. You are contributing to
discussions and letting a wider audience know what you are talking about.

Like I mentioned earlier in regards to your own blog and people you follow on Twitter – try to expand into commenting on a broader range of subjects – you never know who might be reading!

Targeted Email Campaign

It is worth spending time compiling a list of local businesses in your area, along with email addresses. Whether that means searching the Yellow Pages, local papers or business directories, it’s a good idea to build a list of potential local companies who could benefit from your services. You can even export your Linkedin contacts into a csv file to add to your mailing list.

Then simply send out an email to all the businesses informing them of the services you offer and a link to your portfolio. Sure it takes a good amount of time to build up a quality mailing list, but you’d be surprised at the results you do it right.

Flyers, Leaflets & Business Cards

Don’t underestimate the power of traditional marketing methods. A well placed flyer in the window of a local computer shop can do wonders for promoting your business locally.

What methods do you use to promote your freelance business?

There are a few precautions that you can take at the beginning and throughout a project to make sure that it’s more likely a project ends with a handshake and you leaving with a cheque in your hands.

Agree on a price before starting work

Sending an invoice to a client at the end of a project that specifies an unexpected figure can often make them more reluctant to part with their cash. This often happens when the designer quotes an hourly rate and a rough estimation of how long the project will take to complete. Say for example you tell a client that you expect the project to take approximately twenty hours to complete and your hourly rate is X. The client will already have the value of Y in their head, a figure which they expect to be paying come the end of the project. During the development phase you encounter a few issues and discover that you grossly under-estimated how much time would need to go into the project and it ends up taking you thirty five hours to finish. You then send an invoice to the client charging them for thirty five hours of your time, quoting them the figure Z.

On a scale of one to ten, how happy do you think the client will be? My guess would be a one, maybe a two or three at best if you have done a fantastic job. An unhappy client is very unlikely to want to part with their cash, especially when they have to part with almost double than they were expecting.
You should always try to give a client a final project price before commencing work. So taking the above example into account if you under-estimate the length of a project by fifteen hours and provided the client with a quote of Y, the harsh truth is that you can only charge Y and not Z. The end result is that the client won’t face any nasty surprises, be much more likely to pay you the full amount as quoted and you’ll learn a valuable lesson in that you’ll never as massively under estimate the duration of a project again.

Get a signed contract

Once you have agreed a price with the client, get it in writing. At its simplest the contract should cover the price, what the project involves, how many revisions are included and a project deadline, for larger projects you may even want to include project milestone deadlines and payments.
A signed contract protects both you and the client, and whilst contracts of all types are breached every single day, the existence of signed contract is a necessity should you have to take the legal route to ensure that you are paid for what is rightfully yours.

Get a deposit

One of the basics of all types of freelance work, but it’s still surprising how many people do not insist of some kind of deposit before starting work. You should always get a deposit from a client; it ensures that they are fully committed to your services and that they are taking the project seriously. It also makes it less likely that they will back out of a project halfway through, and if they do, at least you have received some payment for the work you have done.

Protect your work

You should never allow the client to have control over your source files whilst the project is in progress or before you have received full and final payment. There are a few things that you should and shouldn’t do.

Develop on your own server or locally

Try to always develop on your own server or on your machine if you can. This way there is only you who has access to all the work that you have done, meaning that the client is unable to run away with all your hard work before they have paid you. I usually develop all work on my own test server and provide the client with a link to the finished site. Once they have paid me I will then upload the site to their server.

Keep FTP and hosting credentials to yourself

If you are unable to develop on your own server and you must build the site on a client owned server or hosting account make sure that you and only you know the FTP and hosting login credentials. This again makes sure that a client can’t take your work without making payment.

If you can’t develop on your own server or are unable to keep hosting credentials secret from the client then you could always resort to the CSS KillSwitch. I’ve never had to use it myself but in their own words:
“CSS Killswitch works by creating a unique, inconspicuous, and innocuous style sheet that you’ll link the potentially problematic client’s site to. Should negotiations go south and passwords get changed before you receive payment, that style sheet can be activated to superficially black out the site, returning to you the upper hand. When relations return and you’ve received payment, the killswitch is easily deactivated and its traces removed.”

Never send source files

If you’re working on a non website project, such as a banner, poster or logo the client may ask for the original Photoshop or Illustrator files. This is obviously fine if you have received payment, however if you send all original files to the client without being paid, what reason do they have to pay you besides their conscience and own sense of fairness? It’s always better to send over a jpeg complete with watermark, just to be on the safe side.

Providing that you take the above simple precautions, receiving payment from a client should never be too difficult, especially if the project has gone according to plan and you have delivered an excellent piece of work. Just remember that not all people, including your future clients, keep up their side of an agreement, so it’s always best to be on the safe side!

Design for the Right Reasons

Why did you become a designer? If it was to simply pay the rent and not for a love of design then maybe it’s time to rethink your career options if you want to be a success. Becoming a successful designer requires not only ability but a passion for design. If you don’t love what you do it becomes extremely difficult to stay motivated, develop new skills, hit deadlines and most importantly produce high quality work.

Learn to Accept Criticism

Let’s face it, design is subjective. Not everyone will like your work all of the time and that’s ok. There are two types of criticism: constructive criticism and bad criticism. Firstly, take the bad criticism, bite your tongue and ignore it. Bad criticism is not useful and if you take it personally it can be destructive to your confidence.

Constructive criticism, however, is invaluable and it helps you improve your skills as a designer. You should take these suggestions and learn from them. It will make you a better designer.

Nobody likes criticism, the important thing is not to take it personally, what one person loves you can guarantee another person will hate, it just comes down to personal preference.

Develop a Strong Work Ethic

Becoming a successful designer requires hard work, a lot of hard work. To the outside world we simply “make things pretty”, but we all know that there is a lot more to it than that. From the initial design brief, to wireframing, to design, to building, it’s important that you put everything you can into every stage of the process. Nobody ever became successful by cutting corners and not putting in the effort. Developing a strong work ethic is particularly important if you’re a freelancer, getting up at lunch time, responding to a few emails, working for a couple of hours and then clocking off at 4pm will not make you successful.

Get Involved with the Web Design Community

Write a blog, write an article for someone else’s blog, read and comment on design blogs, share your knowledge with other designers. The web design community is an awesome way to improve your knowledge. If you ever need help with anything or even just want feedback on your latest design, post a link through Twitter or the design forums and you can guarantee that other designers will provide you with their thoughts.

Getting involved with the design community will also help you find work when times are tough, other designers are constantly looking to outsource some of their project work when they are busy and use both the community and social networking to find help. Not only can this help to pay the bills but it will also give you the opportunity to work with designers who may be a lot more experienced than you, giving you an excellent chance to learn new skills.

Never Stop Learning

Read design blogs, follow tutorials, read books. To be successful your knowledgebase needs to keep expanding. You don’t need to be a jack of all trades and know everything, but you should at least have a sound knowledge and understanding of as many web technologies as you can. For example, if you’re a designer who doesn’t code it is still important to have a good understanding of HTML, CSS and JQuery as this will enable to better prepare your designs. If you specialise in one aspect of design make sure that you know that one area inside out.

The more you learn, the better you get, the better you get the more successful you can become.

Have Confidence in your Own Ability

If you lack confidence in your ability as a designer it will show in your work. If you have little faith in your skills it becomes difficult to motivate yourself to learn new skills, to work hard, to accept and learn from criticism and ultimately become successful. If you don’t have confidence in yourself, how can you expect potential clients to?

Communication Skills are Crucial

For the majority of us our best work is produced late at night, Ipod in hand and with no distractions. This is usually how we like to work and if we could we would probably spend every minute of the job like this. However, it is vital to have or to develop good communication skills. You need to be able to explain to clients your design choices, why you chose them and why you feel they work. You need to be able to listen to your client’s ideas and expand on them or explain why they might not work.

Poor communication will lead to you not gathering requirements accurately in the design brief, which will then lead to you wasting hours working on a design that is completely different from what the client envisaged.

Good communication may be the difference between you winning a project or losing it to another designer who has better expressed their ideas to the client.

Know when to Take a Break

Working 16 hours a day, 365 days a year will not guarantee you success. Whilst it important to work incredibly hard, it’s vital that you don’t burn yourself out. Burn out will lead to a decrease in your creativity and productivity; there’s a pretty good chance you will find yourself in a constant state of “designers block”. You’ll find yourself feeling worn out, which will lead to you being in a bad mood, which will lead to you staring at a blank screen not knowing where to start.

Take a break, get away from your desk, go on holiday, go out with friends. Recharge your batteries, you’ll feel better and when you feel better you work better.

Besides ability and skill, what other attributes do you think are important to become a successful designer?

Source: Oxford Dictionaries

A website is often the first opportunity a business has to make a good and lasting impression to potential customers. Whether you like it or not, a business and its credibility will be judged based on it’s website. Create the wrong first impression and your visitors will move on to your competitor’s website never to return.

So what do I mean by credibility? The above dictionary definition pretty much sums it up – can your company be trusted? Trusted with what?

Users are usually looking for one of a number of things online – a product, a service or information. There is probably very little doubt that you don’t believe in the quality of your product or service, or the accuracy of information on your site, but how can you expect your users to afford you that level of trust unless you prove to them that your business is worthy of it?

E-Commerce sites are a classic example of where sites can live or die based on their credibility. Massive brands such as Ebay or Amazon have no problems in displaying their credibility to their users – they are highly recognisable brand names and pretty much everyone has bought or knows someone who has bought online from these companies. Users do not think twice about entering sensitive personal information such as their address or credit card information on these sites. These brands are trusted so much that users probably don’t even consider how this information is used after they have made their purchase, and I’d imagine most users don’t even doubt the quality of the product that they have just purchased.

I’m assuming that your next project is not going to be a redesign of Amazon or Ebay (if by any chance it is, I’d love to work with you and you can get in touch here J ). So how do you go about designing a website that your users can trust and believe in?

Tell Us About You

Tell your users about your company. How did it start, when did it start, what are your values and what are your specialties? If you have a great story about how the company started then share it with your users.

Don’t just use dull and corporate “waffle” – firstly nobody really bothers reading it and secondly meaningless words don’t allow people to put any kind of face to your company. Keep it professional but make it meaningful.

All of this information shows users that there is a real organisation behind the website. An organisation that can trusted and believed in.

Be Contactable

If you don’t have contact information on your website then it’s likely that users will instantly doubt the credibility of your business. If users are not able to contact you then it gives the impression that you don’t want to be contacted because you have something to hide. Maybe your business isn’t legitimate, maybe you’re based offshore, or maybe you’re going to misuse your user’s personal information.

In a time where online fraud and identity theft is on everybody’s mind, people are more careful about what information they disclose online. To help elevate these doubts, users may want to contact you, either by email or preferably by phone – especially if wanting to purchase something from you online.

Make sure you have a contact page on your site that can be easily be found. On this page you should provide all of the information of how your users can contact you if needed.

In the same way an About Page does, a contact page helps convince users that there is a real organisation behind the website.

A Professional Design

I could talk for hours on what I mean by a professional design, but I think you’ll have a good idea of what I’m talking about. Does your website look like it has been designed by a professional or does it look like you knocked it together in 30 minutes using FrontPage?

Appearances mean a lot in proving your credibility to users. If you walked into a store that had boarded up windows, a dirty carpet and a sales assistant behind the till who looked like they’d spent the night on a park bench – would you hand over your credit card? I doubt it, I know I definitely wouldn’t.

Take it Easy on the Ads

Selling advertising space on your website is a great way to make some extra income – however if your site is dominated by adverts it can give off the wrong impression. Users have come to expect certain types of advertisements on certain types of websites – for example anyone who reads design blogs, would expect to see design related adverts somewhere on the site.

Cluttering your site with advertisements however can draw your user’s attention away from the content of your site. If users aren’t reading your content then how are they going to be able to judge your credibility? A lot of user’s have also come to think of websites with excessive advertising as spam sites, sites that not credible and cannot to be trusted.

Avoid Pop-ups

Whether you like it or not, pop-ups scream spam. Users are very reluctant to click on any link within a pop-up as they have come to expect that any link within a pop-up will lead to a virus infecting their computer. Plus the fact that pop-ups are really annoying means that you should avoid them at all costs.

If you follow a few basic points, it’s not too difficult to show your users that both your website and your business are legitimate and credible. Take a look at the thousands of websites online where you would think twice about entering your email address or even your credit card details. Have a good think as to why you are so reluctant and make sure that you don’t make the same mistake when you create a website.

What website would you not go on to buy your products and why? Do you always look for the padlock sign in every corner of a payment page, I know I do!

For me, one of the highlights of freelance work is that I can pick and choose my clients, if I’m going to be spending my would-be spare time working I’d rather it be on a project that is as stress free as possible and a project that is enjoyable.

Sometimes the relationship between a designer and client just doesn’t work out, it can be for a number of reasons, here are just a few.

Lack of Interest

This is quite possibly my number one reason for sacking a client. Whilst I appreciate that you are busy and have other things to worry about; a lack of interest in the project just doesn’t help your designer deliver exactly what you want. By lack of interest I’m talking about missing deadlines for delivery of content or deadlines for approval of design concepts. As a designer, it can take days or weeks to create the design mock-ups that are presented to the client for approval, you then waste another couple of weeks chasing the client for feedback or sign-off so you can begin the process of building the site. The project is then behind schedule, meaning you either have to deliver the project late or rush the job to get it done on time. Neither are a good compromise, plus the extended time taken on this project is stopping you taking on new projects. However, I’m not saying that I want you to be overly interested and be on my case every other day….

Too Much Interest

You have just been through the design brief with a new client, you tell them that you will get to work straight away and get back to them when you have something to show them. The next morning you receive an email from the client asking to see what you have come up with so far – what do you show them; the sketches in your notebook? You let them know that you don’t have anything solid to show them and you’ll send something over once you do.

Later that evening you receive several emails, usually around the 10MB mark in size each. The client has asked their nephew/neighbour’s kid/colleague to come up with some design ideas to send to you as you are “struggling” to come up with any solid ideas. Can I have my inbox back please?

Changing the scope of the Project

You are just coming to an end of cross browser testing and are about a week from launch of the website. You receive an email or phone call from the client, saying that they have decided they want to be able to update the content themselves, add a blog to site and sell a range of products through the site. Suddenly the project has gone from a semi-simple static website to a full blown e-commerce site with full CMS. This wasn’t in the terms of your agreement, which you explain to your client. Turns out they don’t care and you won’t get paid unless you do it. Time to walk away!

They push your Ethical Boundaries

You have just taken on a new project, you’re really excited about it and have a million ideas running through your head. Laptop booted, you can’t wait to get started. A few hours later, you receive an email from the client:

Hi,

Just been looking through a few websites for ideas. Take a look at www.mycompetitorswebsite.com , can you just copy this site, put our logo on it and just change a few colours. You can take the majority of their content too, just switch their company name for ours.

Thanks,

Mr Client

I don’t think I need to say much more on this point, just take the design brief you completed, stick it through the shredder and let your little sister know you have some bedding for her pet hamster. Time to say an emotional farewell to the client, it’s been a pleasure, honest.

They don’t take your advice

You have told them repeatedly that a Flash Intro Splash page is not a good idea; the logo design they want won’t work as it relies too heavily on colour and isn’t scalable; they should think about cutting their homepage content considerably as its far too long; and that there’s no need for them to place the icon of every social media site ever created on the site. Every suggestion you make is dismissed, the client won’t listen to anything you have to say and you are simply someone who knows their way around Photoshop to bark orders at.

When working with a client who is inexperienced in web design, I feel it is part of my job to educate them and make sure that the final product doesn’t end up looking an unusable, inaccessible mess. Sure it would be easy to do everything they say, take their money and walk away, but I take pride in my work and simply don’t work this way. I’m not saying that unless a client accepts every one of your suggestions that you should sack them, but when it gets to the point where they don’t listen at all, maybe it’s time to move on.

Summary

Taking the decision to sack a client is never easy, and not a decision you should take lightly. This is the first time I’ve ever thought of doing it, let alone the first time I’ve actually done it. If you have a signed contract with the client and taken a deposit for the project (which I highly suggest you do!) it may become more difficult to sack the client for simply being difficult to work with. If they have and continue to breach the terms of your agreement however ,it may be a lot easier to sack them.