Emergency Cash Tip #10: Web Design Work
In the previous section, we discussed one type of web design work that you can do to make emergency cash—namely, creating sites for local businesses and creating local business directories.
In addition to this, there are other ways that you can make emergency cash through web design.
Selling Your Services as a Freelance Web Designer
If you haven’t already designed multiple web sites, it’s probably not a good idea to try to sell yourself as a high-end web designer.
However, as long as you have a WYSIWYG editor, know a little about Internet marketing, and are willing to work hard, you can expect to earn a decent bounty from mid-to-low level web design work.
Since I’ve gone over the general concept of freelancing several times already, I won’t focus on it too much here.
Again, look at sites like Elance.com, SitePoint.com, Guru.com, and others when trying to sell your web design services.
Additionally, remember that it is vital to have a portfolio (perhaps one site with multiple sub-domains to show off various styles and themes) and to avoid overselling your skills.
Sell Site Re-Designs to Companies
This is a little bit harder than doing typical web design work. Instead of simply selling your services, getting site specs, and then performing the design job, you will need to start this process by seeking out sites (and preferably sites of local businesses) that could benefit from a site-re-design.
Once you have located these sites, make a pitch to the business owner.
Offer to redesign the site, so that it is more functional, provides more interactive features for visitors, generates more traffic, and appears more professional and better-organized. When you begin this process, offer to do it for a very low price until you build up a customer base; and begin receiving some feedback.
Another thing you should do is to offer to maintain the site once it is re-designed.
This means that you would be on call to monitor downtime; and to make any changes needed. This might seem like a hassle, but it could be well worth it if you accumulate a large portfolio of sites that require very little maintenance. B
y charging around $50/month for maintenance, you could reap a large and virtually passive income while only working 10-15 hours per week.
Summary
Freelance web design is an excellent way to make emergency cash, even if you have only created one or two websites and know nothing about Flash, php, or even html.
The key is that you should work with a WYSIWYG editor (and master it over time), focus on working with local businesses, and sell the maintenance work as a package. Additionally, you should make an attempt to pitch your proposal over the phone.