Nobody ever said that being a freelancer web developer or designer was going to be easy, but it doesn’t have to be impossible either. In fact, if you invest the time and effort into your career, you might be surprised at how simple you can make it.
For people who decide to pursue freelance web design careers, the first question is always “where do I find work?” If you are skilled and reliable, that is rarely the problem. Online work is abundant and a good freelance programmer will have clients beating down his or her door once people know they’re available and skilled.
So the real question becomes “how do I get noticed?” That’s called self-promtion and, for a web developer, the first step has to be creating a website for yourself. This is a chance to show your talent, market yourself and have a central location on the web to bring potential clients back to. Some other popular self-marketing techniques include blogging about your industry, posting on industry message boards regularly and networking with other professionals in your field. Of course, for people with web design careers, marketing may not be their favorite thing to do. In that case, joining a talent staffing agency can allow you to pass the marketing work on to them so that you can focus on what you do best.
Focusing on your job is something that needs to be ongoing. Interactive design and development is not one of those careers that you learn in college, do the same thing repeatedly for next 30 years then retire; it is an ever-changing field. You need to stay connected by reading industry news, stay up-to-date on the latest best practices, and yes, even taking an occasional class or getting a certification. More importantly, you need to make sure that your portfolio reflects your knowledge of current trends.
Another often overlooked aspect of maintaining web design careers as freelancers is that of reputation maintenance. The easiest way to damage your reputation as a freelancer programmer is to fail to deliver a project for a client, so to prevent this you need to be careful not to take on more projects than you can handle, projects with shorter deadlines than you are comfortable with or projects that are not in your area of expertise.
Being a freelancer programmer can be a very rewarding career if you make the investment in yourself to keep your name prominently visible in the industry, your skills sharp and your reputation top notch. Failure in any one of these areas could lead you to experience a major setback while proper attention to these areas virtually guarantees success.
Roger C is a freelance writer available on WriterAccess, a marketplace where clients and expert writers connect for assignments.
