8 Ways to Sunday

I’ve been thinking of moonlighting as a web designer/developer to bring in some extra cash and provide a creative outlet. In searching around the web for good info on the current state of the business, I ran across some links that others who’ve made this jump or are considering it might find useful:

• “Getting the Budget Out of a Client,” from Signal vs. Noise. A funny — and probably very effective — tip for dealing with those clients who won’t tell you how much they want to spend on a site. (found via Photo Matt)
• Goto Guides — Discovered through Zeldman’s The Daily Report, these downloadable guides offer tips, tools, and forms for project management, usability testing, budgets, workflow, and more. These guides and other, similar information have since been consolidated into the book Web ReDesign: Workflow that Works, by Kelly Goto and Emily Cotler.
• If you need to explain the concepts behind CMSs and data-driven web sites to a customer, you might try basing your explanation on this one from the MySQL Developer Zone. I found this through the “Services” page of Burgin Design, whose Keith Burgin authors the excellent What a Butthole: the world through the eyes of a thinking conservative. Yes, it actually lives up to the title.
• Have a client that wants an online store but doesn’t have a big budget? Consider Zen Cart — a free, featureful, and secure shopping cart program written in PHP. Also discovered through Burgin Design
• Aparently, “value pricing” has taken over from per-hour pricing as the favored pricing paradigm in this business. I understand the logic behind this, but I’m not sure how it would go over with clients coming from a freelancer.
• More fresh content = more search engine hits. This bit of common-sense SEO brought to you by Search Engine Optimization Forum, which seems to contain less voodoo and bullshit than your usual SEO discussion site or weblog.
• Keith Robinson of Asterisk has some good advice on handling creative conflicts with clients. In other words, what do you do when your client wants to make the site horribly ugly? I found Keith’s article by following a link in a comment posted on ArcLog — a decent resource in its own right.
• Don’t design on spec — Zeldman tells you why.
• “How to Make Friends and Influence Art Directors” — good advice on getting started in the design field, from Mark Davidson. (added 12/21/2004)

That’s it for now. I’m still deciding whether this is something I want to pursue as more than a hobby. I definitely feel that I have more to learn before I can work for hire, so I guess I have some time to make that decision.

I know I have at least one reader who’s a web designer. Chris, care to share any advice of your own?