There’s a lot of money to be made in doing web site redesigns. If you can convince a business owner that their site is hopelessly out of date, or that the business will make more money on the internet with improvements you can make, plenty of them will take you up on it.
On the other hand, many are content to stay in the past, using an unprofessional site some friend set up for them years ago. So don’t worry about it if you get a ‘no’ the first time you ask. Chances are that if the person has an unprofessional web site design for their business, the business owner has no web savvy and not much understanding of what makes a site look professional. Your job will be to enlighten this person so that he understands that his site design is interfering with the respectability of his business.
Sometimes it helps to have a new design idea at hand when you approach a business owner. If you’re going to talk to the business owner in person about their web site, you might want to draw up a short proposal showing you’re putting time and effort into a vision of what their site could be. Along with that, a binder with printouts of your portfolio of design ideas could be useful. Put each design printout in a clear plastic page protector and let your prospective clients sift through them, imagining what their web site could look like if only they hired a professional designer.
Let the business owners whose web sites you want to redesign see the difference between unprofessional web site work, and what you can do for them. Let your proposal, which you’ll give to them, sit on their desk and gnaw at their subconscious. Many of them will think it over each time they glance at your proposal, and eventually see things your way.
Sales is one of the most important aspects of your work as a web designer. Give plenty of time and thought to this vital activity. Be prepared. Your business will prosper if you make sales presentations organized and appealing.
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This topic came to mind because I just redesigned or designed nine web sites in the past two months – all of them owned by me. (At this time I no longer do web design projects for others.) What a huge job! I’m delighted to say I’m finished with that task and ready to spend more time talking about web design – on this blog.
Hi,
I have a question regarding web designing and you’re a web designer, so you may have faced this same trouble. You see, I amlearning web designing and its troublesome to see different browsers display the same page differently. (sometimes what displays okay in firefox is horrible muddled up in IE) Why can’t all browser display a given web page in a given screen resolution the same way? Why isn’t there a common standard?
Good topic, Planet Apex… I’ve been meaning to write something about browsers (and will do a post about them soon). There are Web Browser Standards but not all browser software developers have been using them, so yes, we web designers have to stock up on browsers.
I had a large collection of browsers on my other computer. Also I knew people online who could do site checks for me using other types of computers and browsers I didn’t have. Sometimes I checked sites on a Macintosh system downtown at the local computer center since I use a PC at home.
I think Firefox is one of the best browsers for good web standards. I used to design using my IE6 browser but I learned that Firefox couldn’t display a lot of those sites right, so now I design with Firefox first as it follows web standards closely.
Also, have you seen the Browser Upgrade Campaign? It explains the problem quite well in easy-to-understand language.
Interesting links, thanks Linda. BTW, I heard about this free service where they check and send screenshots of websites from about 20 windows, linux and mac O/S’s. I’ve not tried it yet though. Here is the article.
How to Check Website Design in Different Browsers
http://www.nirmaltv.com/2007/04/12/how-to-check-website-design-in-different-browsers/
Great resource! I’ve never heard of it before and I’m so glad you told us about it!