Help with my first web design work

[Chinny]

Hello guys!!

I am looking for some advice from people who have done it before or working in industry.

I am backpacking around Australia wanting to make my first step doing some freelance work and I currently feel comfortable with bootstrap/jquery. I would feel comfortable making basic websites for small companies.

Should I consider converting my bootstrap themes to Wordpress (although I have never used it) so I can help clients edit there own website without the need of me? Or is it worth considering using themes from like theme forest?

Is there any questions that you wouldn’t normally think of to ask clients when getting there ideas for what they want?

How much should I think about charging for basic 5 page website using bootstrap and jquery?

Are there any websites that are popular to find freelance work?

Should I not consider this before learning other languages (only for small companies remember)?


Very new to all this I have missed loads of things so any advice small or big would be massively appreciated!!

(Any kind person that wants to go an extra mile and walk me through it pm me and we can chat more on here or WhatsApp)


Thanks!!!

[mlseim]

The bottom line of all this is the fact that you are not sure if you need a CMS (content management system) or not. As far as your clients/companies go, it depends on if they require the need to edit their content. Some companies only have a basic 3 page site with "about" and "how to contact us" pages. Those would not need much of a CMS as the content doesn't change very often.

Themes from Theme Forest are usually WordPress themes, or stand-alone themes which don't have any PHP scripting included. With stand-alone themes, they are just the HTML, CSS, and javascripting files. So that now puts you into the category with WordPress if you want a CMS that your clients can update themselves.

WordPress isn't easy to learn, and not only do you have to learn it, but your clients also need to learn how to use it.

When you find a company interested in hiring you as a freelancer, you will find out what their requirements are. Is a basic CMS required, or a SQL database, or nothing but a simple site? If you don't have any server-side scripting experience (such as PHP, Perl, SQL databases, etc), then you should consider sub-contracting those parts. Even WordPress requires some PHP knowledge because it's never just "plug and play". Learning server-side scripting will be a steep learning curve.

Here is an example of a small company in my town that only has a "static" website, with no server-side scripting and no CMS that I can determine. Super simple site with only basic information:
Rumpca Companies

That type of site you can do right now. And even use a Theme Forest HMTL5 template (that you customize). No server-side programming required.

If they decide to have a contact form or customer data form, then it becomes a requirement to use PHP (most commonly used).

If they want to update content themselves, PHP will need to be used so they can "log-in" and edit content using more PHP and javascripting.

======

This is an example of a local business that wanted a simple website to handle online orders. I got all of the static HTML/JQuery part done, with a banner slider, and touch-swipe carousel for product selection. I never completed the PHP server-side scripting. They decided not to have a website. You'll run into clients like that too. I didn't charge them anything for my work or time. So I have a spare template/site I might be able to re-purpose for another company:

Really Good Garlic, River Falls, Wisconsin

For the PHP portion, I will be doing all of the scripting by hand. That will take me more time and thus cost more. I won't do anymore with it until a business decides what the requirements should be.

It's not easy being a freelancer.

[FlatAssembler]

Super simple site with only basic information:

Do you know how they made that image on the top? Specifically, how could they make the objects in the image put a shadow on the links? I've looked at the source and I still don't get it. The code is quite a bit obfuscated, lot of inline CSS.

[mlseim]

It's just a background image with text on it:
http://www.rumpcacompanies.com/files...ardener_01.jpg

So the shadow is not really on the links ... it just might seem like it.

Yes, it's an old "out-dated" site. My point was you can make something like that without using any server-side scripting.

[hmedia]

I think you can move to the CMS system ..