6 Ways To Earn More Money Freelancing, Part 1

By Web Hosting Help Guy

With the unemployment rate still hovering around 10 percent, it’s no secret that times are tough all over, even (or especially) for those who work in the Web design industry. Maybe you’re lucky enough to be working full-time as a designer, but it’s just as likely you’re not making as much as you’d prefer. Maybe you’re only working part-time and need to supplement that income by freelancing. Or, maybe, you decided to take the plunge and go full freelance, only to find that the competition to land jobs is fierce, and you’re just not making ends meet.

Whatever your situation, you could probably stand to make some extra cash. Luckily, as a designer, developer, or other Web professional, there are several ways you can earn extra income with work you’re doing already. Here are 6 ways, then, that you can make a little extra cash as a freelance designer with only a little extra effort, or by adding some value to your existing services.

Become a Hosting Affiliate

Here’s a likely scenario — a client hires you to design their site, and they don’t understand that not only do they need to purchase a domain and build a site, but they need to host that site somewhere. And, since they don’t understand that, they leave it up to you to decide who that host is. If you’re like most designers, you probably host the sites you design with a particular company — say, like InMotion Hosting. Why not make a little extra by turning that relationship into a moneymaker by becoming an affiliate? Most hosting companies will offer some amount of money per referral if you’re sending them a steady stream of clients, so contact them and ask how they run that program for designers. And, if you have your own site to showcase your work, you can add an affiliate link to that as well, and that will pay off anytime some one clicks through the link and purchases hosting. Both scenarios are attractive — they don’t cost you anything and are what you’d likely be doing anyway.

Advertise On Your Site

One great thing about being a designer is being a part of a strong community with common interests. You probably read other designer’s sites on a daily basis, and I’d wager that you’ve probably made a decision on a purchase or two based on recommendations or designer-targeted ads that you’ve seen. You can get in on that action as well, since a lot of companies that advertise online love the focused and targeted traffic that design blogs get. You can either seek these advertisers out yourself, or you can use a service like Google AdSense, BuySellAds or The Deck Network, which will take the work out of managing your advertisers (for a price, of course). But, if you can get traffic, you can make some money.

Add Value To Sites You Design

This is another way to make some extra cash by doing things for your client that they either didn’t know you could do and would likely just end up paying someone else for. You can write content for sites you design, offer SEO services, debug sites, or maintain the sites you design going forward. Chances are you know more about what works on the Web than your clients, and if you have examples of your past efforts in these departments, that’s better still. Just remember — these are valuable services, so make sure you account for them in your quoted price. Just don’t end up doing them for free.

Charge For Consulting

How many times has this scenario happened — you’re gunning for some great job, you meet with a client at your local Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf (they have free Wi-Fi!) for 2 hours, wherein you go through in detail your plans for their site. They end up hiring someone else. You’re bummed that you didn’t get the job, but you’re angry when you see that the site they end up using incorporates your best ideas! You just consulted, and you did it for free. Next time, bring a contract and charge for the meeting. It might weed out some not-so-serious prospects, but you’ll get paid for your time and input, and, if you book the job you can wipe that charge off your bill. Nice.

Teach Your Skills

Sure, this refers to traditional teaching opportunities like applying to teach design at a community college or art center, but you can also teach the clients you design for how to run, update, and maintain the sites you’ve built for them. You can offer online webinars or tutorials in SEO, social media, database management, site updating — the possibilities are effectively limitless. And, with services like video chat, Skype, and GoToMeeting, you can do it from home. Pretty sweet, eh?

Write Articles

As a designer, you probably visit quite a few design blogs every day, and if you’re like me, you’re amazed at the daily stream of content they produce. How do they do it? Simple — designers like you submit tutorials and review articles and get paid for it, or at the very least get some free publicity for their work. Got some cool Photoshop brushes to share? Know CSS Frameworks better than anyone you know? Have some useful WordPress hacks you think the world should know about? Write a “Top 10″-style article, put some nice screenshots or graphics in there, contact your favorite blog, and ask if you can submit it. A site like Smashing Magazine will offer some money for the effort, and a site like CatsWhoCode will publish your link. Either way, you’ll get some free advertising for your skills AND impress some of your colleagues. That’s what we call a “win-win-win” situation.

Stay tuned for Part 2 in this series, where we’ll look at some opportunities to make some extra money with the castoffs from your design work you’ve already done.

What do you do to add value to your freelancing services?

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