There are lots of reasons that I’ll enumerate below for this redesign, but the most important is the evolution of my business based on the needs and wants I hear about from my existing and potential clients.   The last time I redesigned my website, I was moving from doing both user experience design for software and web design & development, to doing mostly web design & development — so the website reflected that.  I kept the Portfolio section as updated as possible with recent projects, but otherwise it remained the same for about 2 years.  That’s a long time in the life of an online portfolio!

Since then, along with the evolution of social media platforms and people’s understanding of them, blogging platforms have also made huge advances, and as many people are looking for partially-custom budget-friendly websites as are looking for bespoke, unique websites.  Additionally, more and more people better understand how important web marketing is, and how social media can help spread the world about their businesses.

Based on all of the above, here are the things that will change about my website and why:

1. There will be much less text on the Home page: The text on the Home page will be streamlined to efficiently explaining what I do and how to get in touch with me. I had already streamlined text on the last iteration of the design, but I wanted to do it even further in this case to get down to only what is essential. There will be further details in other places on my website, and the job of the Home page is to engage people enough so that they click through to read it. In most cases, people visiting my website want to see examples of my work, know a little bit about me & what it’s like to work with me, and decide whether they want to contact me to work with them. This is different than visitors to my blog, who are looking for information about how to do something, or resources for their project(s). I know this because I’ve regularly checked in on what people are checking out on my site via Google Analytics.
2. The services I offer will be much easier to identify: There’s lots of overlap when it comes to the skill set necessary to design and develop web collateral. And not every designer and developer does the same thing. Often, it can be very confusing for people looking for someone to hire — they don’t know exactly the skill set they need, they just know what they want the end result to be. So, it’s important to be as clear as possible about what I do, and talk about it in terms of what people want the end result to be, eg: blog, website, logo, etc…
3. There will be a better & more efficient way to know how much something will cost: Since there are so many variables to consider, it’s very hard to give someone an estimate without having a conversation about what they need and want. But the form they fill out to get in touch with me can gather more specific information to help me get them a quote more quickly. Also, I can offer semi-custom packages with very specific elements that can be added a-la-carte so that people with a limited budget can choose only what they need/want.
4. The blog will be a part of the site, rather than a separate entity: Beyond the technology change of having the whole site built in Wordpress, I want the blog to be an integrated part of the site rather than a stand-alone entity. Since the blog content I create is closely tied to my the work that I do, and because I want it to be easier for people to jump from the blog content to my portfolio and back again, I’m presenting a consistent navigation across the whole site.

Next time, I’ll talk about the decisions that went into the aesthetics of the redesign & any changes that happen while moving from design to development and why. Stay tuned!

Related posts:

1. Your Own Worst Critic: Designing for Yourself
2. Finding your online identity.

In recent memory, I can think of at least three people I’ve kvetched with about juggling all of it. But there *is* another way: delegation.

After some objective (or as close to it as you can get) analysis of your time spent, there are likely places you can delegate responsibilities so that you can work on what you love, whether it’s increasing your bottom line, or spending time in the garden tending to your carrots. It can be difficult to do, but once you cross that first hurdle, you may be surprised how much time you’re able to free up in your life. Here are some examples:

• If your business has repetitive administrative tasks, or there are a series of similar questions you get all the time, consider either creating a template you can use again-and-again, or hiring a personal assistant to take care of it. For minimal training, an investment of a few hours a week with a PA clears your plate to deal with higher priority items. You can find a PA by searching locally using something like Craigslist, or, you can use one of a number of online resources for PAs. If you have a good or bad experience with a PA service, leave a comment and share your experience!
• If you’re not in love with your visits to the grocery store, consider getting your groceries delivered. More and more groceries stores offer home delivery for a small fee — you can even set up a list of common items to get each week or month (however often you need them) — this frees up not only the time spent going to/fro and in the store, but the brain space to remember what you need to get. Some cities, like here in Portland, even offer a local from-the-farm dairy delivery, or a CSA box straight to your doorstep, or even homemade soup! So, spend a little time up front, and reap the rewards of a well-stocked fridge.
• Consider the way you communicate — do you make yourself available by phone and/or email at any time, anywhere? Is that really necessary or are there times you can set up “office hours” when people can get in touch and know they’ll reach you? Email can be especially distracting, and it takes discipline to leave it alone for periods of time. But with a little forethought, you can set up ways for auto-responses to go out letting people know you’ll get back to them shortly, or when you’ll next be available. You can schedule time with people rather than letting the phone ring whenever. You can let it go straight to voicemail and get back to it later. It’s critical to be responsive, but that doesn’t mean you have to give up control of your schedule. Letting people know when you’re available and when you’ll get back to them *is* being responsive, and giving them dedicated time when you’re not distracted by something else is good business.

There are many more examples… yard work, car washing, pet grooming, even cooking! Don’t give up the things you love to do, but consider whether *not* doing them yourself is a better investment. Not just in the bottom line, but in your sanity!

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1. Don’t rely on someone else to determine where you’ll be able to advertise effectively, target your own market. Unless you spend a great deal of time tracking and researching it, Adwords often brings site visitors, but not necessarily conversions. So think about where you *know* your audience is, and then make contact to see if an advertising relationship is possible. For example, if you’re a designer looking for clients, target a blog that advises people about hiring designers and find out if you can offer something to their audience. This may be a great time to offer a freebie to their readership in exchange for access to their audience. Make sure that you fit their demographic – it won’t make sense for anyone involved if you’re targeting a mismatch.

2. Get out there in the “real” world. We get so wrapped up in the expanse of opportunity that the internet provides that we forget about what we might provide our local community. Often times people like to work with someone nearby – so offer your services through an old-fashioned tearsheet in a cafe, or offer a prize to a local contest (radio or at a community event/raffle). This approach will not only help bring your business, but will help you connect with people in your community through some good “old-fashioned” networking!

3. Host an event. You don’t need to have tremendous resources to host your own event. For example, if you have a landscaping business, offer a free class on starting a veggie garden. You can host it in your front yard using Craigslist and your local classifieds to get the word out. This is a great way to not only connect with a potential audience, but also get some name recognition for everyone who comes across the posting. And it doesn’t have to be in your front yard – host a virtual event – webinars are a great way to connect with people and highlight your expertise virtually. And there’s great webinar software out there for low or no cost – gotomeeting.com is a great, easy-to-use example.

If you’re thinking about having advertising on your own site to try to generate some revenue, here are some guidelines:

1. It’s not worth it if you don’t have enough traffic. Most advertisers have a minimum site traffic amount to justify their ad space. You might host their ad on your site for 3 months for free if you don’t have enough site visitors to meet their minimum.

2. It’s for content-driven sites, NOT your portfolio. Don’t place advertising on the page of your website that outlines your services, or showcases your work. No matter how much money you might make it’s not worth more than the amount it’ll cheapen your reputation by having them there.

3. Consider the time investment. If you’ll need to spend an hour over the course of a month monitoring your ad space for sale, consider what that hour might be earning you otherwise. If you can use that hour to seek out a new project or client, then benefit from that hour’s investment for the next “X” amount of time you’ll likely realize the finances don’t work out the way you might expect. Don’t get me wrong, passive income is great, but advertising may not be the most profitable of your choices.

Related posts:

1. Social Networks for Authors
2. Ways to interact with your site visitors
3. Harnessing modern media: audio & video promotion for books and authors

1. http://www.bubbl.us/ (example) – Here’s what they say about their service: “Bubbl.us is a simple and free web application that lets you brainstorm online.”  I think it’s a great way to visually establish the architecture of a website or web application, or even to organize content into logical groupings.
2. http://www.balsamiq.com/ – When you want to draw a simple mockup of what a web page might look like you could turn to Photoshop or Illustrator, but for much less hassle, you could also use Balsamiq Mockups. Even during a discussion where you’re sharing your screen, you can create live images to illustrate your ideas.
3. http://www.skitch.com/ - If you’re taking a screenshot, marking it up, and then sending an email asking for feedback over and over again, Skitch may be for you.   It makes the process of sharing images with markup super easy.  Watch their intro video to see how it works.

Related posts:

1. Tweet Your Blog
2. Social Networks for Authors
3. Getting Things Done & The Power of Delegation

There are lots of boutique options that I didn’t cover, but perhaps will in future posts!

In the course of creating the document, I did a quick search for other similar resources, and other than the ever-wonderful Wikipedia, I didn’t find much easily digestible information that wasn’t associated with someone trying to sell a seminar, a book, or their services.  Many times, this meant they either explained what something meant, but not how to use it successfully, or, they explained how to use something, but not what it meant.  I felt the interwebs needed a resource that tried to do both.

Feedback is encouraged – feel free to leave comments.

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In my case – going from a decade of solid full-time work for large corporations to the life of a freelance designe – there are many things to consider. And it’s not a decision one arrives at overnight, if at all. In fact, there are so many people who would never consider working for themselves that there is a long-held belief that there is more security in working for someone else, than working for yourself. I am here to tell you that it is potentially more risky to work for someone else than it is to work for yourself. Beyond any notion of having more control of your schedule and project destiny, if your income comes from diverse sources, you are more secure working for yourself than if you work for someone else. If you have a single job working for a large company, and that company restructures, or gets bought out, or a recession causes them to cut back, you can lose your job. And there you are with no source of income. If you have multiple smaller jobs for multiple people and one doesn’t work out, you have all of the others.

I’m not saying it’s easy – there’s no falling back on others or blaming someone/something when things go wrong. It’s just you and the quality of your work, and your ability to communicate effectively that keep you afloat. But to me, that’s the *reason* to work for myself. I *like* being invested in what I’m working on. I *like* knowing where it’s going and how it will affect things. I *like* that the buck stops with me. And, I like that I can live wherever I want because my work is location independent….

And out of kindness many people still tell me how risky it is – how if I live somewhere with higher unemployment because it’s more affordable I better have a back-up plan, and how freelancing without face time is a pipe dream. And yes, it’s risky, but not any more risky than staying where I am and not feeling satisfied with my work. And, yes, living somewhere that doesn’t have tremendous job opportunities will make it more difficult to find a job there if that is important, but if I had to find a job working for someone else, why couldn’t I relocate? And, yes, “face time” can be important, but as we move forward, there are better and better ways of creating that connection with people from afar, and it becomes less and less important for us to be in the same room together. Most of the people I’ve done work for I’ve never met.

And while it’s not that important to me to help those who don’t understand, it is important to me to not let their thinking make me doubt myself or my goals. Just because not everyone sees the path to get there, doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist.

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I think it’s a designer’s responsibility to try their best to really get at the goals of a project and then to work from there. So, rather than finding a way to include a large illustration of a magnifying glass to designate something as “mysterious” (for example) because that’s the image the client has in their mind’s eye – to interpret “mysterious” in a way that serves the purpose of the project, making sure not to threaten the usability or content clarity of the site, and to create something you’re really proud of.

To get to the point that you really understand the goals of the project, and to help the client understand that what you’re there for is to come up with a design solution that responds to those goals, and not to draw a digital picture of what they have in their head, you have to establish trust. Trust in your skill set, but also trust in your working relationship. There are too many “designers” out there who charge little money for either templates that include text and images provided to them, or a direct mapping of a client’s direction into a website – either of these without any thought as to who the audience is, what *their* goals are, or really helping the client think through what they’re trying to achieve. Either that or their goal is to create something where the primary goal is gorgeousness, because it’ll look great in their portfolio and allows them to feel that they’re keeping up with the Joneses. Don’t get me wrong – there’s a time and a place for projects whose sole purpose is to be beautiful, but most call for a great design that is also beautiful.

So, when pitching for a project, make sure the potential client understands your value add – spend time to get to know them, understand the goals of their project(s), and then create a design that is not only beautiful but useful and usable. For you, the designer, your investment in creating trust with the client will allow you to better influence the projects you work on, and have a higher ratio of projects you *want* to put in your portfolio, and hopefully get repeat business and plenty of referrals.

Related posts:

1. Your Own Worst Critic: Designing for Yourself
2. Advertising: Putting yourself out there and accepting ads on your own site
3. The Naysayers

My portfolio site is constantly evolving. Not only as I add new projects to it, but also as I strive to find the balance between enough design to create my own brand, but not so much that others can’t see their own projects executed by me. In some way, just having a good portfolio design in and of itself is enough — if people like what they see, they’ll have more confidence that they’ll like what you create for them. But in another way, you don’t want to pigeonhole yourself into a particular aesthetic.

I know that people hire me because they’re looking for an uncomplicated design, and that thread runs across all of my projects. So, I start with that. I choose colors and fonts that express a friendliness and informality that’s important to me and my process. I try to make the site as easy to navigate as possible, and provide enough examples of recent work that someone can get an idea of my range, but not so many that someone gets lost in them. I give people a way to get in touch with me, and some idea as to what I’m like as a person.

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One of the things I’ve never done is any sort of targeted advertising, and I don’t know whether it’ll be something I’ll need to do future. Instead, I focus my “advertising” energy on expanding my online presence via social networking.

Interestingly, especially when people find me themselves, they are all over the map with their understanding of the internet & many times my projects begin with me explaining how to purchase a domain, and “what is a web host anyway.” A great way to build trust with a new client is to spend the time to answer *all* of their questions up front… and to anticipate what they may ask you next. It’s a great opportunity to establish a rapport with someone new, and to help them feel like they made the right choice hiring you. Usually, the time you spend here isn’t billable, so think of it as an investment in your business.

Once the domain and host are organized, I usually begin by building a simple outline of the site based on conversations with the client. This helps to make sure nothing is overlooked, and that the site is organized so that the client is happy, and it’s easy to navigate. I do this ahead of sending a contract and a 40% deposit invoice. I treat it like an addendum to the contract — it defines the scope of the project.

I generally send over the contract, the deposit invoice, and the outline together. I also ask the client to send me links to designs that they really like, or really hate. I point them to design aggregators to help them out with this, as many times it’s very hard to describe in words what you’re after. Once I receive the signed contract and the deposit in the mail, I start the actual design work.

Usually, I create a visual design mockup in Photoshop. I make sure to keep in mind what will work well in a CSS layout, but not to let that get in the way of the desired effect. I start with a 1024×760 document, put up guides for a 780 pixel wide, centered column, and go from there. Usually, I design fixed-width layouts, and I find these dimensions work really well. Sometimes I’ll create a single mockup, other times, usually when I have less to go on from the client, I’ll create more than one and let them choose. Some clients are happy with it straight away, and others want to get really involved in this part of the process and do a great deal of art direction. I really let the client dictate this part of the process. But to keep things efficient, I make sure to stipulate in my contract that I include up to 3 revisions in the project cost, and beyond that I charge my hourly fee. Speaking of which, usually I charge a per-project fee, and only bill hourly beyond what is defined in the contract & site outline.

After the client signs off on the visual design, I get to work on the HTML/CSS. If the client’s web server is available, I FTP the files over there. If not, I host them on my own server for the client to review. I usually ask that as much of the content as possible is available before I start in on each page. And if the exact text isn’t ready, to give me an idea of how much I should anticipate and I use Lorem Ipsum as a placeholder. This helps make sure we’re both using our time efficiently.

Once the pages exist and all content is included, the project is “finished.” This is when I send over the final invoice, update my portfolio (if it’s something I want to include) & ask for a testimonial, and make sure my invoicing spreadsheet is up to date. Many projects then move into a maintenance mode where I help the client keep the content fresh and up to date.

And that’s the standard process. Of course each client is different, and each project is unique… and I’m constantly evolving this process as I learn.

Related posts:

1. Advertising: Putting yourself out there and accepting ads on your own site
2. Your Own Worst Critic: Designing for Yourself
3. Client Spotlight: Laurie Richter, author of Put Me In, Coach!