Getting work as a Web developer

Toadeh

Hi All,

I work as a web developer full time but I want to earn some extra cash in my spare time. My problem is, how do I go about promoting my skills to get work?

I've tried people per hour and elance but I never get any work from those sites. So just seeing if anyone has any ideas how I can generate some work?

Thanks all

Two9A

I'm in exactly the same boat: a web developer with time spare in evenings and weekends, hunting around for work.

People always say "try the local shops", but more or less all the shops in my town are chain franchises with their own e-commerce sites, so there's no point trying that route. Might be worth a go for yourself though.

Let me know if you get any other good ideas

rao_2

Hi,

Do either of you have a website? You can't advertise it but you can stick it in your profile. I plan to do web design soon and might need dev contacts to help with quicker turnaround on some projects. If you haven't thought of it already you might want to target your marketing efforts at that sort of thing. Whereby you build up dev-to-dev contacts to trade/share work. There's lots of creatives out there who might receive work that they might wish to have another dev fill gaps on from time-to-time.

Its all about finding where your target market goes and getting yourself in the same spot. Make a list of potential clients and then beside each one make a list of places, websites, specialist forums, social networks etc. that they might be involved in. For many it is the same across the board (e.g. all of them might check the Yellow Pages, Google etc.) but for others you might find specialist forums/websites that are popular to them that you could do subtle marketing on (e.g. a link in your signature if allowed).

A good site with a lot of resources and helpful forum is http://freelanceswitch.com/

Here's a couple of key articles you could look over:
http://freelanceswitch.com/finding/101-ideas-to-get-more-freelance-work-and-generate-new-client-leads/

http://freelanceswitch.com/finding/the-monster-list-of-freelancing-job-sites/

http://freelanceswitch.com/the-business-of-freelancing/email-marketing-for-freelancers/

http://freelanceswitch.com/finding/new-leads-2-how-to-get-more-referrals/

http://freelanceswitch.com/finding/50-marketing-ideas-for-freelancers/

On the forums (it thinks im trying to make a referall so can't link directly to it but just click the 'marketing' tag/word above portfolio and it'll bring up forum topics about marketing).
http://forum.freelanceswitch.com/tags.php

borders_dude

Isnt the market a bit flooded for web designers?

rao_2

borders_dude wrote: »

Isnt the market a bit flooded for web designers?

Always I guess. I heard the exact same thing 9 years ago when deciding my path of study.
But its a global market and pretty much every business or individual could make use of a website / online presence. And there are new businesses / self-employed people springing up each day. And when they do have a website they'll often need a re-design later to stay fresh.
But is it really easy to find work? No. However I feel you could say that of every industry. There's always that reliance on self-marketing or referalls.

one2escape

You will need to do work for free or next to nothing it all done to building your portfolio.

Toadeh

I have sites to show so thats not a problem, although most of my web apps are internal only so I can use them.

Am more interested in providing services to creative folks changing their designs to files.