< 1 />

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web designer's
< how to profit from freelance web design />
Success Guide:
kevin airgid
www.airgid.com
< 2 />
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Dedication
I dedicate this book to my wife Crona, without her patience and
positive support this book and my successful career would not be
possible.
Marriage is our last, best chance to grow up.
Joseph Barth
Credits
Brian Reindel ~ Copy Editor
Crona Airgid ~ Editor

Special Thanx
John Read
Kathleen Hickey
Carole Guevin
Jonathan Clark
Kirill Brusilovsky
Scot Allen
Jennifer Stuart
Copyright 2006 Airgid Media Inc.
All rights reserved. No part of this book shall be reproduced or used anywhere. You can share and copy this PDF book with anyone
you like. But do not copy the contents and try to make money from it. OK! While every efort was made to ensure the accuracy of
this book, errors do happen. This book is provided as is and the author makes no warranties on the content or procedures con-
tained herein. The author shall have neither liability nor responsibility to any person or entity with respect to any loss or damages
arising from the information contained in this book.
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TOC
< the stuf />
FORWARD By Jonathan Clark 4
CHAPTER 1 Starting up 6
CHAPTER 2 Tooting your own horn 16
CHAPTER 3 Ofce on the cheap 27
CHAPTER 4 When projects go wrong 33
CHAPTER 5 How to share your knowledge and make money 41
CHAPTER 6 Project management and pricing 49
CHAPTER 7 Teach your clients to make bread 68
RESOURCES Things you can use 80
Get this book in Printed Form!
Why buy a printed version? It lasts longer and stays together better with a
cover. Its easier to read. You can give it as a gift to someone after you are done
reading. Its easier to follow the tutorials with a printed version. Its cheap!
Get the printed book, with a shinny color cover :
http://book.airgid.com/
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Forward
< by Jonathan Clark />
Have you ever stood at the beginning of a path and following your eye along it.... up, up and up
there, way out in the distance, a vast mountain lies with its peak hovering above the clouds.
And you, the intrepid adventurer, have to climb this mountain. This same thing can be said for
many things in life, freelance being one of them.
Everybody needs a hand they can hold along this journey, someone they can look up to and
say, help!, when the going gets tough. Sometimes that hand is there, and very ofen it is not.
What Kevin aims to ofer you with this guidebook is a helping hand some reassurance or even
a kick start along this journey. Kevin points out crevasses where he or other people have fallen
into, but he also provides good pointers for short cuts on the path and things you can do on
those quiet days where not much is happening and very importantly, he teaches you to ration
your food (money) wisely.
An indispensable book for the frst timer and a good read also for somebody with a bit of expe-
rience already on those paths, as everybody can learn from other peoples experiences.
Let your journey to the top of that mountain be a challenging and fruitful one and dont forget
to take your camera with you!
Jonathan Clark
www.jonathan-clark.com
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W
EB
DESIGNER'S
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KEVINAIRGID
SURVIVALGUIDE
WEBDESIGNER'S
SURVIVALGUIDE
WEBDESIGNER'S
SURVIVALGUIDE
WEBDESIGNER'S
SURVIVALGUIDE
WEBDESIGNER'S
SURVIVALGUIDE
WEBDESIGNER'S
SURVIVALGUIDE
WEBDESIGNER'S
WEB DESIGNER'S
The Rejects
Below are some logos that didnt cut it for the book cover, but I thought they where prety good
and so they see the light of day as The Rejects page.
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CHAPTER ONE
starting up
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Introduction
First and foremost, thank you for buying my book! The money you spent will go to a good
cause most notably my daughters education fund. In turn, I hope to repay your kindness and
interest in freelance Web design with fruitful chapters, chock-full of useful tidbits and practi-
cal advice. This will enable you to amass an empire ft for taking over the world, to strike out
on your own or to at least work in the evenings to make some extra cash. I have tried as much
as possible to make this book fat free. We have all purchased books where there were large
amounts of fller just to make the book look thicker on the shelf. So no fat here, just what you
need to know to build your freelance Web design business.
Afer doing a litle market research, it became very apparent that there were no books that really
taught people the ins-and-outs of running a successful freelance Web design business. Yes, there
are other small-business books that try to cover everything from creating a business plan to do-
ing your taxes, but these are rarely industry specifc. They are nify if you want to be a jack-of-
all-trades and master of none. This book is aimed specifcally at creative individuals, and it will
teach you how to maximize your creative talent in order to make money. Nonetheless, there are
some books that ofer valuable insights on how to run the accounting and legal side of your new
business venture. I list a few I highly recommend at the end of this book To keep you focused
and on task, I decided it was beter if we did not cover those subjects in depth.
I love designing interactive Web sites, and it is fantastic that people pay me to do something I
love. I have been working freelance since 1993. There is nothing more rewarding than managing
your own creative process and producing creative that has not been tampered with by an overly
opinionated supervisor. Being the master of your own domain is truly a pleasure, especially
when it comes to producing a fawlessly designed Web site. Of course, freelance is not without
its headaches, and I hope to help you avoid some of them in the following chapters. Learn from
my mistakes and successes, and you will fnd building your freelance Web design business to be
a very rewarding endeavor, both for your ego and your pocket book.
Why designers freelance fun or fear?
It has been my experience that designers freelance for one of two reasons: for fun or out of fear.
You need to decide what f word is motivating you. It was the fear factor that drove me into
freelance. I was employed at a small interactive frm that laid me of due to an economic down
turn. I tried to fnd a full-time position that paid as well as my last one, but there where no job
opportunities in my area. For fear of loosing my house, my car and the shirt of my back, I had
to fnd paying freelance clients and fast. Fortunately, I had been freelancing on the side for sev-
eral years and I was able to convert some of my part-time clients into full-time revenue streams.
For any Web designer wishing to freelance in the future, that is what I recommend. If you are
working full-time right now, either inside the interactive feld or in another discipline com-
pletely, I highly recommend you start to build up a small base of freelance clients. This makes
the jump into full-time freelance less difcult and not as overwhelming. That way you can be
as motivated by the fun factor as you are by the fear factor. The problem with starting freelance
full-time or cold turkey, is that you do not have enough business to sustain even a modest
income. There is nothing more stressful than trying to fnd new clients simply because you have
too many bills to pay. It is much beter both for your mental health and your bank account if you
< 8 />
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build up a small base of clients frst. By acquiring a list of clients and potential clients before you
go freelance full-time, you can achieve the following:
Build your project management and creative management skills.
Give yourself the confdence and experience necessary to be successful.
Build a network of client connections.
Decide if you can handle the headaches of freelancing full-time.
Learn how to beter manage your fnances.
By doing a litle freelance on the side you can learn a lot about what being a full-time freelancer
is really like. I think it is crazy when I read get-rich-quick advertisements claiming to give
people everything they need to open their own proftable business in thirty days or less. Its
never that easy. Being self-employed is not for everyone. If you can not manage your own time
or your part-time freelance clientele, or you
have trouble with self-motivation, then start-
ing a freelance Web design business may not
be for you.
A line of credit: a lifeline or
a rope to hang you?
A few years before I began freelancing full-
time, I had the good luck to become friends
with a fnancial planner. At the moment I was
working full-time for a world-renowned ad-
vertising agency and I was pulling in a good
salary. Financial problems were the furthest
thing from my mind, but my friend insisted I
apply for a line of credit for a rainy day emer-
gency. His advice paid of because a few years
later I used that line of credit to help jump-
start my full-time freelance business.
The best time to apply for a line of credit is when you are already employed full-time. This
way the bank is more likely to give you an amount of credit sufcient to meet all your emerg-
ing needs. Think of the line of credit as your insurance policy and not another bank account or
credit card. You will need to suppress the impulse to shop until you drop. I will talk more about
that later when you consider updating your sofware and purchasing the $2500 PDA with built-
in digital camera and electric toothbrush. Like my friend said, the line of credit is more like a
rainy day fund to help get your new business through the rough spots.
I recommend anyone who is going to jump into the freelance business full-time to either save
enough money to cover your expenses for at least three months, or to obtain this line of credit. I
do not claim to be a business or fnancial expert (keep in mind I have a visual arts degree), but
my own experience has taught me that running your own business can have numerous ups-
and-downs. You need to be prepared for when you experience the down times.
w
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SUCCESS TIP
Freelance is a family afair.

When I decided to freelance full-time, I had a
long talk with my spouse. The decision to move
from a bi-weekly pay check to the roller coaster
income of a freelancer was a decision we needed
to make as a couple. It is important that you
consult your signifcant other before you begin
this risky adventure. You will need the emotional
and possibly the fnancial support as you grow
your business. Without my wifes consistent in-
come, I would have been unable to help pay the
mortgage in the frst few months of starting my
freelance business.
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Designing your freelance Web site
One of the most important parts of your advertising arsenal is your Web site. Your Web site is
the place where you display your product to potential customers. Your product is design and
interactive media, and it is important that these potential customers can view a wide range of
projects. Ofen interactive designers will post what they feel is their best work to their Web site.
While this is a good idea, I have learned that it is beter to have a wide range of styles and types
of projects posted online. Even if some of the work is not your best, it is beter to post projects
that represent a wide range of work. For instance, I have work posted in my portfolio from
when I helped design the 1999 refresh of the
Chevrolet.com Web site. The designs look old
and dated, but the brand name recognition
helps build my credibility with new clients.
As designers we are ofen very critical of our
own work. I have been pleasantly surprised
by how much a new client likes a past project
of mine that I consider old and inferior to my
more modern work.
When you design your freelance Web site you
need to think about your target audience. Ev-
ery designer has their own style and market
niche. You need to decide if you want to do
work for any or all of the following: advertis-
ing agencies, B2B organizations, B2C organi-
zations, non-profts and mom-and-pop shops.
It is a good idea to do a litle research before you begin sketching out the design. Try to learn
about what your target audience looks for when they select a freelance Web site designer. In the
case of my site, Airgid.com, I have gone through many iterations over the years. One of those
iterations consisted of a heavy Flash interface that infused aliens and robots throughout the Web
site. The theme was a 1950s horror movie.
The Atack of the Killer Web site (Fig. 1.1) generated a tremendous amount of atention in the
online design community. When I launched the Web site it was featured in several design por-
tals around the world. My Web site usage statistics skyrocketed and I even had to move up to a
new hosting plan to keep up with the bandwidth the site used. Although it was receiving a lot
of atention from the Web design community, it did not generate new work. I did a litle digging
and talked to some of my clients. Most of them did not really understand why I had a slew of
aliens and robots dominating my site. They could not see the business logic behind it.
Another big problem with this version of my Web site, was that access to the most important in-
formation was four clicks deep. An analysis of my server logs revealed that users went straight
for the portfolio section, they viewed a few projects and then they lef. The time spent searching
for this area and the hindrance of not being able to view brief highlights of my work became a
major concern. Users where forced to follow this path to look at my portfolio pieces:
Splash page > home page > portfolio page > portfolio piece
SUCCESS TIP
Danger, Will Robinson, danger!
Being a creative person does not always mix well
with starting your own business, and running
your own freelance Web design business can be
big business, even if it is just little old you! Secur-
ing a line of credit can be the best way to ensure
security for some bumps in the road as you start
out. However, individuals with loads of debt may
think twice before taking on more credit. It is
better to pay of or down the debt you have frst
before attempting to go freelance full-time.
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Another issue with this Web site was the fact that the home page was extremely overweight. It
required a download of a litle over one megabyte, and secondary pages where not much beter.
So even with a fast DSL connection, the Web site took a good deal of time to load. All of these
mistakes coupled together made for a bad user experience. My target audience is full of busy
marketing managers, creative directors and CEOs of fast-paced companies. They do not have
the time to click, click, click, to fnd valuable information. They want it now and ofen they need
to make a decision fast should I hire Kevin Airgid to do my work, or should I look elsewhere?
I have since created a leaner, meaner Web site (Fig. 1.2). Even though it is much more business-
oriented, it has just the right touch of creative fare and professionalism. I have gained both
highly creative and engaging projects, as well as steady corporate design assignments. The port-
folio now follows the popular Amazon.com one-click methodology. When the user arrives, my
portfolio is the frst thing they see. The home page is cleverly disguised as the portfolio page,
and my product is served for consumption by the masses. Keep the following lessons in mind
as you design your next freelance Web site.
Your work should sell itself. Do not worry about lengthy explanations or marketing jargon
for each project. A short, punchy paragraph emphasizing the skills utilized is sufcient.
Most users only skim text online.
Make your portfolio easy to access and fast to download. Keep in mind even speedy corpo-
rate T1 connections partition bandwidth and can slow down.
Even though your clients may want to hire you for your Flash animation skills, do not make
them wait to see your portfolio. Resist the temptation to use your portfolio interface to fex
w
w
w
Figure 1.1 -- The Attack of the Killer Web site gained a lot of attention in the design community. It
even won a few awards, but I lost business because it did not communicate the right message about
my entire skill set. You can view an archived version at http://www.airgid.com/fash
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your animation muscles. If you need to
show this of, create a separate demo
reel that users have an option to select.
Corporate design may feel boring to
Web designers, but in my experience it
helps keep a Web site grounded in real-
ity, especially when you have a lot going
on in your portfolio. If we do our job, the
information architecture and interface de-
sign should compliment one another and
provide a pleasant user experience.
Finding work the cold
e-mail campaign
So how do you go about geting a small base
of paying clients? The way I started was by
simply using my network of friends and associates. I heard it once said that philosophy is com-
mon sense dressed up in a 3-piece suite. And it is true even for a one-man-show freelance busi-
ness. E-mail your friends, family, associates and acquaintances and tell them you are looking for
freelance work. You will be surprised how fast e-mails can get passed around. Before you know
it, you may have your frst freelance project. For instance, I e-mailed a friend of mine who was
looking for work. She interviewed at a large advertising agency in Detroit, Michigan. While on
the interview she learned they needed to hire some interactive designers. Her e-mail gave me
the scoop that this particular agency needed help. The lead got me a 3-month contract that I
would have never learned about if I did not e-mail her.
w
Figure 1.2 -- My new Web site is only 41Kb in size, and the portfolio is one-click access.
SUCCESS TIP
When NOT to send an e-mail.
Never send cold e-mails on Friday or Monday.
I have found that most marketing managers,
creative directors (and the like) are fried by the
time Friday rolls around. A cold e-mail sent on a
Friday will probably be ignored or deleted. If you
send an e-mail on the weekend and it is viewed
on Monday, it will most likely get lost in the rest
of the SPAM and internal company memos that
get sent out. I have found sending e-mail the rest
of the week to achieve better success. This is also
true with cold calling.

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One of the things I learned early on when I started doing freelance is how powerful e-mail can
be as a tool to gain new business. We all use e-mail to communicate with friends, family and co-
workers, but we really do not think of it as an
advertising medium. E-mail is one of the best
ways to fnd hot leads for new business. If
someone is not interested in your e-mail they
just delete it, and if they are interested they
can reply to you within seconds. It is the best
way to reach out to potential clients without
bothering them on the phone or knocking on
their door.
When I e-mail someone looking for work I
keep my e-mails very short and to the point.
Think about who your target audience is for
your e-mail and what they would be most
interested in knowing about what you have
to ofer. E-mails with long-winded market-
ing speak really do not work. Most of my
clients have one thing in common lack
of time! They are grazers when it comes to
information, and they typically skim e-mails
from people they do not know or delete them
without reading them. You only have a few milliseconds to catch their atention before your e-
mail ends up in the trash.
I have found a method that works extremely well for gathering qualifed candidates for my e-
mail campaigns. This method takes more work than just sending e-mails to the arbitrary info@
company.com, but you will achieve beter results and your eforts will be rewarded. For this
example I will demonstrate how I would go about fnding the name and e-mail address of a
creative director at a large advertising agency. You could also use this method for the marketing
manager of a B2B company or any other related feld.
Step 1: Finding the name
The fastest way for me to fnd the name of a creative director for an ad agency is to look at trade
publication Web sites. For instance, in Detroit (near where I live), there is a magazine called Big
Idea. This magazine helps represent the local communication arts community. Many creative
directors names are published here when they win awards or land new projects. It is an excel-
lent resource for fnding potential leads. You can also fnd the names of these people by reading
company press releases. Ofen they will mention the names of those individuals involved with
generating new business. Sometimes a Google search on a company name (or the agencys cli-
ents) will yield key contact names. Okay, we have followed these steps and found our name. For
illustration purposes we will call our lead John Smith.
SUCCESS TIP
SPAM is bad for business.
Want to kiss your freelance business good-bye?
Keep sending e-mail to people who have not
replied to you. The Internet is a small place and
if you constantly send e-mail to people who are
not interested, you will cause your self more
harm than good. People have a long memory
when it comes to annoying e-mails. You do not
want to tick of the head of an interactive group
for a major agency one day it will come back
to haunt you! My rule is one cold e-mail does the
job. If they are interested they will respond, or
even keep the e-mail for future reference. Keep a
list of everyone you have e-mailed and make sure
you do not cold e-mail them twice.

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Step 2: Finding the e-mail
Most companies have a strict naming convention for staf e-mail addresses. You can crack this
naming convention by looking for clues on their Web site. Start by searching for a sales contact.
You can use this to decipher the naming convention. For instance, the sales manager is listed as
Jim Doe, and his e-mail is [email protected]. So the naming convention is leter of frst name,
then full last name.
Step 3: Writing the efective e-mail
Here are some examples of efective e-mails that have landed me work in the past.
Target Client: Contact at medium-size company.
Comments: This e-mail landed me several medium-size company Web site redesigns.
Ever thought of a Web site redesign? Something to make your site stand out above your com-
petition online? I have done work for clients such as Ford, Marriot Hotel and Lexus to name
a few, and I can ofer a range of freelance prices.

To learn more, please view my Web site:
htp://www.airgid.com/

Why hire airgid.com?
htp://www.airgid.com/why_hire/
Target Client: Creative Director
Comments: This is the standard e-mail I send to any large ad agency. This e-mail includes a
resume as well. Your work history can sell you just as much as your portfolio of work.
Ever need a freelance Web/Flash designer? Please consider my services:

Portfolio Web site:
htp://www.airgid.com/

Why hire Kevin Airgid?
htp://www.airgid.com/why_hire/

Resume:
htp://www.airgid.com/resume/
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Target Client: Ofce Furniture suppliers - UK
Comments: I sent this to probably 100 diferent companies. It gained me one qualifed lead,
which is actually a good ratio considering the number of companies I e-mailed.
I have recently completed a Web site for a company similar to yours:

htp://www.russellofcecenter.com/

Ever thought of doing a Web site redesign to make your site more interactive, and easier to
update? My client, Russell Ofce Supply, can now update their Web site themselves. It is
easy to do. Let me know if you are interested in a cost estimate.

You can learn more here:
htp://www.airgid.com/

Why hire airgid.com?
htp://www.airgid.com/why_hire/

P.S. - I am based in Canada, and the exchange rate from British Pound to Canadian dollar is
an added beneft to you.
Amnesty 40th Time line (Copyright Amnesty International)
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Other places to fnd work?
Another excellent way to get your feet wet with freelance is to volunteer your skills for a charity.
If you are working full-time and do not know where to start looking for work, a recommenda-
tion is to start of with charity work. Volunteering to do a Web site for a charity will enable you
to test out your project management skills, and more importantly your ability to deal with a
client directly. The other excellent beneft to doing a project for free is you can typically dictate
the design. This means you can add a really nice project to your portfolio, which can help you
sell your services later. There are many charities out there who would beneft greatly from your
talents.
My frst big freelance project was a pro-bono interactive Flash timeline I did for Amnesty Inter-
national. This piece landed me paying gigs with clients such as CBC News and General Motors.
More importantly, Amnesty International enjoyed working with me, and actually hired me to
do more interactive pieces.. However, doing freelance work for charities is not without its frus-
trations. Ofen charities have an intense bureaucratic structure, and you will need to be patient
with commitees and several layers of approval. Yet, working with charities can give you a great
sense of accomplishment as you help build something for a worthwhile cause.
Chapter Summary
Typically publishers force authors like me to write these blasted summaries for every chapter
I never read them, do you? They are a waste of time - who needs a summary of what they just
read! Afer all, this is not a schoolbook. So, from this point on, no more summaries at the end of
chapters! Like I said, no fat in this book!
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CHAPTER TWO
tooting your
own horn
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Finding free advertising online
Your mother always told you not to brag, well that is not going to get you anywhere in the
freelance world. You need to shout from the hilltops your successes, so that you can turn past
projects into future projects. The best way to do this is to broadcast it to all your past clients, and
to as many news boards and Web designer portals as you can. By having Web design portals
such as Pixelsurgeon.com, Surfstation.lu and Creativebehavior.com news your latest creation,
you start to build link credit online. The more places that post links to your work, the more
reputable your credentials become. The more link credit you have, the more likely people are
going to fnd you when they type Kick Ass Web site Designer into Google. Google will rank
your site as important if more people are linking to you. Thus, your search engine ranking will
go up, and people will be more likely to fnd your site.
For instance, in this layout you can see the description of what my company does on the frst
part of the page, which loads afer the title. Research shows that advanced search engines do
not just read the top of the page, but they also scan down the page to the botom to fnd other
keywords.
If you were to repeat the paragraph at the top, and use some of the same words, you would
help increase your search engine placement. Search engines such as Google use sophisticated
mathematical formulas to pick up how many times a particular word is used on a page. It then
indexes the page according to this word count and several other factors.
I also recommend posting to as many forums online as you can. More popular forums, such as
Ultrashock.com and Macromedia.com, will let you market your latest creation for free. Even if
you are working full-time for a company you should still news your projects online. Your cli-
ent will not mind the additional exposure for their company. Having your name associated with
a full-time project also helps build your link credit for your part-time freelance.
About Us
AirGid Media Inc. is a design studio that builds
dynamic media solutions. Services include: Flash
media, web site design, content management
systems, 3D animation, presentations, illustration,
branding and kiosks.
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Google Yourself
by Scot Allen
htp://thevirtualhandshake.com/ (Reprint by Permission)
In December 2002, Randy Cohen of the New York Times answered a readers ethical question
regarding a friend who had used Google to do some background checking on a man she had
been on a date with. When she learned that the man, a doctor, had been involved in several
malpractice suits, she had a much lower opinion of the man, which presumably afected the
relationship.
The ready availability of information on the Internet makes it easy for people to do free basic
background checks on people before entering into business relationships with them. This is
something you should defnitely do yourself before hiring anybody as an employee, consultant,
or contractor.
So what does Google have to say about you? If you dont know, youd beter fnd out. Those
skeletons in your closet may not be as hidden as you think. Or worse yet, you may have some-
one elses skeletons!
First of all, you want to make sure that youre one of the top people in a search for your name,
or preferably the top person. This is not so difcult when you have a distinctive name, such as
David Teten. A moderate amount of online activity and publishing will ensure that you rise
above the handful of other people with the same name. On the other hand, if you have a very
common name, like Scot Allen, with numerous other people with that name being active on-
line, you have to work especially hard to even be on the frst page of listings (at last check, I had
fnally goten to the #1 spot!).
In the case of a personal name, the strategies for improving your search engine placement are
simple. Make sure your name is included in the <TITLE> tag on your page, and prominently
used throughout the page. The other thing to work on is geting inbound links to your site, pref-
erably containing your name. Two excellent ways to do this are:
Develop an HTML signature to use in Web-based discussion forums that has your name as a
hyper link to your Web site. Every message you post then becomes a link to your site for the
search engines to add to their index.
Publish articles anywhere and everywhere you can, making sure that they always include
an extended byline that links to your Web site, preferably with your name as the text for the
link.
These strategies will improve your link popularity signifcantly - one of the major factors in
most search engine ranking algorithms.
Now, what about those skeletons? Dont just go through the frst three pageslook through
everything. You might want to put your name in quotes, i.e., (around 5,000 results) vs. Donna
Fisher (over 250,000 results), to reduce the number of results.
So what do you do if you fnd some dirt on yourself? If its downright inaccurate or slanderous,
you can, of course, try to contact the site and have them remove it. If, on the other hand, its a
mater of public record, like the malpractice suits above, then you need some damage control.
You may just want to provide an ample supply of good information about you well positioned
w
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in the search engines, and the other can just languish in obscurity. Or, you may want to make
sure people hear it from you frst, or that you at least have an answer about it on your site to
set the record straight. If the issue is major enough, you may want to hire a professional PR
person to handle it, but it is something you can take care of yourself, as well, if youre on a lim-
ited budget. But the frst step is awareness. Make sure you know what the virtual you looks
like to the rest of the worldGoogle yourself.
Note: You can read more from Scot Allen online at his site htp://thevirtualhandshake.com/
Keeping in Contact
One of the biggest struggles I have found being a freelancer is keeping in contact with my
clients. Sometimes my clients will go fve months before they do another project with me. Over
time I have learned I need to keep my name and e-mail address in front of them constantly, so
they think of me frst when they have a new project they are considering. But how do you do
this without bugging the hell out of them? These are busy people, so sending them jokes and
hi how are you doing? e-mails will only annoy them and damage your reputation. You need to
make sure you are a valuable asset to these individuals. Approximately once a month I send a
link to all my clients (both current and past), regarding new technology that is directly related
to a past project I completed. For example, I do a lot of Flash development for my clients. Many
times they ask me if they can convert MS Ofce documents such as Word and PowerPoint to
other formats such as Flash and HTML. So as I am surfng the Web, I am always on the lookout
for sofware or technology that will help solve their problems. Then, once a month I send an
e-mail broadcast to my client network with a short paragraph pointing them to new sofware
or a Web site. My clients love these e-mails
because it is information they can use.
I also send out e-mails whenever I create
a really innovative and successful project.
Ofen old clients will see the new Flash piece
I have created, they will like it and want to do
something similar. Showing past clients your
current work on a regular basis is an excel-
lent way to generate new work. The best way
to stay in touch with clients is via e-mail, but
I have found a beter solution than just us-
ing your e-mail client to send out these mass
mailings. I use a small server PHP application
called PHPMailList. I use PHPMailList to
store all the e-mails of potential, current and
past clients. When I am cold e-mailing and a
client e-mails me back saying they are inter-
ested in my work, but do not have a budget
for the project, I add them to my client mail-
ing list. This way I am certain that this poten-
tial lead will at least see an e-mail from me
SUCCESS TIP
Google Tips and Tricks
Google can now search .SWF fles on your server.
As you send out your project URLs into the world,
you can rest assured that Google will attempt to
spider your .SWF fles as well. I have done a little
research on this topic and it appears that while
Google will index .SWF fles, it seems to favor
HTML fles frst in search queries. If you plan to
launch a full Flash site, you might consider creat-
ing an HTML version for search engines to crawl.
On my site I place an HTML link under my main
Flash movie. This link will take search engine
spiders, and users without Flash to a site that
contains all the needed information in HTML.
Creating this HTML site will also help build your
keyword index. A good idea is to place a highly
descriptive paragraph at the top of your HTML
home page, which should contain appropriate
buzzwords relative to the design services you
ofer.

< 20 />
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every month or so. By keeping my name in front of the lead I have a greater chance of obtaining
a project. The nice thing about using sofware like PHPMailList is you can enable your users to
automatically unsubscribe from the list if they do not want to receive your e-mails. I have yet to
have a client unsubscribe. The rule is to not send more than one e-mail a month, and keep them
short and useful.
Mailing List Software: The free and the excellent.
Like with all things in life you get what you pay for. I understand that budgets can be tight
when you start your own business. This is the reason I ofer two tools to achieve the same ends.
The following tutorial is how to install a free PHPMailList sofware. It works well but it lacks
many of the features other professional tools ofer. If you are looking for a cost efective tool I
highly recommend 12all by ActiveCampagin. (htp://www.activecampaign.com/). The sofware
costs around $100 USD (you host the script so there are no monthly fees) and comes with a
whole host of professional features. You can time delay an
email blast so it will be sent on a future date. It can track how
many times a user reads an email, how many times users click
a link in an email all sorts of goodies that help make each
email I send out more efective. The best part about the system
is the fact that users can unsubscribe to the email newsleter.
So if one of my clients doesnt want to recieve the emails anymore they simply unsubscribe us-
ing the handy link at the botom of every email. By default 12All adds this to each email that
is sent out. This is a really friendly tool both for the sender and the reciepent of the email. The
ability to add custom HTML templates gives users the ability to send professional emails ev-
ery time. Finally 12all ofers a free install service, so you dont have to monkey with CMOD, or
other install issues.
If you dont have any money, and want a bare bones mail list sofware then read on, other wise I
recommend 12all.
Installing PHPMailList
Installing PHP sofware can be a daunting task for creative individuals like myself. I have a de-
gree in visual arts and I am not a programmer by trade. However, over the years I have learned
it is not a bad thing to dabble in this dark and mysterious craf. If you can learn PhotoShop and
Flash ActionScript, then you will have no problem installing a simple PHP script. I like PHP-
MailList for several reasons.
1.) It is easy to install.
2.) It is easy to install.
3.) It is easy to use.
The following tutorial assumes you are using a Linux based hosting environment (although
you could get this script to work on a Windows based host). Your hosting environment will
also need to be able to execute PHP scripts on the server. You can contact your system admin to
fnd this out. Most hosting companies allow server side scripts by default. This script requires
PHP Version 4.0.2 to be installed on the server. Do not worry if you do not have this information
handy. Most good Web hosting companies update their PHP version regularly, so most likely
< 21 />
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this is something
you will not have to
worry about. Now
on to the fun!
Note: All the screen
captures look as if I
am using Windows
95 (which I am not).
I have turned of all
the setings in the
OS to make the win-
dows print beter for
this book.
Step 1 :
Download
PHPMailList
You can download
PHPMailList at this
link. The ZIP fle also
contains more technical
instructions if you wish
to follow them.
htp://php.warpedweb.
net/maillist/
Step 2: Unzip
the Archive
Create a directory on
your local hard drive
of your Web site and
call it maillist, and
unzip the contents of
the maillist.zip to this
directory. (Fig. 2.1)
Step 3: Secure your data.
Create another directory outside the maillist directory and
give it a unique name. This is where you are going to store the mail list data and password
information. I named this directory supercrazystuf (make sure you give yours a diferent
name for security reasons), and now move these two fles from your maillist directory into the
supercrazystuf directory:
1. list.dat
2. ml_confg.dat
Figure 2.1
Figure 2.2
< 22 />
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Finally, create two blank index.html fles and place both of them in the maillist and super-
crazy directories. This way if your system admin has enabled directory browsing, potential
atackers will not be able to see the contents of the directories. Your directory structures should
look like this now:
(Fig 2.2)

Step 4: Upload the fles to your server.
Upload the fles to your server using your favorite FTP program. I use CuteFTP, but any FTP
program will do. You can place your maillist directory in your root directory on your server.
Some Web hosts will not allow PHP (or any other script for that mater) to run outside the CGI-
BIN directory. Check with your server admin if this is the case for your host. You will need to
place just the maillist directory into the CGI-BIN directory if this is the case.
What does Full server path mean?
Reprinted by permission from scriptygoddess.com. Author: Jennifer Stuart
In as simple terms as possible, full server path refers to where your fle is in relation to the
server your fle is siting on. This will almost always include directories that are NOT Web ac-
cessible. It basically STARTS with the very root of your server and works down the folder/hier-
archy chain from there.
.
You may wonder why I just dont hand over your particular server path and tell you to swap
out the folder names. The problem is that many servers are set up diferently. Depending on
who you host with, what type of server it is, how its organized - there can be huge variations.
Theres a few things you can do to try and fgure out what your server path is.

Option 1) Build frst, read directions later.
Obviously, this is not completely recommended. LOL! But if you do happen to have a script
running, and its spiting an error out, pay close atention to the error messages. If the problem
is with the path youve provided, the error will probably look like:
Warning: you did something wrong blah blah blah in /home/jsmith/public_html/myfle.php on
line 10
Just a litle side track about using error messages to help debug your scripts - it may be too
simple to mention, but when you get errors like this, GO LOOK AT LINE 10! (or whatever line
is mentioned in the frst error) Examine it VERY carefully. If it looks okay to you, GO LOOK
AT LINE 9! Then, GO LOOK AT LINE 11! If the line mentioned in the error isnt actually caus-
ing the problem, sometimes the *real* problem is occuring on the line before or afer the line
mentioned. Okay, geting back on track. You see that path in bold. THAT, my friends, is your
full server path to your fle. If ANOTHER path is mentioned in the blah blah blah part - and
its missing some parts or directories that you see in bold - youve entered in the wrong path in
your script. (and this could very well be the cause for the error in the frst place!)
This is huge. I cant tell you the number of times people miss that very easy clue. PHP knows
your server path! Its handing it to you on a plater. Listen to it.

Option 2) I repeat, PHP knows your server path! Listen to it.
There is a great litle function in PHP: phpinfo(). And actually, another sidetrack. If youre not
< 23 />
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sure if your server is running php
or not, using this simple litle
function will tell you. Just create
a fle that has the following and
nothing else in it, and upload it to
your server:
<?php
phpinfo();
?>
Pull that page up in a browser,
and you should get a TON of in-
formation about php, your server.
Its prety cool actually. And... this
page will also tell you what your
server path looks like!
Once you have that page loaded
up in your browser, fnd the vari-
able PATH_TRANSLATED or
_SERVER[PATH_TRANSLAT-
ED] (Im relatively sure that
should show up on the majority
of confgurations - if theres a bet-
ter variable you suggest, please
feel free to correct me in the com-
ments). The value of this variable
will be the full server path to the fle youre looking at. It will probably look like:
/home/jsmith/public_html/testphpinfo.php
or maybe even:
C:\wwwroot\myfles\testphpinfo.php
Option 3) Hold my hand please
If you have a really nice host, that doesnt mind being bugged - you can also try directly asking
them. If they dont get what youre asking for, you can explain youre trying to run a php script,
and the instructions required your using the server path to the fle.
~ Jennifer Stuart
scriptygoddess.com
Step 5: Edit the Confguration Setting
(Yes, one line of code to change! I told you this was going to be easy!)
Using a simple text editor, you can now edit the confguration setings. I use Notepad on the PC.
(You could easily use Macromedia Dreamweaver, or Simple Text on the Mac). Open the mail-
Figure 2.3
< 24 />
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list.php fle and fnd the line that says:
// The full server path to the confguration fle.
$confg_fle = c:\\path\\to\\ml_confg.dat;

Now change the path to the path of the fle on your Web server. If you do not know the full
server path, see the help box title What does Full server path mean? For instance, my server
path to the ml_confg.dat is
/home/stannemi/public_html/maillist/supercrazystuff/
So I would change my server path in the script to look like this:
// The full server path to the confguration fle.
$confg_fle = /home/stannemi/public_html/maillist/supercrazystuff/ml_confg.
dat;


Step 6: Upload and CHMOD the fles
Now upload the changed maillist.php to the maillist directory and overwrite the old fle on
the server.
Now CHMOD the fles so they have
permission to be edited on the server.
CHMOD is a fancy Unix term for
change mode. This is the Unix com-
mand and system call to change the ac-
cess permissions of a named fle. You will
want to set the two fles in your super-
crazystuf directory to the following:
list.dat: CHMOD 666 (or 777 if
that fails)
ml_confg.dat: CHMOD 666 (or
777 if that fails)
Most FTP programs will allow you to (right-click if you are using a PC) or (Control-Click on a
Mac) to set the fle permissions. See your FTP sofware documentation on how to change fle
permissions. In CuteFTP on the PC, I just right-click on the fle and this dialog box appears, al-
lowing me to set the fle permissions. (Fig. 2.3)
Step 7: Testing it out
OK, if everything went well, type this URL into your Web browser:
htp://www.yourservername/maillist/maillist.php
Figure 2.4
< 25 />
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And you should see the following screen:
(Fig. 2.4)
If you see this screen you have successfully
installed the script. If you do not see it, or
you see an error message like Could not
open confguration fle., then re-check
your full server path. Most likely you have
a typo there. If that does not seem to be the
problem, and the script says something
like Script Error, then you may need to try to install the script
into your CGI-BIN directory. If all else fails, go online and post your question to one of the many
PHP news boards online for help. You will fnd (as I have) that this community is always willing
to help out us newbies!

Step 8: Running the Admin
Now using your Web browser, go to this URL to access the admin (you will want to bookmark
this URL for later use):
htp://www.yourservername/maillist/maillist.php?action=admin
The admin login screen will appear. Use the default login and password:
Username: user
Password: pass
You need to change this default login and password NOW! so others will not get into your sys-
tem. Here is how to do it: (Fig 2.5)
Select the Administration radio buton, and click the Submit buton.
You will now see a form feld with all of the default setings. You need to change the following
setings:
Username.
Password.
List Name.
The full path to the list.dat fle (same as your ml_confg.dat fle earlier).
Now change the other variables to match your site (Fig. 2.6). The rest of the program is prety
easy to use. Users can sign up and subscribe to the newsleter if you place a public link on your
site. The public link would be:
htp://www.yourservername.com/maillist/mailllist.php
w
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w
w
Figure 2.5
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Figure 2.6
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CHAPTER THREE
ofce on the cheap
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Disillusionment
When I set up my home ofce I had many grand visions of what I wanted it to be like. I had
visions of those cool DOTCOM companies, lots of open space, maybe a lof with exposed brick
and hard wood foors. Earth to Kevin! Earth to Kevin! * snap * back to reality I came. My
ofce is a small bedroom, in a nice middle-class home in the middle of suburbia. The reason I
choose to have my ofce here is several fold: money, money, and did I mention money? Do not
spend your hard-earned (and trust me, when
you are self-employed it is hard-earned)
money on things you do not need. I learned
very early on to only spend money on things
that would either directly make me money,
or that would make my work beter (which
inadvertently makes me money). If clients are
not going to see your ofce, then do not waste
your money on expensive desks, lighting and
interior dcor. It was a great temptation when
I frst started freelancing to go out and spend
my frst few paychecks on a new desk and
cool lighting for my ofce. While these might
have made my ofce look great, they did
nothing to improve my botom line.
When you are self-employed, it is best to keep the fringe expenses down in the frst year. Below
are some of the ways I have saved money in my home ofce. My guidelines for any purchasing
decision for my ofce is two fold: 1. Will this purchase make me money? 2. Will this purchase
save me money over time? I like to go cheap on my desk, fling cabinet, drawers and shelving.
This leaves more money to spend on important things like the latest version of Adobe Photo-
shop and RAM!
Help Tips
Below are some helpful tips and tricks to setup your ofce on the cheap, yet still keeping it look-
ing cool.
Resist the temptation to go out and buy a particleboard desk. While these desks are inexpensive
and ofen look relatively appealing, they do not last. If you move it ofen, or move it completely
from one ofce to another, it is more likely to fall apart. I know because I have moved many a
university friend who own these type of desks, and it always ends up in pieces by the time we
arrive at our destination (or in the garbage altogether). If you cannot aford to by a solid wood
desk, I recommend building your own Amazon Desk. I call this desk the Amazon Desk
because in the startup days of Amazon.com, the founders could not aford desks, so they used
interior doors as desktops. I have found the surface space of a standard 32 interior house door
makes a perfect desktop. I initially used a hollow core interior door for my desk. This is a bad
idea because you will need to reinforce it with two-by-fours, as I found out the hard way. I rec-
ommend searching for an old solid wood door at house demolitions, yard sales or estate sales.
The legs I used are from IKEA. I purchased the VIKA CURRY model, which will cost you
SUCCESS TIP
Yellow Page Ad?
In all the years I have been doing freelance I
have never once purchased a Yellow Pages ad.
Other freelance Web designers I have talked to
have also told me that when they did purchase
a Yellow Pages ad, they received more resumes
than job contracts. The only calls they did receive
for work were for demanding clients requesting
two hundred dollar Web sites. Considering the
price of a Yellow Pages ad, you may fnd it hard to
recoup your cost.
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around $10.00 USD. You simply screw the legs on each corner of the door. I have also seen
people use doors with loads of paint on them, which creates an interesting texture and is fun to
look at. They also have a piece of glass cut to cover the surface of the door. Although geting a
piece of glass cut for this size of door will probably end up costing you more than a solid wood
desk, so be careful.
Seating
In the past four years of working out of my home based ofce, I have gone through two low-end
ofce chairs, which cost around $300 dol-
lars Canadian. Within the frst two years the
frst chair lost pressure in the cylinder that
makes it go up and down. The second chairs
fabric surface started to stretch afer less than
two years, which caused the foam padding
to dislodge. I decided it was time to invest
some money into a piece of ofce equipment,
which I use 9+ hours a day. If you think about
it, we will spend a lot of money on the latest
and greatest computer, but when it comes to
our bodies (and ultimately our health), well,
most people seem to skip that part. I know
that when I was building my home ofce, I
did not want to spend the money on a chair.
But in the long run I would have saved my-
self money and trouble if I just went out and bought the right product.
So, I took the plunge and purchased a new Mirra chair by Herman Miller. This chair is very
much like the award winning Aeron chair by the same maker, but I think with a few new twists.
The frst beneft over the Aeron chair is the price. The Mirra cost me $900 Canadian, with all the
options, whereas the base Aeron chair started at $1000. For those of us building a home ofce
this may be a bit expensive. Having worked at several employers that supplied an Aeron chair,
I am well acquainted with the huge benefts of a great chair. I could sit in the Aeron chair for
hours at a stretch and not feel any discomfort. Afer having had the Mirra chair for two weeks,
I can say that this chair has the same efect. I can sit on it for hours with litle or no strain on
my back. (Just a side note, the dealer let me try it out for a week before signing the botom line.
I was hooked within hours.) With my old chairs, my spine would feel horrible. I would have
shooting pain up and down my back afer siting for a few hours. With the Mirra chair I quickly
forgot about those problems.
All ergonomic specialists will tell you that siting in your chair for too long is bad for you. As
a Web designer, I ofen need to sit for hours uninterrupted to get into the groove to produce
good designs - lots of cofee, long hours siting at my computer and waiting for inspiration to
come. I will be the frst to admit, productivity is enhanced when one is comfortable. This chair
also makes it much more comfortable to sit in when it is hot because the mesh seating surface,
called Aireweave Suspension seat (similar to what the Aeron chair was famous for) breaths, so
you do not get sweaty. It conforms to the siter as the brochure says, and they are not kidding.
SUCCESS TIP
Business cards are your friend!

I have found that that most important advertis-
ing tool that I have outside electronic commu-
nication is my business card. I give my business
card out to anyone who will take it. Often your
business card can be the best piece of advertis-
ing you have. I recommend you do not spend
cheap in this area. Get your business card printed
on a heavy stock, and ensure it has a clean design
and is easy to read. The more creative the better,
too! You will be surprised where it will end up
and how it will gain you business!
< 30 />
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It also has Flexfront Seat Depth Adjustment, which means the user can adjust how deep the
front to back dimension can be. One size fts all. My new Mirra chair is worth every penny. My
back and my bank account wished I had purchased it long ago. Over the long haul this chair
will save me money and frustration. Herman Miller has a 12-year warranty on it, (and they say
three shifs 24/7 on the brochure), which is exceptional. By my calculations I would need fve
new low-end chairs during that period. Besides, the chair is one of the few things that make
my ofce look really cool. It is a work of functional art that anyone who does a lot of siting day
afer day should truly consider owning.
What Hardware?
It is almost impossible to give you a guide on what type of hardware would work best for you.
Hardware changes so rapidly that the words on this page are out of date before they hit the
paper. I recommend doing research before you purchase your computer system. You need to as-
sess what your needs will be and build a system around your tasks. Below I outline my current
computer system and why I chose the components I did. Remember, unlike your Mirra chair,
one size does not ft all. Make sure to select your system based on your specifc needs.

Dual monitor display
This is not an optional item, and I do not know how I could live without two monitors for my
work. Dual monitor support video cards are not expensive and are well worth the investment.
I place my image on one screen and my paletes on another. This investment will save you a lot
of time. My monitors are 19 ViewSonics and my dual video card is ATI RADEON X800 Series
dual monitor video card.

Loads of RAM
Buy as much RAM as you can aford. RAM is like candy you can never have enough. My sys-
tme has 2 gig. of RAM.

External USB or Firewire Hard Drives
I use my external Firewire hard drive as a poor mans backup. I have two 120 GB USB backup
drives. Each day I backup the contents of my documents drive to this external drive. This way if
my internal hard drive fails, I can go back in time one day. Then on Fridays I remove the exter-
nal drive from my house and swap it with another external of site drive (I take it to a relatives
house for safe keeping). I always have at least a weeks worth of work of site in case of fre, or
someone pulling the fve-fnger discount on my box! I highly recommend you do this. I have
two external 120 gig. USB 2.0 Maxtor drives.

Separate Documents Hard Drive
I have two internal drives. One drive functions as my program and operating system drive, and
the other functions as my storage for fles. I fnd keeping documents and programs on separate
drives serves many functions. First, you can back up your documents drive knowing that you
are not backing up Gigs of page fles, program fles and other useless items the OS creates (this
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goes for both Mac and Windows)! Second, you will improve system performance by keeping
these fles separated on two drives.

Essential Software for the Freelancer
The urge to upgrade your sofware every time a new version comes out is normal. But it is
beter to let the MBA part of your brain make that decision. The way I decide if I need an
upgrade is simple. Will this upgrade make me money? For instance, when the latest version of
Photoshop comes out, I look at the new features. If the new features do not contain any major
useful enhancements, then I do not upgrade. Sometimes, I am forced to upgrade because a lot of
my clients (such as advertising agencies) use the latest versions of the sofware and they require
me to use the latest version. I call this the upgrade virus, because the only reason you need to
upgrade is because others have got the upgrade bug sad but true! Below is a list of low cost or
no cost sofware that I use on a regular basis. Of course, I have not included the typical sofware
you use, such as Photoshop, Flash, etc.
Mozilla Thunderbird (Mac / PC)
www.mozilla.org | Cost: Open Source (free)
Open source e-mail client. This e-mail client saves your precious RAM for Photoshop. It fea-
tures a robust feature set and is easy to use. This e-mail client is unafected by those nasty script
viruses, unlike MS Outlook.

Mozilla FireFox (PC / Mac)
www.mozilla.org | Cost: Open Source (free)
I use this browser daily. The following free extensions make it indispensable.

FireFox Adblock Extension (Mac / PC)
htp://adblock.mozdev.org/ | Cost: Open Source (free)
Lets you flter out banner ads by blocking ads from loading. You can download blacklists
- known banner servers. Even over a high-speed connection it speeds up free e-mail such as
Hotmail and Yahoo! by removing the ads.
FireFox Developer Extension (Mac / PC)
www.mozilla.org | Cost: Open Source (free)
I use this extension daily. It adds powerful functionality to FireFox such as the ability to validate
Web pages, and turn CSS styles on and of on the fy, helping you see how pages are rendered
with older browsers that may not recognize your advanced CSS.

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CuteFTP Pro (PC/Mac)
www.cutefp.com | Cost: Around $30 USD.
Excellent commercial grade FTP sofware. The latest version supports several FTP servers. I
have found this FTP client worth every penny.
Sorenson Squeeze (Mac / PC)
www.sorenson.com | Cost: $400 USD.
If you need to add video to Flash, this is the program for you. If you have litle or no experience
with digital video, do not worry this program is straightforward, and easy to use. For video
professionals it ofers many robust features under the hood.

Avast Anti-virus (PC)
www.avast.com | Cost: Free for home use Professional version $50 dollars
This sofware does not consume many system resources as other popular anti-virus tools. If you
are using it for personal or home use, you can download a free version.
MS Virtual PC (PC / Mac)
www.microsof.com | Cost: $600 USD
It is unusual that you will hear me recommend a Microsof product. But MS Virtual PC is an
amazing piece of sofware. It can run Windows 95, 98, 98se, 2000, XP and any other OS favors
underneath your installed operating system. This is a must have for any freelancer developing
Web sites. You can test your sites against many variations of browsers simply by launching a
program on your desktop.
PDF Creator (PC)
htp://sector7g.wurzel6.de/pdfcreator/index_en.htm | Cost: Free
This free tool lets you add a PDF print driver to your printer list. You just need to select the print
driver and print to PDF.
TransType (PC / Mac)
www.fontlab.com | Cost: $170 USD
If you use Windows and work with Mac only agencies frequently, then this is the best tool for
you. It will convert Mac fonts to Windows fonts.
Back2ZIP (PC)
www.fontlab.com | Cost: Free
This is the sofware I use to back up my system nightly. It is simple to use and works great.

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CHAPTER FOUR
when projects go
wrong
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Egos
One thing that fascinates me about the Web design community is the fact that people never talk
about their failures. I think our egos ofen get in the way of professionalism, and nobody wants
to admit they made a mistake. In this chapter I will discuss my failures and how I have learned
from them. My hope is that you will learn from them as well, diminishing the likelihood you
will experience any failures at all.
Case Study #1 Brand X Case study
How poor client communication lead to a creative melt down
I must admit I am hesitant to discuss with people the problems I have had with my clients.
I guess it is human nature not to want to admit defeat, or that you screwed something up, but
it happens to the best of us. I wish I had a book like this when I set out doing freelance. Learn-
ing from others mistakes is a lot easier than
making the mistakes yourself. Lucky for you I
have learned that sharing my business trou-
bles is both therapeutic and encourages my
own professional self-development. So in a
nutshell, as you read this, you will learn and I
will repeat the mistake again over in my head
ensuring I never make them again!
Even though I have many years of dealing
with well-recognized brands and high profle
clients, each project is always its own animal.
I was very excited when a high profle cli-
ent approached me to produce a really cool
interactive Flash piece for their site. I was
fully prepared to impress Brand X (as we
will call them to protect the privacy of those
involved). The creative director heading up
the project saw my freelance site and called
me with no references. We talked on the phone at some length about the scope and time frame
for the deliverables. I wrote up an estimate and the client approved it. Later on that week the
creative director from the agency informed me that he was going on vacation for the duration of
the project, and my contact would be with an art director and the project manager. This seemed
straightforward, and this scenario was prety typical for my agency work. Creative directors are
very hands-of if they trust their team. This gave me some confdence about working with this
new client. Later I would learn this was the kiss of death.
Like I said before, Brand X was a prety high profle client, and I was excited to add another
brand to my belt. Even though I lived eight hours from the agency, I agreed to drive for a one-
day meeting to kick the project of, ensuring everyone on the team would meet me and feel
comfortable at the onset of the work. I drove down on a Sunday and met with the team on Mon-
day at 9 am. The meeting went well, and everyone seemed very excited about the project.
SUCCESS TIP
Business Plans are For Banks!
When I talk to other freelance designers and even
small business owners, I always ask if they have a
business plan. Most of them laugh! Why? Because
business plans are for banks. You only need to de-
velop a business plan if others are investing mon-
ey in your company. Now this is not to say that
business plans are totally useless. They can be a
good road map to where your business should
be, and could be going. I have found my daily
business activities to be straightforward enough
so as not to require a business plan. Almost every
interactive shop I have worked with has created
a business plan at one time or another and they
never followed them food for thought!
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Near the end of the meeting I started to ask questions about the style and direction of the cre-
ative. Since I did not know the brand identity very well, I asked the art director and the account
director. They could not ofer me any clear direction, and informed me that I was free to use
my creative judgment. That was a major
mistake. When I was an art director for a
major advertising agency, I would have never
told a fresh-on-the-scene freelancer to use his
creative judgment when handling a major
time sensitive Flash project. If I were the art
director on the other side of the table, I would
have done some mockups of how I thought it
should look, and gave some very good direc-
tion. If I did not have the time to do that, I
would have at least given some examples of other creative work resembling the look-and-feel
they were afer. Unfortunately, I was not on the other side of the table.
I lef this meeting feeling a litle uncomfortable. The creative director was away on vacation,
and the art director decided to wash his hands of any creative direction for this project, which
needed to be done yesterday. I fnally informed the client that I would produce three designs
for them to review in a short period of time.

Mistake:
When working with a new client, never leave the frst meeting without clear creative direction.
This is even more important when the project is time sensitive.

Solution:
I should have been much more aggressive when the client did not ofer any clear creative direc-
tion. If the art director involved could not provide any direction, I should have expressed my
concern to the project manager. I needed to let them know my inexperience with the brand
would be a serious handicap in producing creative extremely quick. That would have changed
their atitudes and their involvement.
I went home and produced three diferent designs for the project. The frst design followed the
style and color of their Web site a great deal. The second design used similar colors, but took a
new direction, and the third design was really diferent. I presented the designs via a confer-
ence call to the client. They reviewed them, and the initial responses were very positive. They
all agreed that design number one was somewhat boring, and they all agreed that the two other
designs where fresh and could be useful.
They let me know that they needed to have the account executive view the designs, but overall
they sounded pleased. I got of the phone feeling very happy, and relieved. The sun set and a
new day began, and so did my troubles for this project. I received a call early in the morning
and the client informed me that I was way of track. Apparently the account executive decided
SUCESS TIP
Three people whom you should become good
friends with: a plumber, a lawyer and an excellent
accountant. You will be amazed at how much all
three of these people can help your freelance
business!
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to play art director. I guess this needed to happen since the art director was asleep at the wheel!
The client asked me to produce more creative, so I did, and the second round of creative met
with the same negative reactions. Once again, the client could not pinpoint what they did not
like, even afer I made repeated requests.

Mistake:
I let the creative for the project get out of control. Afer the frst round of design comps were
rejected, why did I believe I was going to score a second time around, with no direction or sug-
gestions?

Solution:
Assertiveness. Yes, you read right. You need to be assertive with your clients, and in the end
they will respect you more for it. In this case, I should have put the breaks on the creative and
let them know I did not think we were moving in the right direction. I should have told them I
needed a beter creative director, or I would be unable to begin producing more comps. Stating
that fact would have been preferable to what came next.

The client decided because the creative up
to this point was not what they wanted, that
they would prefer fewer graphics, and a more
photo oriented piece. I could pick out photos
that would suit the project before beginning
the design. So, I spent most of the day creat-
ing a lightbox on Gety Images, containing
the various photographs I wanted to use. I
e-mailed my selections to the art director and
waited. The next day I was e-mailed a ZIP fle
with the images he selected for each screen of
the project. I asked what was wrong with my
image choices and he told me they were not
the appropriate style. Needless to say, three of
the images I initially selected did make it into
the fnal project. I suppose the art director
had not noticed he picked the same images as
me.
I proceeded to produce animation and Flash action scripting for the project. It was a multiple
choice game where users could select options and at the end it would have diferent outcomes
based on the user input. I programmed some really nice scripting and the frst few slides con-
tained some subtle bitmap animations. I presented the piece to the client, again with the same
reaction!
They fnally decided that they would not use me for the project. They requested the source fles
for the project, and I had a sneaking suspicion that once they had the fles in hand, then I would
SUCCESS TIP: Focus Daniel Son!
As a freelancer we cannot aford to do things
mediocre. Clients expect the best from us, and
trying to handle print, interactive and Web host-
ing all in one is not a good idea. Focus is key.
If you do a few things better than anyone else,
your clients will return for more. I do not host
my clients Web sites. You can always join a Web
hosting providers referral program to make extra
cash for referring clients. Traditionally, I have
never recommended Web hosting providers be-
cause I cannot control the quality of their service.
I always provide a list to my clients and let them
choose.

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not get paid. I told the project manager before I released the fles I would send her an invoice for
half of the project price. I told him that they did not need to pay for the creative since they did
not like it, but I worked over the weekend producing the scripting and logic for the project. The
project manager agreed, and sent me an e-mail confrming my invoice. I posted the sources for
the project and I quickly realized I was lucky to make it out alive afer this hellish project.
Later the next day, the project manager notifed me that their new developer could not uti-
lize my source fles. I asked what was wrong with the fles, and she could not produce a clear
answer. Afer a few days of wrangling back and forth, the client decided to honor all the work I
did, even though in their rationale they could not use any of the code. They paid me for half of
the project 30 days later.
What I learned:
Afer doing this project I will never produce creative for a project where the client cannot pro-
vide clear direction. Short timelines with big brand names can sometimes require serious hand
holding, even when you are dealing with supposed professionals. If I could go back in time, I
would have stopped the creative until someone could produce examples for me. While the cli-
ent would not have liked this production halt, it would have been more preferable than the proj-
ect going bust, like it did. If the project manager dropped the ball, and the art director dropped
the ball, I should have reached out to grab it before it fell on me.

Case Study #2 When to Fire the Client!
I remember back in the day when Kioken was one of the hotest Web design shops around.
Kioken was the stuf of legends and myths online. One of the things that made Kioken so red
hot on the design scene (besides their killer clients such as JLo and Puf Daddy) was the fact
that they fred Sony, one of their largest clients. It was rumored that Sony was fred because they
were messing with the designs Kioken was producing for them.
Most small interactive shops would never consider fring a client such as Sony. We would suck
it up and jump as high as the client wanted. It would not mater if they wanted us to make their
Web page green, purple and brown we would produce it with a smile. As freelancers and
small Web design shops, we cannot aford to loose clients. The business climate is still weak, so
it is even more important to hang onto the work you already have.
Rules clients must follow
Should we produce work for our clients, even though we know it is terrible, just because they
are paying? Should we endure pseudo-creative clients who micromanage design until it looks
like something your cousin produced using FrontPage and MS clipart? The short answer to
these questions is yes, but you need to set some strict criteria and guidelines. I have estab-
lished some informal rules that I use to determine if a client needs to be fred. These rules do
not apply to each and every situation, but they are a good benchmark for discovering if your
client is a waste of time.
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1. Create a written estimate and a contract.
Have the client sign the contract and the estimate, and have this returned to you no later than
the frst week you begin the project. I have found that clients that do not return the contract in a
timely manner are ofen the same clients who do not pay. Also, clients who are scared to sign a
contract might have other issues. All too ofen if they are paranoid about people double-cross-
ing them, it means they have thoughts about doing the double-crossing. It is like the jealous
girlfriend (or boyfriend) theory. The girlfriend is jealous because she is really the one that cannot
be trusted, so she does not trust her mate. While your relationship with your client hopefully
will not be so intimate, you have to evaluate why a client is so hesitant to sign a contract.
2. Get at least 30 percent up front.
For all my clients I require 30 percent of the project cost up front, if it is the frst time I am work-
ing with them. Afer they have paid for the frst project, I normally do not require this on subse-
quent projects. However, having the client pay money up front tests the waters. First, it ensures
they are serious about the project. There is nothing worse than someone who is trying you out
to determine if you are a good ft. You do not want to spend hours designing something, only to
fnd this out. Keep reading below to fnd out how I did not follow this rule, and got soaked. Sec-
ond, having them pay also ensures they actually have money. It is amazing how many people
will try to get interactive work done on credit. I have meetings with clients frequently who try
to get huge projects accomplished, hoping they will have the money to pay by the end.
3. Use your Jedi powers
I know this sounds like mystic mumbo-jumbo, but in the 9+ years I have been doing freelance
Web design, I have always known right from the frst meeting whether or not the client was
going to be difcult. Do not ignore your gut feelings regarding clients. This is not to say that
you need to pitch your client because they are acting a litle of. Spend some time to get to know
your client maybe have another face-to-face meeting if possible to understand their personal-
ity and the project goals.
The Client I fred.
I would have never thought that I could ever fre a client. Afer all, I am a one-man-show free-
lancer, and every project counts towards helping to get the mortgage paid. Yet, with many years
of freelance and business experience under my belt, I have learned when to cut my losses and
run.
(The names have been changed in this example to protect the innocent or rather the guilty as
it is in the case of this past client.)
The project started when the client saw my Web site and liked the Flash work I produced. He
sent me a very positive e-mail asking me for an estimate for his construction billing sofware
company. I called him on the phone and we talked at length about the types of Web sites he
liked, and the vision he had for this project. Overall, the phone conversation was very upbeat
and the client seemed very positive. The site was basically brochure ware, but the he informed
me he had other Web sites that needed to be built, and he was looking for a freelancer for the
long term. This is always exciting to hear when you are self-employed. I was so thrilled about
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future work that I did not focus properly on the task at hand. One thing he did mention in this
conversation was that he was unhappy with his current freelance designer because he was too
slow. This normally would have sent warning signals throughout my brain, but the idea of fu-
ture work clouded my judgment.
The project proceeded, and I sent the client a contract and a request for thirty percent of the cost
upfront. The client (we will call him Jim for this article) informed me his accountant would be
in the next week, and he would have the check cut then. Because of all the positive energy in the
air, and the continual fatery from Jim about how much he liked my portfolio, I proceeded with
the project without a contract or the thirty percent payment, thinking it would go great.
I produced three interface designs for Jim and I also produced several logo designs for his sof-
ware. Two weeks passed. I called Jim up and asked him if he had a chance to sign the contract
and cut a check. Jim explained that his accountant was of sick, and he only worked on Fridays.
He promised to have it to me by the next Friday.
This same week I presented Jim with the three design studies, and over 15 logo treatments. Jims
reaction was lukewarm to designs one and two, but he thought design three, with a few altera-
tions, could be used. We discussed the modifcations and I retooled the design based on his
feedback. I presented the design to him the next day via e-mail. He felt design three, even with
its modifcations, was not jazzy enough for him. I e-mailed him back to setup another confer-
ence call to discuss the design in depth, so we could arrive at a beter outcome.
Jim felt that I could not produce a satisfactory design. He also commented that he did not like
the logos I created either. (As an aside, I told him at the beginning of the project I was not going
to charge him for the logos, since we were going to do more work together down the line. Big
mistake.) All throughout this experience, the client was calling me at all hours of the night. Nor-
mally, I would not mind for rush projects, or even for clients who are in a diferent time zone. I
am fexible as a freelancer, but he was in the same time zone and there was no urgency. He was
all over the place, and it showed in his behavior towards the project and the design.
Jim decided that even though I did not produce an exemplary design, he would like to continue
our relationship. His words to me were, Kevin, I really like your work, and I think you are a
great Flash designer. But your interface designs are not what I want, and the logos are really
not what I am afer either. I want to hire you to build just the Flash parts of my Web site. I was
three weeks into the project and Jim had become the client from Hell. He had not paid me a
penny, and he called me at all hours and did not like any of the design I had produced in the
three weeks we were working together. At this stage, I did not know how I could produce mo-
tion graphics in Flash for him that he would be happy with either.
For the frst time in nine years of doing freelance, I came to a crossroads. I knew that I could
probably proceed and get paid something for my troubles. Yet, I also knew that this client
would consume more and more of my time, and I could never get paid. At the moment, I did
not have a lot of projects on my plate. It is very scary as a freelancer to give up work. I decided
to fre the client. I told Jim that I felt we were not a good ft. I was honest and explained that it
was beter we ended our relationship now before he became frustrated with my work. Most oth-
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er interactive companies I have worked for would have turned him over to a collection agency
or gone to small claims court to get back the money he owed. I decided not to go this route for
several reasons.
1. Being a freelancer, I do not have time to go through a collection agency or to go through
court. It takes away from the time I can spend perusing bigger and beter clients.

2. The Internet is a small place, and eventually if you send a client like this to a collection
agency, or to small claims court, it will come back to bite you. This client was local, so I did not
want the relationship to end badly, and I exited in a polite manner.
Firing this client was an excellent decision, and the next week I landed several large projects
from various national level clients. That time consuming project would have weighed down my
eforts to please them.
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CHAPTER FIVE
how to share your
knowledge and make
money
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Sharing
Sharing things you have learned is one of the best (and free) ways to gain more business. Clients
will come to respect your opinion if you become recognized in your feld for a particular area of
Web development. For instance, I co-authored a book on Flash usability called Flash 99% Good:
A Guide to Macromedia Flash Usability. The book generated a lot of positive PR. Macromedia
featured the book on their site, and the related book site www.fash99good.com won numerous
national design awards. This PR translated into a beter Google ranking for my business site,
because my name and link to my freelance site was included on the book site. The PR generated
with the book helped get my name in front of many senior creative executives. A few months af-
ter it was published, a senior creative at TeamUSA advertising (the agency of record for Lexus)
contacted me asking me to lend my creative and Flash usability skills to the development of the
new Lexus Web site.

How do you fnd your niche?
When you set out to fnd a niche for yourself, think about the things in our industry that interest
you the most. When I came up with the idea to write a book about Flash usability, it was mostly
spurred on by the lack of relevant information I could fnd online. I knew there was a vacuum,
and I knew I could write about the subject mater because of my years of experience building
interfaces in Flash. Think about problems or issues you face in your day-to-day work. Is there a
book project or article foating around in your head, waiting to be writen to solve that problem
or issue? Do you see something happening with Web sites or Flash design that you know could
be fxed with a particular technique or sofware tool?
I do a lot of free writing for Web sites like www.pixelsurgeon.com, www.creativebehavior.
com and www.commarts.com. When I write an article or sofware review for one of these sites
I always try to think of what my target audience wants to read. I wrote an article for Creative
Behavior (that appears in this book as well) on when to fre your client. This article was wildly
successful because as freelancers we always struggle with clients that do not pay, and in the
end are not worth the efort. This article received a lot of acclaim and many people e-mailed me
thanking me for writing it. The article also has additional benefts because the link at the bot-
tom of the article lets people learn more about me, but it also increases my Google page rank-
ing. Google, as you may know, ranks Web sites based on how many people are linking to them.
Having more links pointing to your site increases the chances that it will achieve beter ranking
in Google search results.
There are many online magazines that would love to have articles writen for them. While most
of them do not have a budget to pay you for your eforts, the link to your Web site at the end
of the article can be just as good as money. If you can get published just once or twice through
these avenues, then you will help increase your popularity and the trafc to your Web site.

Speaking Engagements
I do several speaking engagements a year for various organizations. I have spoken to univer-
sities, at tradeshows and I have had the privilege to speak several times at Flash In The Can
(FITC) in Toronto. Some of these organizations will pay me to speak, but ofen I do it at no cost
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for the free publicity. Every time I speak to an organization I notice an increase in revenue for
that quarter, as my name is kicked around in the design community. It always amazes me how
people fnd out about my work.
Several months afer I spoke at FITC 2004, I had a prospect call and ask for a bid on a large in-
teractive Web site. I inquired how they had heard of me, and they responded that they had ob-
tained my contact information from the FITC Web site. Even though the person did not atend
the conference, being a speaker and having my name associated with FITC gave me credibility.
This prospect turned into a full-time client that does a lot of work with me each year. The speak-
ing engagement was worth every minute I put into it, just for the link on their Web site.
This all sounds good Kevin, but youre a published author, and Im relatively unknown except
to my loving family and friends!
Yes, this is partly true. It is a lot easier to get speaking engagements if you have writen several
books for well-recognized publishing companies. However, you do not need to be a published
author, or a heavy hiter in the world of design in order to speak about design or technology.
There are many organizations that would love to have a guest speaker talk about real world in-
dustry experience. I cannot tell you how many e-mails I get a month from students asking me to
mentor them, or who ask for advice on how to become a beter Web designer. Before I spoke at
larger conferences, I did small speaking engagements to university departments on how Flash
can be used in their design work. If you have any national brand name clients under your belt,
students will be even more eager to pick your brain. Regardless, if you are practicing your craf
and geting paid to do it, it does not mater if you have two years experience or ten years experi-
ence. You will be pleasantly surprised how much you really know.
Here is a list of organizations you can contact regarding possible speaking engagements. Take a
risk and get your name out there!

Potential Audiences:
Local university, community college or design academy.
Local chamber of commerce meeting.
Mac user groups.
In store (computer store) demonstrations.


Potential Topic Ideas:
Efective Web site design.
Improving your Google ranking.
Current design trends.
Hands on tutorials: Dreamweaver, Photoshop, Flash, etc.
Using typography in Flash and Web site design.
w
w
w
w
w
w
w
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There are many, many more topics to discuss. A good idea is to look at well-received Web de-
sign books on Amazon.com, and think about what topics these books cover and why they are
popular. This will give you a quick and dirty overview of what people are interested in, or a
have a need to learn about.

Turning Blogging into Business
I run a very successful Web site called Flash99good.com. I consider
the site to be successful for several reasons. The frst reason is that it
does not cost me anything to operate. The Google AdSense program I
employ pays for the server costs, with a litle change lef over for Star-
Bucks cofee each month. The second reason I consider the site to be successful is because it has
generated new business, either directly or indirectly.
The direct business that Flash99good.com has generated for me is through people doing a
search for Flash in Google or another search engine. They click on a link to my site and cold
e-mail me about freelance work. The indirect way Flash99good.com has generated business is
through creditability. Ofen my potential clients will bid work out to several diferent develop-
ers. When the client reviews Flash99good.com and sees that I practice and preach Flash usabil-
ity, it helps tip the scales in my favor. Clients always like to know when they are dealing with a
professional. Flash99good.com gives me that credit and standing in the Web design world.
Picking a topic for your blog
I recommend picking a topic for your blog that interests you. This way you can keep posting
topics without having to draw blood for content. The content will naturally come to mind as
you go about your day-to-day work. With Flash99good.com, I ofen write sticky notes for ideas
for topics and paste them on my monitor. When I am free or feel inspired, I will post a news
item to my blog that I think is helpful. It is much easier to maintain and keep content fresh in a
blog if you fnd the content interesting yourself. A few ideas for blog topics that would atract a
clients atention and help build your link credit online:
Designing beter Web sites. Styles, techniques and examples.
Sofware reviews.
Web site design critiques.
General technology articles related to the Internet.
Your own personal thoughts or comments on technology, such as the latest version of Photo-
shop or Microsof applications.
Setting up the blog software
You need to setup your blog afer you have picked your title or concept. You can either hard
code your blog by adding each article manually, or you can setup server side sofware. Both
methods have their benefts. Hard coding lets you control the design of each blog post with
much more precision. You can make each page unique and have a unique layout and graph-
ics. The disadvantage of editing your site by hand, is that it can be time consuming and it may
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require a lot of fuss to post a simple text article. Using a server side option like MovableType
or WordPress will organize your blog entries automatically for you. Sofware like this will also
include advanced search functions and RSS feeds so others can print your posts on their sites if
you allow it. Here is a list of great blogging sofware:

Movable Type
htp://www.movabletype.org/
I use an older version of MovableType for Flash99good.com. It is prety easy to update and of-
fers a great selection of easy to customize templates. The new version is reported to be faster,
and has many product enhancements, but it is no longer free.

WordPress
htp://www.wordpress.org/
This easy to use sofware is a snap to install, and the admin interface is a joy to work with on a
daily basis. This sofware is licensed under a GNU (General Public License) and is free to use.

Blogger
htp://www.blogger.com/
This is probably the fastest way to start blogging. If you do not want to mess with installing a
server side script, than this is the way to go. Doing an informal test for writing this book, I setup
my own blog. It took me less than two minutes to sign up for an account, pick a template for the
blog and post my frst entry.
Setting up your blog: Installing WordPress
While free blogs like those featured on Blogger.com are really easy to setup, they lack the ability
to customize like MovableType and WordPress. In this next section of the book I will teach you
how to install WordPress on your server. The reason I selected WordPress is that it is easy to
install, easy to use and it has a large developer group supporting it online.
Before you begin this tutorial you need to make sure your Web hosting environment supports
PHP 4.1 or greater and MySQL 3.23.23 or greater. You can contact your administrator for more
information. An alternative installation tutorial is located here:
htp://wordpress.org/docs/installation/5-minute/
In this tutorial I will show you how to setup the database using a visual control panel tool that
most Web hosts utilize.
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Step 1: Download the latest WordPress build
You can download the latest WordPress build here:
htp://wordpress.org/
Step 2: Unzip and get ready
Afer you download the program to your desktop, unzip the fles and place them in a directory
called wordpress on your local hard drive. For this tutorial I will place my wordpress direc-
tory in this location:
C:\website_html\wordpress
Step 3: Setting up the database
This may seem like a scary task, but it really is not all that dif-
fcult. Many Web hosting companies provide visual tools to
create and maintain databases. For this tutorial I will be using
a popular Web hosting control panel, which was provided by
www.mediatemple.com. Even if your Web host does not have
the exact same control panel, the interface commands are typi-
cally the same. This step might be slightly diferent on your
hosting control panel, but it will give you the basic concepts.
I log into my Web site control panel and access the MySQL
Database control area. (See Fig. 5.1)
From here I click Create Database (see Fig. 5.2) - you will notice
that in this control panel my hosting provider gives the database a name related to my hosting
account. In this example I named my database fufy_com_-_wordpress.

Step 4: Set the MySQL Data-
base Password
Using the MySQL Database control area,
change the name of your database password by
clicking on Change MySQL Password. Make
sure you make it a long one with a good mix of
numbers and leters together.

Step 5: Fill in the database confguration settings
Open wp-confg-sample.php in the wordpress directory you created earlier on your hard drive
and fll in the confguration setings. Fill in your database name and password. For this example
this is how mine will look. (See Fig. 5.3)
Figure 5.1
Figure 5.2
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Figure 5.3
<?php
// ** MySQL setings ** //
defne(DB_NAME, fufy_com_-_wordpress); // The name of the database
defne(DB_USER, superadmin); // Your MySQL username
defne(DB_PASSWORD, ou8122w243ccee12); // ...and password
defne(DB_HOST, localhost); // 99% chance you wont need to change this value
You can probably ignore the code below this, as the rest of the setings will work fne with most
hosting environments.

Step 6: Save the confguration fle
Now save the fle out as a new name in the same wordpress directory. Call the fle wp-confg.
php. Now upload everything to your hosting environment. Upload your fles to the root direc-
tory so the URL path to your wordpress directory would be something like this:
htp://www.yourdomain.com/wordpress

Step 7: Launch the WordPress Installer
Now point your web browser to this URL (replacing yourdomain with your actual web do-
main name):
htp://www.yourdomain.com/wordpress/wp-admin/install.php
You should see this screen now (Fig. 5.4)
If you do not see this screen, then I recommend going over to the Word-
Press forums and asking for help. You post to the forums here:
htp://wordpress.org/support/

Step 8: Complete the WordPress wizard setup
Now follow the setup screen questions. I have listed them here in order to give you a reference,
and what my answers would be for this tutorial. Feel free to add your own:
First Step:
Weblog tite: Airgid.com
Your e-mail: [email protected]
Second Step:
Finished! Print this screen because it contains the random password and your login to access
your blog. Click on the login link afer you have printed this screen in order to log into your
Figure 5.4
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blog.
Step 9: Write your frst blog post

Afer you have logged into the system you will be presented with the dashboard screen (see
Fig.5.5). Click on the Write link in the top lef-hand corner of the screen. This will bring up
the Write Post screen (see fg.5.6). You can then fll out the content you want for your blog and
simply click publish when you are done. WordPress will present you with a light blue box
with a hyperlink entitled View Site. Click that to view your new blog! (Fig. 5.6)
Step 10: Enjoy your blog
Now your blog is live (See Fig. 5.7) and it is very prety indeed! The cool thing about WordPress
is that you can do a lot of enhancements to it to really customize it for your needs.
Figure 5.5
Figure 5.6
Figure 5.7
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CHAPTER SIX
Project Management
& Pricing
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Pricing?
Determining what to charge for your services can be very a difcult decision. It will forever
dominate your destiny, as Yoda once said to Luke in Star Wars. In my experience, you do not
want to start your hourly rate too low, because once you land a few larger clients you will have
great difculty migrating them to a higher hourly rate (that is, if you decide to charge hourly).
What you charge hourly should refect what the market would bear. So in other words, you
should try to charge as much as clients are willing to pay. This sounds straightforward, but
what do clients want to pay? You need to do some research, and fnd out what others are being
paid with similar skills sets as you. There are a few Web sites that will help you determine what
hourly rate other freelancers are charging. Two salary calculators that I have used in the past are
available at www.salary.com and www.monster.com.
All of the information you fnd online regarding salaries and hourly rates should be taken with
a grain of salt. In the creative business people can charge a lot more for their services if they
have the creative portfolio to back it up. Below is a graph of how much I charged hourly as
my career grew. You will notice that the more name brand experience I obtained resulted in an
increase in my hourly rate.
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0 - 2 Years - $15/hr
Small fyers for print, university department Web sites, PowerPoint slides

2-4 Years - $20/hr
Local small business Web sites, Bell Canada

4-6 Years - $37/hr
Cadillac, Chrysler

6-8 Years - $45/hr
Chevrolet, Various small businesss

8-10 Years - $80+/hr
Toyota, GM, Ford, Lexus, Amnesty, CBC.ca
As you can see there is a direct relationship
between what I was paid and my experi-
ence. I would not use this as an absolute rule
though. Very talented people can jump out of
the gates making mondo-cash, but this is
rare.
Even now people tell me that $65-80/hour for
what I do is very cheap. I know other free-
lancers who charge upwards of $100/hr for
their work. Once again, it all depends on your
talent and experience. Someone with loads
of talent can get far. Remember though, it is
hard as a designer not to be excited by your
own work. So you need a reality check every
now and then.
Fixed price or hourly?
This is always a question I wrestle with, even in my own freelance business. For quite a long
time I charged hourly for my projects. The problem I found with this type of billing was that
the client rarely wanted to pay me for the extra hours it took for fne-tuning. It was always a
struggle telling them that there will be a scope change if they made any more changes to a
design or added more interactivity to a Flash piece. I have found most of the time I would set an
hourly rate, but end up charging a fat fee for the project, regardless if I went over a few hours.
So I switched to a fat fee pricing structure.
Why I switched to fxed fee pricing
Takes out the stress
Clients can depend on a fxed project price and not worry about additional charges. I can relax
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SUCCESS TIP:
Sometimes clients are really slow at getting me
my thirty percent down payment for projects.
Well, this is no more a problem, as I have setup
a portion of my Web site to receive PayPal pay-
ments. Just sign up for a PayPal account and fol-
low the instructions for placing a Pay Button on
your site. Place the code on a hidden page, and
only give your clients private access. I now have
many new clients pay me the deposit this way. It
makes it easy for them, and it gets real money
into my pocket so that I can start work on the
project right away.
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and not worry about how I am going to claw an extra four or fve hours pay out of my client
when they go beyond the project timeline. It makes for a beter client relationship.
Easier to increase price over time
Charging on a fxed price enabled me to increase my prices slowly over time without upset-
ting my current clients. This is really the best beneft to fxed pricing. Now do not get confused.
Fixed pricing does not mean my clients get to change the scope of the project and still pay the
same price. However, fxed pricing does enable me to go over (or under) a few hours without
sweating it. I always bufer the time by several hours to ensure that the client is paying upfront
for expected changes. Also, afer you work with a client for some time, you will understand
how demanding they are and adjust your pricing to refect the changes they typically request.
Foreign currency exchange rates
A lot of my clients are based all over the world, and I live in Canada. So when a foreign cur-
rency is worth more than the Canadian dollar, I make more money on every transaction. The
problem with hourly rates is when the Canadian dollar becomes close in value to the foreign
currency, such as the US Dollar. I actually loose money. If I were still charging hourly for my
projects it would be difcult to adjust my hourly rate upwards to compensate for the exchange
rate. Because I charge a fxed price per project, I can increase my rates without causing too much
concern for my clients.
Typically your clients will not mind paying between ten and thirty percent more if you keep
them really well serviced. I cannot stress that enough to people starting freelance for the frst
time. You can easily recall poor service when you eat at a restaurant, and the concept is the same
in any business venture. Doing freelance is no diferent, and you need to bend over backward
for your clients. This means quickly returning phone calls, prompt service and quality work
above and beyond. If you follow through with good service you will not have as much trouble
raising your rates with existing clients. They do not mind paying more, so long as they value
your eforts.
Managing the creative process
Nothing kills the creative process faster than lack of communication. Sometimes the creative
dance can be hampered through an honest misunderstanding regarding the project goals. It is
important that you listen to your clients needs. Then, deliver those needs with results. It seems
simple enough, but when you get it wrong it can be a nightmare to fx.
As a freelancer you will probably have the opportunity to work with a more diverse group of
clients than you would work with at a traditional company. Some months I am working for
national charities, and other months I am helping sell sheet metal for a local Detroit-based auto-
motive company. The way I communicate and interact with my clients needs to be adaptive to
their style.
The Process
This is the typical process I follow when I work with a new client.
1. First phone contact
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Evaluate the scope of project. E-mail them my Why Hire Airgid.com Web site to give them
something to look at while I prepare their estimate. This keeps them interested just in case they
are scouting other freelancers.
2. Provide estimate
I e-mail my estimate as a PDF printed from Excel. You can get a free PDF print driver at htp://
sector7g.wurzel6.de/pdfcreator/index_en.htm if you do not have Acrobat.
3. Client signs contract
I have all my new clients sign a standard contract. I recommend you go to a lawyer and have
a good contract drafed. You can also buy template contracts online, but remember to read the
fne print.
4. Client flls out project questionnaire
I have all my new clients fll out a project questionnaire. I ask questions about the target audi-
ence, technical limitations and target launch date. You can download a sample of these ques-
tions at htp://book.airgid.com/secretgoodies/.
5. Client pays thirty percent
I will not start a stitch of work until I have the cash in hand and the check has cleared. Be sure
you client has money alloted to pay for your services.
6. Sitemap and content guide
For small and large sites I always create a sitemap. You can download a sample site map at
htp://book.airgid.com/secretgoodies/. I also create a content guide for larger sites. Basically, a
content guide is the full site built out with no images (a text only representation). The naviga-
tion is static text in a table. The content guide helps clients visualize how the links work and
where content will go. If you do not create a content guide for the whole site, make sure you
create one for the home page and one secondary page. This way they will be able to beter vi-
sualize what content goes where. This will help you understand what types of content you will
need to deal with in your designs.
7. Create three designs
Typically I produce three designs for a client to review. Make sure you have a good thorough
conversation about what the needs and goals of the project are before you start on design. Also,
it is helpful to show clients samples of diferent site designs before you begin. I ofen provide
screen captures of other sites that might get the creative conversation going.
8. Present designs
Most of my clients are located thousands of miles from me, so I am forced to present my designs
over the phone and through e-mail. I typically do not just fre of an e-mail with a link to the
new designs and wait for feedback. I setup a conference call and personally show the designs to
the clients. This way I get to explain my vision for the design and how I see it working out for
the rest of their site. This is even more important when you are showing comps for interactive
media such as Flash. Your explanation is very important. I have found that clients can have a
totally diferent view of a design without my explanation. My advice is to show your designs in
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person or over the phone. Do not post the designs and shoot of an e-mail, because you are ask-
ing for trouble.
9. Client modifes designs
At this point the client makes tweaks, or in some cases, takes your design and runs it into the
ground! But fear not, and remember that the client is always right. Be constantly aware that
they are paying you. Some clients just need to have it their way. Some are controlling and want
to play creative director. If the design looks terrible afer they are fnished tweaking, make sure
you point out to them that you feel it could look beter. However, at the end of the day they
are paying for the project, so you will need to ensure they do actually like it. Just make sure to
document your comments and suggestions.
I always try to get my clients to focus on the target audience for every project. This way you can
defect their poor aesthetic tastes and try to bring some rationale to what you are doing. For in-
stance, I had a client lets call him Larry, who said, I showed the Web site to my 17-year-old
daughter, and she does not like the color and the fonts you are using. I explained to Larry that
the site was designed for older adults and his daughter did not represent the target audience.
This answer helped him understand that we were trying to build a beter site for his target audi-
ence, and not for his daughter. Explaining your design decisions can help you avoid creative
struggles with clients. I have big and small clients who do this sort of thing all the time. Just
back up your ideas with solid answers and most clients will come around. If they do not and
the Web site is not successful, then you can review your notes, and politely suggest in the future
that they heed your warnings.
10. Client approves design
Now you need the client to approve the sitemap and the design for the site. If it is a complex
site, then it is very important to have the client approve the sitemap. There is nothing more frus-
trating then building out a design, only to have the client add new navigation.
11. Start Build
Now you start the build process. From here I have the client check in daily to make sure I am on
course. This way there are no surprises.
12. Client approves fnal build and project launches
I typically transfer the site from the development area on my Web host over to the clients
hosting environment. With all my clients, I do not release source fles (PSD, FLA, etc...) until
fnal payment is made. This way, they may have the site, but they will have difculty editing it
without the source fles. Especially if you are using Flash. Make sure you spell this out in your
estimate, contract and invoice. Again, this way there are no surprises.
13. Get paid!
Most of my clients pay me in less than thirty days. Very few take longer, but make sure you stay
on top of it. Afer thirty days notify them that their account is past due. If for some reason they
will not pay, then you may want to get a lawyer to draf a leter stating the obvious. Ofen this
leter is enough to get the ball rolling. If that fails, then you have an option to take them to small
claims court (depending on your country). My advice is if the project is below $5,000 dollars,
then eat the cost. Lawyers are expensive and you can easily spend that cash in legal bills.
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Project Extranet
It is important to document the creative process as much as you can. I always setup a project
extranet for every project. The project extranet can be something as simple as a directory under
your Web server with a list of fles posted. I typically date each fle each time I post one. For
instance, as I work on a Web site design I post the iterations of the designs online. This creates
a historical record of how the creative has evolved. Creating this historical record also helps
clients see how the changes they requested modifed the look-and-feel. When my busy clients
ask for the same change twice, I point them back to the project extranet. You can see a sample
extranet I use in my daily work here:
htp://book.airgid.com/secretgoodies/
You can see by looking at this template that it
is quite uncomplicated. The updates are add-
ed by hand in Dreamweaver, and it has all the
contact information for the client right at their
fngertips. They do not have to hunt for my e-
mail or phone number when they want to call
to discuss the designs. I have also included
a special Dreamweaver auto date function
in the right hand column that updates the
time stamp when the extranet index.html
fle is saved. I have researched other extranet
solutions, such as server side project manage-
ment sofware. I fnd these systems to be a
pain to upload media and a pain for clients
to view. I believe in the K.I.S.S method: Keep
It Simple Stupid. One of the benefts to using
a static one-page site like this is that you can
take down the extranet and keep it for your
records ofine. The problem with database driven solutions is once the project fles come down
you have no easily accessible record of the old extranet site.
Billing
There are many ways to do your accounting. There are great programs like Simply Accounting
and QuickBooks that ofer a lot of great easy to use tools. I have found however that this sof-
ware is ofen too complicated for my needs. I do not do more than fve or six projects a quarter,
so tracking inventory and taxes is not an issue. I use Microsof Excel to do all of my fnancial
work. I use excel to write invoices, receipts, and estimates for clients. I also use Excel to track my
expenses and project taxes. If you do not own a copy of Excel, or do not want to make Bill Gates
any richer, you can download a free copy of OpenOfce.org, which includes a spreadsheet pro-
gram similar to Excel. In fact, the spreadsheet program for OpenOfce.org is compatible with
Excel.
You can download samples of the Excel fles I use for my day-to-day work here:
htp://book.airgid.com/secretgoodies/
SUCCESS TIP:
When my workfow slows down (yes it does
happen to the best of us), I am tempted to
start using Web site templates to go afer
smaller clients in order to make money. My
experience with these clients is not good. The
client who will only spend $500 with you will
most likely be spending their entire annual
budget. They will treat this $500 like a lifeline.
Nine out of ten times these clients end up
consuming more resources and energy than
they are worth. Avoid using Web templates
for cheap clients and spend your down time
looking for bigger projects. I have learned that
three $500 projects may make me $1500, but I
could have been procuring an $8,000 project if
I just pounded the pavement a litle.
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Customer service: Keeping them coming back for more
By Kathleen Hickey
No mater how great your work is, you can lose a client and damage your reputation if you
dont make a practice of good customer service. Your client wants to know that the money
theyre spending on you is worth it. Theyll even pay more money for you than your competi-
tors if they value the relationship. So the key is to endear yourself to your clients by giving
them the highest quality service possible.
Here are some basic points on maintaining
good customer relationships that can set you
apart from the pack:
1. Respect your clients.
Lets face it, clients can drive you crazy, es-
pecially when youre working in the creative
world. Everyone thinks he/she knows what
good design is and wants to put in his/her
two cents. But nine times out of ten, it isnt
arrogance that makes clients think they know
how to design, its the passion that they have
for the project. Remember, they have far
more invested in a successful outcome than
you have. You may lose a client, but they
could lose their job. And they want to be
sure that afer all the hard work, the outcome
will be something they can proudly show to
the top brass. As well, they generally know
much beter than you do whats going to fy at
approval time and what wont. So it becomes
their baby, and they may get a litle more
involved than what you consider optimal.
Replace impatience with respect for their
position. They want to do a great job. They
want it to be the very best. So do your best
to understand what the project goals are and
what they are personally trying to accom-
plish. Then carry it out in your work. Make
it your personal goal to make them look like
heroes in front of the boss. They will appreciate you beyond measure for it, and theyll come
back because they do feel your respect.
Once in a while, you will serve a client that you have a difcult time respecting. Evaluate the
relationship honestly and determine whether its your bruised ego thats the problem or whether
they really are sub-standard people. If you are serving someone that you cannot possibly re-
SUCCESS TIP:
Use subcontractors to manage overfow
As you start your business the idea of hav-
ing subcontractors lined up might seem very
foreign. Afer all, starting out and having
enough work for yourself is the frst priority.
However, you will be surprised that in a short
time frame business can pick up drastically,
and it is important to line up qualifed sub-
contractors before the $@!$ hits the fan. Here
are some tips when selecting subcontractors:
Always have them sign a non-compete
agreement for your current clients. You
want to make sure your subcontractors do
not become the competition as a result of
your hard salesmanship!
I pay my subcontractors per project be-
cause I do not like surprises in my budget.
Get a fxed price.
Mark up the subcontracting work as much
as you can. I pay my subcontractors via
PayPal and I always pay them immedi-
ately afer the project. This way they will
want to do business with you again.
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spect due to a lack of professionalism, dishonesty, or the like, then you need to walk away from
that client as soon as you can.
2. Be consistent.
You need to be consistent with your clients, even if they are not. That means you must be
consistently on time. Dont set unreasonable deadlines that you cant possibly meet. And when
you set a deadline, meet it at all costs. If a problem arises that is going to make you late, then
tell the client about it as soon as possible and be ready with a new promise date. But being late
should be the exception, not the rule. I always tell my clients that I dont mind waiting for them,
but I never want them waiting for me.
Hand in hand with being on time is being on budget. If you are consistently overbudget, then
you may need to hone your quoting skills. Or you may need to learn how to say no. Not every
change request is a good one, and you must be able to diplomatically say so to avoid racking up
unquoted hours. More on that in Be the Expert following.
Being reachable is another critical consistency. Having been on the client side of the tracks dur-
ing my career, I can tell you that nothing is more unnerving than not being able to contact the
person you paid good money to complete a job. Going back to the respect issue, unavailability
can be interpreted as a lack of respectthat the client and the work they gave you is not impor-
tant.
All of this can be summarized in three words: Be consistently professional. Freelancers who
maintain a high level of professionalism--being on time, on budget, available, calm under fre
and maintaining a positive atitude and high respect for the clientwill develop the best repu-
tation in the marketplace.
3. Be honest.
This is Kindergarten, Golden Rule stuf. Its this simple: lies grow like a cancer, they require tre-
mendous energy to cover up and they are disastrous to your reputation. So dont do it, period.

4. Be the expert.
You are the one that trained in your feld and worked hard to develop your skills. So have
confdence in your skills and be an advisor to your client. They need and want help; so you
should provide it. For example, if your client has an idea that is out of date and cant even pass
for retro, tell them so. But tell them with respect and kindness. Explain clearly and gently why
their idea isnt a good one and be ready to ofer an alternative solution. Listen to their ideas,
making every efort to understand what it is theyre really trying to accomplish. The worst
injustice you can commit with your clients is to be an order-taker. You should be the one that
is guiding the creativity, using your experience and talents to reach the clients goals in the best
possible way. And sometimes that means you have to diplomatically tell them that the course
they want to take is not the best.
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A couple of years ago, I was on a major long-term project that spanned the globe and involved
22 diferent cultures. Decision-making ofen was difcult because cross-cultural and political is-
sues complicated maters. The temptation was high to just go with the solution that could reach
a group consensus just to get a decision made and get on with the work at hand. But a bad idea
is always a bad idea, and eventually someone would recognize that a bad decision was made.
Since I was the hired expert, the fnger naturally got pointed at me, and rightfully so. I learned
quickly that speaking up about a bad idea, even when that course of action was unpopular with
the client, was far more efective in reaching the best decision. Inevitably, everyone recognized
it as the best decision, and I, in turn, was earning my keep as the expert consultant.
5. Listen.
Sometimes in our eagerness to show of our abilities, we get over zealous with chater about our
ideas. You can walk away from a meeting feeling like you really got to shine, and theyll walk
away wondering if you understood at all what they want. Instead, you should make them feel
that you listened and you heard them. You can do that by, well, listening. Let them do the talk-
ing about the project. Ask questions to keep them talking, like:
What is the purpose for this project?
What are its goals?
Who is the intended audience?
What have you envisioned as the fnal product?
What key messages do you want to communicate?
What elements must be included?
Once youve given them the time to explain expectations, then you can prove that you listened
by giving them feedback. Recap what they told you, and tell them how you interpret it. This
then becomes a great time to ofer some preliminary ideas for discussion and tell them what you
can do to accomplish objectives.

6. Go the extra mile.
There are two car washes near my house. One car wash does a very good job, ofers a good
value for services rendered, and the line always moves quickly. But the lady at the cash register
is scary, there is a tip box positioned at the drop-of point before the car is even washed, and at-
tendants are too busy talking to each other to care about me. The other car wash has no tip box,
the guy taking the money is extremely polite and, heres the clincher, the atendants who dry the
car recognize me, thank me and ask me to come back again. Prices are comparable, work qual-
ity is comparable. I go back to the second car wash every time, even if there is a long, slow line,
and I tip the atendants.
People are looking for a good experience, and its no diferent whether youre selling car washes
or world-class design capabilities. Worry less about the money youre being paid and a lot
more about doing an excellent job, one that you can be proud to put in your portfolio. Provide
detailed project timelines and give regular status reports during each project phase so that the
client always knows exactly whats going on without calling you frst. Follow up afer delivery
w
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to make sure they have everything they need for the corporate review process. Ofer to accom-
pany him/her at a review meeting with superiors so that you can explain the creative intent.
This will not only help the person to whom you are directly reporting, but it also will get you in
front of the decision-makers. And, as ofen as you can, respond quickly to emergencies. Noth-
ing will endear you more to your clients than geting them through the tight spots.
7. Refect and Take Note.
When you begin new personal relationships, you spend time noticing the things they like, what
they dont like and what is important to them. Do the same thing with your clients. Take note,
and if you dont have a good memory, literally take notes, about your clients. I have found in
working on creative teams that scheduling a debriefng meeting post-project is very helpful. We
are able to discuss what weve learned about the client, what went wrong, what went right and
document suggestions for improvements. When appropriate, Ive even shared our debriefng
documentation with the client to express our desire to continuously improve our work and un-
derstand them beter. Whether the job was a smashing success or was one that you are thank-
ing heaven that its fnally over, you should take the time to refect on the experience and learn
as much from it as you can. You can do this if you work alone as well. A good way to keep all
this information straight is to keep an up-to-date electronic card fle on each client, documenting
the points noted above, that you can refer back to with each new project. Before you meet with
them or start new work, review your previous notes so that successes are repeated and mistakes
are not.
All of these points really translate to nothing more than being a caring, genuine service provid-
er. By consistently practicing them, youll keep your clients coming back for more.
Industry Leaders Speak
Up until now you have only heard my advice. I thought it would be a good idea for you to hear
how others manage their freelance business. Below represents responses to questions from lead-
ing industry professionals.
Jason Vaughn CreativePublic.com
How long have you been freelancing as a Web designer?
I have been doing graphic design for almost 15 years. The last 10 years of my design career has
involved Web design.
How did you get into freelance Web design?
I always wanted to start my own business and I fgured the only way to do this is to start free-
lancing on the side. Once I realized I could make really good extra cash, I kept it up. I had sev-
eral opportunities come up during the Dot Com Bomb. That lef me hurting some, but I picked
myself back up and kept going.
What is your education?
1-year of college, 2-year correspondence course with Art Instructions School, and 4-years of
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high school art class
What sofware do you use on a daily basis?
Illustrator CS, Photoshop CS, InDesign CS, GoLive CS, Flash MX 2004, & Dreamweaver MX
2004
How do you keep track of your fnances? Excel? Book keeper? Simply Accounting?
I use QuickBooks Pro and do my own bookkeeping, however, I have an accountant to do my
taxes
When you engage a client, is there a process you follow (i.e. - have them follow a client ques-
tionnaire, sign a contract, pay thirty percent up front.)
My design process is to have an initial conversation by phone or in person and ask them ques-
tions based of a creative strategy. From this point I discuss with the client options and base pric-
ing. Once the client is ready to begin a project, I have them sign a contract agreement and place
a 50% deposit. The remainder of the balance is usually due afer the job is completed.
Do you charge hourly or on a fxed price?
My pricing is by fxed rate on most items. However, I limit the amount of hours I will work for
that fxed rate. If the client exceeds the alloted time by doing too many revisions, then I bill
at my hourly rate afer the initial base price and set time. Example: 1-splash page = $800 for 11
hours of work. Over the 11 hours, my customers will be billed at $75 per hour or at a negotiated
rate.
What do you charge an hour?
$75 an hour Low end $60 an hour
What is the worst experience you have had working with a freelance client? What would you
do diferently if you could go back in time?
Not geting paid. If I could go back in time, I would punch them and ask for a deposit.
Have you ever had a client not pay you?
Yes! I have had many clients not pay. At onetime, I had $30,000 in collectables. I got some of it
back, but lost a lot due to not geting deposits and puting too much trust in those I do business
with. I was really young and trusting back then.
How do you fnd work? Word of mouth? Past clients from full-time work? Networking?
All the above. I get quite a lot of business online. Mostly local businesses in the Dallas area, but
these folks seem to use the Web to fnd local designers vs. the phonebook.
Do you have secrets or tips for people looking to wrestle up new work (i.e. - cold e-mailing?)
Search engine marketing is one key for fnding business for me. Also signing up with online
phone directories. But for the most part, cold calling and networking. One thing I always do is
to take my business cards everywhere I go. Many times, I will happen to get into a conversation
with an owner of a company (such as at a restaurant) and drum up some business that way. I
am always trying to sell.
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How do you keep clients coming back for more? Any advice for the newbie?
Provide great customer service and dont nickel and dime your customers with extra charges for
this and that. Keep things simple and easy for the client and they will come back.
What type of computer equipment do you use, and what does your home ofce look like?
I am running a Mac G4 dual 1.25 GHz with 1 gig of ram. I have an HP 10ps large format printer
& HP scanner. My ofce is just an extra room in our house, which is geting very small since my
wife and I both work out of the house. It is either time to move or convert the dining room into
an ofce. We have thought about moving into a retail location at one time, but we cannot justify
the expense and much of our current freedom would be lost. Heck, I would have to hire em-
ployees then and I really dont want to do that. I like things simple and easy!
Can you recommend three books for a freelance Web designer just starting out?
These are not really Web design books, but I think every designer should read these. 1. The
business side of creativity by Cameron Foote | 2. Graphic Artist Guild Handbook | 3. AIGA
Professional Practices in Graphic Design
What advice can you give to someone who is thinking about freelancing either full-time or
part-time?
Study up on business practices. Most designers only think about design and just dont get the
business side of things. Dont start freelancing until you have a basic grasp of bookkeeping, tax
law, and basic business practices. Start of slow and build your client base. Jumping into free-
lance full-time without clients or business knowledge will soon be the end of things.
Can you please provide us with a bio?
I started of several years ago designing for a local T-shirt shop afer my short time in college. I
had just enough design knowledge to get myself into the job at a great pay of $5 per hour (jok-
ing ha ha). It sure did beat the $3.25 an hour I was making washing cars at a local car dealer-
ship. Afer this job, I went to the US Navy for 2 years. During my Navy days, my job was to
paint the sides of the ship, not much of an artist career going on there. However, the captain
found out about my design skills and had me do things from paint murals to designing the
bridge wing symbols and ships annual.
My Navy career was up afer 2-years (honorable discharge by the way) and I then went back to
the same T-shirt shop I worked for previously. During my second time at this company is when
I landed my frst big Freelance gig. I had always done freelance, but this gig would be the one
that would start me of on my own and get me out of that low paying job. The project would be
to design posters for high schools, which would pay me $8,000 in 3 months. This project alone
helped me launch my design frm that I had for 3 years.
My design frm was small but very busy. I had up to 7 employees and worked with clients such
as Blue Cross Blue Shield, Texas Tech University, United Blood Services, Kraf Foods and more.
I also landed a client that I design the inside of a restaurant for and became 7% owner of it. Most
of our projects consisted of Print back then, but Web was becoming a big part of our business.
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We also did TV and radio commercials too.
Over the 3 years of having my design frm, I eventually had to close it down due to business
partner embezzlement. I lost about $500,000 total, including the restaurant. This was a heart-
break moment and just about destroyed me. Eventually, I moved to the Dallas Texas area and
started over again. My current frm Art Space has been doing well since 1997. I had to work
full-time for someone else during my rebuilding, but now I have things squared away on my
own and have built a successful online business called CreativePublic.com a graphic design
resource site. I have also developed an online store called SilkFlowerDesign.com that my wife
and I operate together. Both sites are our main sources of income and I have geared the major-
ity of my time to these sites and to Web design in general.
Overall, freelance has been good to me and enabled me to make much more money than when
I worked full-time for someone else. It has taken a lot of hard work and I have made so many
mistakes down the line, but if you dont get out and try things, nothing will ever happen for
you. If you want to freelance and own your own business, you have to be willing to make mis-
takes and take risks.
Jason Vaughn CreativePublic.com
Kirill Brusilovsky - www.crossmind.net
How long have you been doing freelance web design?
since 1998
How did you get into doing freelance web design?
I frst began my career frst as an employee. I just started as a junior designer and worked my
way up to a senior graphic designer. I decided I wanted to get a good design education so I quit
my position to be able to go to the University. I wanted to take a break from work but found
myself in a middle of the internet boom, and in my frst year of studying I had plenty of free-
lance jobs to do it was a nice great time
What is your education?
During the last ten years of my designer career, I have always tried to study, parallel to my prac-
tical activities. As a junior designer, my employer kindly paid for my private advertising acad-
emy, which I atended in the evenings. Afer working in a big multimedia company for a while I
decided to continue my education and went to Essen University to study visual communication.
What sofware do you use on a daily basis?
I am proud to say, that I have worked with Adobe Photoshop since the version 2.0. Now I work
with Creative Suite, of course :-) I found out, that making small layouts for print is very easy
with Freehand and the sofware of choice for bigger print projects would be InDesign. My Flash
knowledge ends with manual animation (I prefer to leave the development to professionals)
thats why I use an older version, which is easier to use. A question of sofware is should come
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second. First, you have to have a good idea of what you want to do, and then choose the appro-
priate sofware.
How do you keep track of your fnances for your freelance? Excel? Book keeper? Simply Ac-
counting?
As with most designers, I am quite chaotic. I keep my receipts (MS Word-Documents) in one
directory, moving them into the subdirectory payed, as soon as I receive the money on my
account. I write them in MS Word because it is universal I know that some designers do this
in QuarkXpress and I think this is a bad idea. I leave the actual bookkeeping who does all my
accounting.

When you engage a client is there a process you follow. (i.e. Have them follow a client ques-
tionnaire, sign a contract, pay 30% up front)
It difers from client to client. I try to be as fexible, as possible. Longer projects (over a month) I
usually split a total amount in three parts. The last one should be paid as the project is fnished.
I have tried to develop a questionnaire, but have quit. There are thousands of possible ques-
tions, which difer greatly from client to client and very few common ones, which I always have
in mind, when talking about a new project.
Do you charge hourly or on a fxed price?
It depends on the job. Normally, I fnd fxed prices beter. It gives the client a secure feeling. For
the designer it is important that the job description is clear, and fxed in writen form.
What do you charge an hour?
Pricing is a very complicated subject in the design feld. It is true, that it is the most asked ques-
tion, but frankly, I hate the hourly charging for creative jobs. It is like selling paintings by square
meters!
Clients ofen forget that you can not just compare two designers by price. There always will be
somebody, who will demand less per hour, but is he/she as quick, as experienced, as profession-
al? Your client can buy a watch for buck, a tie for fve and a suit for ffy, which would probably
do the same job, as the things (probably much expensive ones), than he has ask him why?
The best way to give a client a sense for your price is to show similar projects from your portfo-
lio and to say, what they have cost. It does not work with every client, but the best way is to ask
for a budget, a client is willing to spend and to tell him what you are able to do with this money.
In 99% percent of my clients have a very precise idea of what the want to spend and just pre-
tend stupid.
Of course, internally I do count my working time and convert it into money if I plan a project.
And if a client would insist on this model, I will name him the hourly charges. That would be
around 60 Euro/hour, depending on the job type. I would charge an agency rather a bit less,
than a fnal client.
Have you ever have a client not pay you?
Twice in my whole career, both very small projects between friends. Beware of making deals
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with friends! For a friend, rather work for free of charge fully!
How do you fnd work? Word of mouth? Past clients from full-time work? Networking?
Probably, since 9/11 and with the end of the internet boom it has become harder to fnd clients
everywhere. In Germany, where I live and work the situation is critical there are very few
spending clients and endless crowds of designers, most of them of a very poor level.
In this situation it is almost impossible to fnd a new client without a recommendation. No mat-
ter what efort I have invested in self-advertisement, clients have come only from one direction:
personal connections. Some of them were from the past jobs thats why it is a good idea to gain
some experience as an employee, before starting a freelance career.
My tip is: dont just sit in front of your computer all the time go meet people and make new
friends! Make sure that everybody in your circle knows what you do.
Do you have secrets or tips for people looking to wrestle up new work? I.e. Tips for fnding
new clients. (I.e. Cold emailing secrets? Or anything else?)
Cold emailing or letering did not bring much in my experience. If you do it (its still worth a
try), I would try to personalize the communication as much as possible. Analyze the clients
needs and make precise ofers. The best way is still meeting new people personally on exhibi-
tions, for example.
How do you keep clients coming back for more? And any advice for the newbie
A fair client would probably notice your efort. Do rather a bit more, than exactly what was
agreed. Make a client understand, that he has done a good deal, engaging you.
What type of computer equipment do you use? What does your home ofce look like? / Con-
fguration? Do you have a fax machine? Extra phone line?? Mac, PC (specs please)
I used to have a separate ofce for a few years as I used to work with a partner and a few other
people. Now I have rented a bigger apartment, where I work and live. Having a working room
and a bedroom in the same place has many advantages to me: I save time, not having to go to
work, I can work (or rest) whenever I want. This way is good for people, who are not afraid to
mix private and work life.
In my working room I have three working places: for my girlfriend, for my developer, who
works both here and at his home, depending on a project, and for myself. I try to make it as
home-like and comfortable, but have everything workplace needs, including phone, fax, web-
cam, stereo and a lot of table surface.

It has turned out that, except for their design, I was rather disappointed with MACs, especially
concerning their price performance ratio. The thesis that a MAC is quicker than PC is an eter-
nal myth, smartly created by Apple.
I buy a new PC every 2-3 years. For somebody, planning to invest in hardware I would advise
them to spend as much as they can on a good monitor.
If you could recommend 3 books a person starting out in freelance web design what 3 books
should they buy frst:
It is helpful to get books with samples of standard documents and agreements. Much of the rest,
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mostly quite expensive design literature must not be owned and can be rent in the library.
What general advice would you give someone who is thinking about going freelance either
full time or part time?
This decision ofen comes rather occasionally. If you are just planning with an idea of becoming
a freelancer, ask yourself, where you get your frst client. If you have no idea, think it over again
perhaps you need to get some experience as an employee frst.
Kirill Brusilovsky works in the feld of design since 1994. He studied advertising in West-
deutsche Akademie fr Kommunikation (WAK) in Cologne and at the same time did practical
trainings at an advertising agency and a sofware company.
Aferwards, he was employed as a designer at Concept! GmbH in Wiesbaden (later Concept!
AG) where he worked on various print, internet, CD-ROM and terminal projects. Afer more
than one year, he lef the company to study design in Essen University and worked as a free-
lance designer up to the foundation of crossmind communications in 2000.
Kirill is a co-founder and chief editor of the internationally recognized design portal www.
crossmind.net. He lives and works in Germany.
www.crossmind.de Agency and Portfolio
www.crossmind.net International Design Portal

Jason Arber - Pixel Surgeon.com

How long have you been doing freelance web design?
I have a full-time job, so only freelance very occasionally. Ive been doing web design for around
seven years; I worked in print before that, so when I was freelancing full-time, it was usually for
print.
How did you get into doing freelance web design?
It was a progression from doing print design and an interest in emerging technology.
What is your education?
I have an honours degree in Photography, Film and Video from the University of Westminster.
When I was there, around 18 years ago, the university had some really early Macs and I became
hooked and decided I wanted to be a designer.
What sofware do you use on a daily basis?
I use Adobe CS almost exclusively: Photoshop and Illustrator to design, and on the rare occa-
sion I actually build something, I use GoLive, together with a big chunk of hand-coding.
How do you keep track of your fnances for your freelance? Excel? Book keeper? Simply Ac-
counting?
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Because I do so few freelance jobs, theyre easy to keep track of and my mom does my book-
keeping!
When you engage a client is there a process you follow. (i.e. Have them follow a client ques-
tionnaire, sign a contract, pay 30% up front)
Most jobs I get the client to pay 50% up front and 50% on delivery.
Do you charge hourly or on a fxed price?
Its usually easier to agree on a fxed price, but that has stung me in the ass a couple of times.
What do you charge an hour?
I vary my hourly rate on what I think the client can pay. But hourly rates are very rare for me, as
I normally agree a fxed price.
What is your worst experience working with a freelance client? What would you do diferent
now if you could go back in time?
I had a client who equated freelance with working from home, which meant, in his mind, he
could call me up or even call round the house at 10pm on a Sunday to talk about the job!
Have you ever have a client not pay you?
Only once. They disappeared of the the face of the Earth. It wasnt for a huge amount so I wrote
it of. It was from that point onwards I started charging 50% up-front.
How do you fnd work? Word of mouth? Past clients from full-time work? Networking?
Word of mouth.
Do you have secrets or tips for people looking to wrestle up new work? I.e. Tips for fnding
new clients. (I.e. Cold emailing secrets? Or anything else?)
Im sure this is pure luck in my case, but Ive never had to look for work, its always come to me.
Ive never advertised or even asked about a job. The fact that I dont do much freelance these
days is probably a huge factor, and when I was freelancing full time, there were fewer designers
around!
How do you keep clients coming back for more? And any advice for the newbie
Do a good job, build up a good relationship, charge a reasonable amount, do things on time, let
the client know in advance if there are any delays or unexpected costs related to the job.
What type of computer equipment do you use? What does your home ofce look like? / Con-
fguration? Do you have a fax machine? Extra phone line?? Mac, PC (specs please)
Ive not used a fax machine in years! Its so last century! My home ofce set-up is G3 iBook,
G4 Desktop machine that my wife uses (shes a designer, too) and a G5 which is my main
machine. We have an Epson Perfection 3200 Photo scanner, which is the best scanner Ive ever
owned, and a cheap Epson ink jet printer that will be geting replaced soon. We used to have
a black and white laser printer, but that died a year or so back and were considering geting
a new cheap laser printer for leters and so on. The whole set-up is networked together, with
external hard disk back ups of all our work, graphics and fonts. We also have an 8MB ADSL
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internet connection.
What general advice would you give someone who is thinking about going freelance either
full time or part time?
Because there are so many people freelancing now, you have to go the extra mile to impress
potential clients. Part of that process is education: Just because your cousins kid has a copy of
FrontPage and a cracked copy of Photoshop, that does not make him a web designer, any more
than owning a set of cutlery makes you a surgeon. Design is a skill that is a combination of in-
nate ability and learned processes that are honed and refned over time. If your potential client
goes with his cousins kid and pays $50 for a site, hes going to get a $50 site. Its like using a
brick to tackle that toothache. It might work, but it aint prety.
Jason Arber
htp://www.pixelsurgeon.com
Loves chili con carn, hates fsh.

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CHAPTER SEVEN
Teach your clients to
make bread
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Make Bread
In this chapter I will cover one of the issues that challenges many freelancers, content manage-
ment systems. No mater what types of freelance projects you take on same day some how a
client will ask you this question:
I want to edit my site, I bought a copy of FrontPage and I just need the login and password
so I can start editing the site my self.
Its a very wise idea to avoid this type of situation at all costs. Nine times out of ten my clients
who atempt this end up bloating the HTML code and in the end I have to fx the changes
they have made. This always causes a lot of pain and anguish on both sides of the table. My
clients dont like paying to fx their mistakes, and I dont like wasting my time with 15 minutes
updates to sites when I could be hunting for bigger projects. The solution to this problem it to
avoid this situation at all costs. A good way to avoid this situation is to ask a lot of questions up
front before you begin a project. I have a formal document with a list of project questions I ask
before I begin work. One of the questions I ask in this Project Exploration Document is about
how the website will be updated. This enables me to discover if the site will need a content
management system, or if it will be a static site that doesnt change ofen.
Here are the questions I ask my client before I begin a project:
Goals and Requirements:

List sites that represent the strongest competition in your feld?
List some web sites that you like?
What do you like:
The navigation?
The Color?
Animation?
Style?
Design?

List some sites you hate, and why?
Current Site
Do you feel your current site promotes a favorable user experience?
What specifc areas of your current site do you feel are successful? Why are they successful?
What shortcomings exist with the current site and what three things would you change on
the site today, if you could?
How important is your current branding to the user experience on your current site?
Is it a complete overhaul of the existing site, or an expansion?
Do you have an existing sitemap for the new structure?
How will the content of this site, along with functionality and navigation, expand or difer
from your current site?
Do you already have a database in place? Please describe in detail, including specifc infor-
mation about programs and sofware you are using
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What are the primary goals of the site?
To sell?
Inform?
Engage?
Inquire?
Who are the primary and secondary audiences?
What are the interests of the target audience?
What would be new to the target audience in regards to your content?
What do they fnd appealing?
How long have they been on the net?
How ofen do they use a computer each day?
What is their average age?
What is their average income level?
What topic on your site do you expect to be the most popular with your target audience?
Web Site Purpose:
What objectives do you have for the site?
What is the life span of your site?
What existing strategy (both online and ofine) is in place in order to meet the new business
objectives?
What are your primary online business objectives? What are your secondary objectives?
(Increased sales, marketing/branding awareness, launching a company, etc.)
Marketing/Updating
How will you drive trafc to the site?
How do most people fnd out about your current web site? What methods of distributing
the URL already exist within your company?
Do you have an existing or planned marketing strategy in mind to promote this site re-
launch or launch? If so, please describe.
How do you intend to handle continuing maintenance and updates to the site? Do you have
a human resource to put towards the maintenance or would you prefer that we recommend
maintenance solutions and pricing to you? Do you require a set of web-based tools in order
to update/maintain content on your site?
Will you need specialized Web Marketing services? (Search engine placement, meta tag cre-
ation, keyword development, etc.
How ofen and how extensively will this information change?
Will graphics change or just text? Or both?
Audience capabilities
Browser type (4.0, 5.0 )
Connection speed (DSL, 56k?)
Speed of computer; I.E. Pentium II, 256 Ram etc.
Multimedia Plug-ins? (Flash Version, QuickTime?)
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Describe your companys brand?
Does your company have logo laws?
What is the ofcial color scheme for your company?
What colors would you like to see used on the site?
Please provide us with past marketing material to help us understand your brand?
What logo needs to be used on the site?
Updating is evil
I typically dont get involved in content updates to web sites because the long term proft is very
small, and I fnd clients quickly get annoyed when you charge them an hour rate for 15 minute
changes. (I charge a fat fee of my hour rate regardless if it took my 15 minutes or 44 minutes,
this way clients dont call and ask for 5 minute changes every other day. This also encourages
clients to compile all of their changes in one email, and thus I do all the changes at one time.)
I dont however get into this situation because I always empower my clients to update the sites
them selves. Some of my clients require large database driven sites with power content manage-
ment system on the back end. For these clients I will always hire external contractors to do the
backend development. For most of my clients (the medium to small clients) I do a lot of work
with Macromedia Contribute and Dreamweaver. Think of Contribute as Dreamweaver for you
Aunt Bety. Macromedia Contribute at frst glance looks a lot like a web browser to the aver-
age user. It has back and forward butons, and behaves a lot like Internet Explorer but with one
big diference: The lovely Edit buton in the top lef hand corner. Users simply navigate to
the page they want to edit, edit the page then hit publish and the page goes live. The FTP of
fles, login, fle management is all masked to the end user. I have clients ranging from plumb-
ers, nuns, and corporate marketing managers using Macromedia Contribute with a great deal of
success.
Macromedia Contribute: CMS cheap and easy!
I use Macromedia Contribute with many of my clients both big and small for the following
reasons:
It costs under $200 dollars so even my small clients can aford it.
It requires no server side install, so my clients that have bureaucratic IT departments can
skip the corporate night-mare of geting something installed on a server
Build your Dreamweaver/Contribute CMS Solution Tutorial
In this tutorial I will demonstrate tricks and tips I have discovered using Dreamweaver and
Contribute working with my various clients. Before you begin developing sites using Dream-
weaver and Contribute there are a few things you should consider before deploy a CMS using
Contribute.
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When NOT to use Contribute
Contribute is an excellent tool, but your clients with older computers without a lot of RAM-
may consider and upgrade before they atempt to use it.
If the CMS system you are building requires RSS feeds, search functionality and other good-
ies dont look to Contribute. Contribute at its heart is just a supped up WYSIWYG HTML
editor.
You need to discuss with your client their plans for the future. If they start talking about
thousands of pages, you will want to look else where for a CMS system. There would be
nothing worse than having a client produce a 1000+ static pages of content and outgrow-
ing a CMS that has its content trapped in fat HTML. (this would mean manual entry of all
content into the new database, somewhere no one wants to go)
Contribute is great for smaller sites, but when a site starts to become complex both in terms
of its content size and navigation Contribute isnt the best idea. For large sites with a lot of
content its best to keep content and design separate using a database.
If you client plans to add sections, and subsections to the site regularly using Contribute can
become very tedious. Using a server side CMS system that dynamically builds menu sys-
tems based on content would be a beter solution. A low cost example of such a tool would
be Interactive Tools (htp://www.interactivetools.com) Article Manager
Finally, if you plan to produce a CSS, XHTML standards compliant site in Dreamweaver you
will fnd the pages do not render properly in Contribute which causes a lot of problems for
some clients.
I know that sounds like a long list of reason why you shouldnt use Contribute, but there are far
more reasons why you should with the right projects. And below is my list of reasons when to
use Contribute:
Why use Contribute
The client cant aford a backend CMS.
Due to corporate red tape you cant install a CMS system.
Your client has a team of individuals who need to edit the site at the same time and they
need a way to ensure they dont over-write each others changes. (Contribute can check fles
and in and out of a server to avoid this problem)
Your client needs to update graphics on the site on a regular basis and they do not have any
type of experience preparing graphics for the web. (Contribute can do client side image pro-
cessing to ensure 300 DPI, 4 meg graphics dont end up on the website)
Non-technical clients can use a sofware environment that works a lot like Microsof Word
You can control what parts of a site a client can or can not edit
Clients who do not have Adobe Acrobat can produce PDF documents for their website using
FlashPaper (which is included with Contribute)
You can email website keys to clients and enable them to edit a site without confguring
the sofware onsite. I use this with many of my clients who I never physically meet with.
Contribute and Dreamweaver work extremely well together. If you are a long time Dream-
weaver user Contribute will be easy as pie for you.
Contribute does not require you to hire an expensive programmer to install or write a com-
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plex CMS system. Contribute is a robust CMS system for the rest of us!.
Step 1: Build your site using Macromedia Dreamweaver
Build your site out using Dreamweaver. I recommend using Dreamweaver templates to build
your site. This way you can lock out Contribute users from editing the navigation and main
structure of the site. (It is beyond the scope of this book to give a tutorial on building a site in
Dreamweaver, there are many
good books available on this topic).
Note you can download a 30 day
free trial of Macromedia Contribute
from Macromedia.com. I recom-
mend you try the sofware out be-
fore you start using it with clients.
Step 2: Upload your
site to your FTP
server
Step 3: Launch Contribute and setup site
You could use the Administer site in Contribute function from within Dreamweaver MX 2004
but I advise against this as it is very buggy. Instead launch Contribute and from the splash start
screen select Create a connection (Fig. 7.1)
Step 4: Follow the
Connection Wizard
Skip this screen, you do not have a
key yet. (Fig. 7.2)
Step 5: Enter the URL.
Enter the full url to your web site.
(Fig. 7.3)
Step 6: Enter your
FTP Information
Enter all your FTP information
for the server. You should have to
worry about the advanced set-
tings but if you have trouble connecting to the server contact your host
toe see if you need to use secure FTP or passive FTP. (Fig 7.4)
Step 7: Searching.
Figure 7.1
Figure 7.2
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Figure 7.3 Figure 7.4
Figure 7.5
Figure 7.6
Figure 7.7
Figure 7.8
Figure 7.9
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Now Contribute will try to connect to your server using the setings you gave it. If all goes well
you should see your home page appear in the main Contribute window afer this screen disap-
pears. (Fig. 7.5)
Step 8: Your home page will appear with this message at
the top
Now your home page will appear with this message layered over your web site. (Fig. 7.6)
Step 9: Creating the Key for your Client.
Now you will want to create a connection key for your client. This connection key will shield
your client from all of the FTP mombo-jombo that confuses them. Simply create a connection
key and email it to them. They double click on the key and enter a password and voila! They are
editing the site. Here is how to create the connection key: (Fig 7.7)
From the Edit menu select Administer Websites and select your site.
Step 9: Confgure your settings
Now select Create New Role and select Publisher. (Fig 7.8) I typically give my clients
publisher access because if you give them writer access they will need to have a publisher
approve all articles before they go live. This system works well if you have an IT manager that
needs to approve all web content before it goes live. But in most cases giving the client direct
access to publish content with no middle man is the best way to go.
Name the new role the clients name (Fig. 7.9). For instance mine is named John Doe
Step 10: Controlling what your client edits.
Now that you have created this new role. Click Edit Role (Fig 7.10) and adjust the things you
client can do with the site. I wont go into every seting for this dialog box, everything is straight
forward here. A tip I always use for this area is beter safe than sorry. I lock it all down so the
client cant edit much.
I always setup the New Images (Fig. 7.11) screen so users cant upload 300 dpi CMYK pictures
to the site. This is a handy feature in Contribute 3.0
Step 11: Send the Connection Key
Now that you have the roles defned you can send a connection key to your client. Select Send
Connection Key and select Include my FTP username and password (Fig. 7.12)

Step 12: Select the Role
Select the role you want your customer to have. (Fig. 7.13)
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Figure 7.10
Figure 7.11
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Figure 7.12
Figure 7.13
Figure 7.14
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Step 13: Save the key to your local machine
Select save the key to your local machine and choose a password for the key. Now click next
And Contribute will give you a confrmation screen. Click done and Save the connection
key to your desktop. (Fig. 7.14)
Step 14: Email the connection key to your client.
Now atach the connection key to an email and send it to your client. Call your client and pro-
vide the connection key over the phone for added security. (it is always unwise to email FTP
connection keys with passwords that are not encrypted, afer all email is not a very secure form
of communication)
Now once your client receives the connection key tell them to detach it from their email and
save it to their desktop. Now have them double click the key and Macromedia Contribute
should launch and ask them for the access password. Once they enter the password all the cor-
rect FTP information will be installed in their computer. They simply navigate to the page on
the site they want to edit and away they go. Macromedia Contribute has an excellent built in
help system that appears in a foating tab to the lef of the window. If you clients have any ques-
tions just direct them to the help. I ofen include 2 hours of training in my fxed web site project
price. This makes for a great way to gain more trust from you client, and ensures less frustration
on their end as they edit web pages for the frst time.
How I saved clients money:
The reason that clients come to you for work is because they cant do a project them selves (lack
of resources), or they dont know how to do it. Clients respect freelancers who ofer alternative
paths to success. Clients can request some prety crazy things, if you want to keep your client its
beter to say No now than pay for it later. Your client will respect you more for ofering alter-
native strategies. Below are three short case studies of large clients where I saved them count-
less hours and thousands of dollars by ofering alternative solutions.
Case Study 01: Buick National Dealer Site
I was engaged by agency of record for Buick to help them create a non-public extranet site for
Buick dealers across America. The site had a tight deadline, and the interactive company ini-
tially engaged me to create just the design for the site. I had several meetings with the client
and soon discovered that they need to launch a functional fat site before the launch of the
database driven site. I ofered to help them implement a temporary solution that would help the
company get the site up but still enable content management. Using Macromedia Dreamweaver
and Contribute I helped the company launch the site in under 2 weeks. Using a $150 dollar pro-
gram I saved the company thousands of dollars and time. The clients internal team of writers
was able to post content without the complex database system that would be build in phase two
of the project. So the writers could concentrate on posting content and programmers and web
designers where free to work on the more important and long term phase two site. The client
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was thrilled with the professional short-term solution, and my design project turned into the
build out of a large national level site that solved a lot of problems for the client.
Case Study 02: Hotel Industry Client
A client who builds interactive media for the hotel industry engaged me to spend a day train-
ing employees on how to use PhotoShop and Flash together. During training I learned that one
of the processs they used to build the interactive media could be completed using Photoshop
droplets. Using a droplet I helped the client reduced work by 70% and decrease the fle size of
the production fle by 600%. Needless to say the client was thrilled to have me onsite and help-
ing train their employees. Not only did the employees learn new techniques but I helped build
a process for the company that streamlined its work fow for projects. This company has been
one of my best clients, they reward my alternative strategies to save them money with more and
more projects.
Case Study 03: CBC News
Afer the devastating Tsunami hit parts of India and Thailand, CBC News engaged me to build
an interactive map of the region. The map featured Flash video and interactive slide shows
feature images and sounds from the region. The interactive map was such a success that CBC
News engaged me to build a template system they could use over and over without the need to
do much editing in Flash. Using XML and Macromedia Flash I produced a Flash template sys-
tem that required litle editing in Flash to produce new interactive maps. The client just changes
the map JPEG in the Flash movie, and edits external XML fles in text editor and they can create
new maps in a mater of minutes. These template systems have saved CBC News thousands of
dollars because they do not need to engage a Flash programmer each time they want to deploy
a new map. The template system also saves them precious production time, which is very valu-
able in the world of time sensitive news coverage. The client rewards me for this by continually
bringing me new projects.
By saving my clients money they respect my opinion and come to rely on my advice for future
projects. This results in securing my future for more projects.
Parting Advice
I hope you enjoyed this book and found a lot of it useful. In writing this book I have come to
realize how much I have learned size I set out to do my freelance thing many moons ago. And I
wish I had this book when I started out, I would have saved my self a lot of pain and sufering!
I wish you the best of luck in your freelance work. And the only advice I can give you is to be
patient with your self, afer all Rome was not built in a day.
Kevin Airgid
www.airgid.com
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RESOURCES
Things you can use
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Recommend Books & Things...
BOOKS
Dont Make Me Think: A Common Sense Approach To The Web
htp://www.sensible.com/buythebook.html
by Steven Krug
The Cluetrain Manifesto
An older book, but an excellent read about marketing. You can now read the whole book online
for free here: htp://www.cluetrain.com/book/index.html
by Levine, Locke, Searls & Weinberger.
WEB SITES
Lulu Self Publishing
Want to write a book like this and self publish? Lulu is the place
htp://www.lulu.com/
Creative Republic
CreativePublic is your graphic design & Web design business guide for resources such as:
forms, contracts, pricing guides, manuals, policies and more!
htp://www.creativepublic.com/
Flash 99% Good
A Flash usability portal I run. I try to update it regularly with loads of links and articles on how
to make Flash more usable.
htp://www.fash99good.com/
Nonags
Ever need a utility to rename one thousand fles, but dont want to pay? Nonags is the place to
look for freeware frst!
htp://www.nonags.com/
Get this book in Printed Form!
Why buy a printed version? It lasts longer and stays together better with a
cover. Its easier to read. You can give it as a gift to someone after you are done
reading. Its easier to follow the tutorials with a printed version. Its cheap!
Get the printed book, with a shinny color cover :
http://book.airgid.com/