technoflutemom

That is something I hadn't thought of. Thanks for all the great ideas. About PRWeb -- does anyone have have experience with the paid services? Are they worth the expense?

I like Paint Shop Pro, too, but I think it is kind of looked down on in the design community.

I love the animation! How wonderful that it ended up in your portfolio, too. Did you send it directly to the non-paying client?

How far have you had to go to get paid? I'm starting to wonder if I will ever get paid for one project, and I don't know how to get started.

Anyone have a ritual they do when they are completely finished with a project? I clean out my desk and my corkboard, filing something, tossing others, keeping current things there.

I usually use PayPal, but for some of the "old school" types I do accept checks. I worry about checks bouncing, but I accept them.

I plan my website layouts on paper first. I might not go directly by my sketches, but if I don't I tend to have "easy" sites instead of what I actually want. Having the idea on paper makes me stretch a bit more.

Are you more likely to take a boring project that pays well or a fun and exciting project that pays poorly on an hourly basis? I'm currently hip deep in a project that is taking way more time than I can justify for the cost, but I am really enjoying it. Pragmatically, I should probably cut bait, but I justify it that it will look good in the portfolio. What draws you to and keeps you going on a project? The process, the results or the money?

I think freelancing is really running a business. You are just running it under your own name rather than a "doing business as". My projects and bottom line have gotten better since I've started thinking in a business way rather than just in a "doing little things in my spare time" way.

I just finished a website for a charity event that will take place in three weeks(!). Because of the time crunch, the clients want to get a lot of traffic to the site fast. This isn't in my scope, but I told them I would check into possible ways of doing this. Anyone have an idea?

I would write, or get a lawyer to write, a "cease and desist" letter. Barring that, maybe put a credit to the real designer at the bottom of the page.

Those are some very good points, especially about revisiting your business plan. I don't think I have looked at mine since it was drafted several years ago. I'd better dust that puppy off!

Yeah, I don't know much about SEO, but are you saying the position of the content on the site is important in how it is ranked?

Do you have a preferred color scheme for websites? I always seem to work royal blue in mine. When that just won't work with the logo, I tend to use the darkest possible colors that will. I just don't do pastels well.

Any good, cheap software that will convert a ps file to a tif without distorting the color?

Is your merchant account through the same bank you use for your personal banking or do you go elsewhere? Are there banks that specialize in business accounts or would I get comparable services anywhere?

Maybe narrow up the text body and use art work that reflects the nature of the site. Butterflies and flowers seem rather generic.

At it's best, freelancing consists of professionals who work for other companies only on a temporary basis. I don't see much difference between "freelancers", "consultants" and "contractors", except some industries prefer one term and shy away from the others.

I do basic sketches on blank paper, but I always end up moving things around completely once I'm on the editor.

I think the key to getting linked to is having good content. Have good stuff and the rest will follow, but it may take time.

Whose the target market for your freelance work? Do you generally stick with local markets or do you have clients everywhere?

I do other creative ventures: paint, draw, weave, etc. After a day or two of just leaving things alone, solutions usually occur to me.

Some of the generated content is of very low quality. It would be apparent to readers that a human did not write it and pretty much useless. If you go this route, I'd think you'd want to edit heavily before putting it on your site. On the other hand, there might be sites full of computer-generated prose so gorgeous that I have read it and never noticed The bad sticks out like a sore thumb, though.

I built a blank page that matched my site and included an i-frame for body. I linked that i-frame to the wordpress page. It wasn't exactly how I wanted it, but I am still researching how to actaully tweak the blog page. This thread has more information: http://www.webdesignerforum.co.uk/index.php?showtopic=72

I think that having it all on one site would work, so long as it wasn't horribly cluttered. You might get more crossover visitors that way. I can't think of any drawbacks off hand, except the possibility of everything just getting too busy looking.