I visit a couple at the moment (i.e. Freelancers.net etc) but wondered which ones are good to find XHTML/CSS work, web design and CMS for smaller brochure sites?

I visit a couple at the moment (i.e. Freelancers.net etc) but wondered which ones are good to find XHTML/CSS work, web design and CMS for smaller brochure sites?

 

To be honest I generally just get work from word of mouth but I've also gained a few clients from Gumtree.

I've never bothered with them myself, as Chris says word of mouth is more productive. You can get sucked into a "got to be the cheapest" war and I don't make cheap rubbish and won't do a site for a few hundred just because others do.

its worth rememebering that there are always clients on these site who are looking for a proper job as well though, so stick to your guns and eventually someone will pick you. its better doing 1 £1000 job than 10 £100 jobs right?

Any work I acquire off of websites comes primarily from forums; logosauce or freelancers.net --- but that may be 1 or 2 clients a month -- my main clients come from Google or Word of Mouth

interesting...

 

how many clients are you getting through google and what keywords? Id be interested to know your conversion rate, or at least how many people contact you.

When we looked at the beginning of March for February past, our clients roughly segmented as follows:

 

- Friends and Family Referrals - 3

- Previously Established (returning) Clients - 6

- Outsourced work from Agencies - 4

- New Clients (Google) - 15

- New Clients (Cold Calling) - 0

- New Clients ( Business Databases) - 1

- New Clients ( E-mail campaign - 670 emails sent) - 2

- New Clients ( Forums and Internet Competitions etc) - 1

 

We targeted the following keywords/ keyword phrases:

 

'graphic designer london' - Page 1

'logo designer london' - Page 1

'illustrator london' - Page 2/3 fluctuation

'web designer london' - Not ranking effectively

'freelance graphic designer london' - Page 1

'freelance logo designer london' - Page 1

'freelance web designer london' - Page 3-5 fluctuation

 

We generally have a ratio of 2 out of 5.. So for every 5 clients that contact us, 2 materialise into a project.. The other 3 fall through due to budget issues/ not being within our skillset / just being a general enquiry / deadline not feasible for us to meet.

 

I haven't totalled the amount of times we were contacted via phone/e-mail -- although that would be interesting to do...