Hello- I am a recently graduated graphic design/ web design student.

 

I just got my first freelance web design opportunity, but would love some advice on how to handle it. Mostly, I am wondering what website I should use.

 

I am more comfortable coding the website, but the client needs to be able to frequently edit content, more like a blog. Which rules out coding, uploading and leaving it alone until it needs updating down the road. The client also would like it to be fairly reasonable to afford, so I was leaning towards Weebly, or Wordpress- but have no experience with either.

 

If some lovely person could let me know what they use in situations like this, that would be marvelous.

 

Thank you!

Edited June 30, 201412 yr by owendesigns

Welcome to the forums

 

Sounds like you need to build the site using a Content Management System (CMS). The first step is to assess what your clients content requirements are, their abilities with using web based applications, and any possible expansions to the site in terms of content.

 

Once you have your requirements the next step is to find suitable CMS that matches your clients needs and your ability to modify to suit. If it's just a blog then Wordpress may be fine but also consider modern systems like Statamic, Craft or Perch.

Welcome to the forum buddy. Without wanting to sound intrusive did your course not teach you about CMS systems? These are the backbones of almost all commercial websites and any course teaching web development should really be covering these. If it's strictly design you studied I can understand if they don't go too deep into CMS's but they should really cover at least the basics.

 

If you have no knowledge of CMS systems then you'll have to learn a back-end language such as PHP then learn a CMS framework like WordPress. Alternatively you could always outsource the backend stuff. Or even just do the design yourself and outsource the rest.

 

Just so you are aware many agencies take on designers who don't know how to code as they tend to have experts in each area e.g. design, font-end, back-end. That could be worth investigating if you find freelancing isn't for you - as was the case for me

Heads up - all clients would like their websites to be reasonably affordable, don't get taken for a ride because you're new to freelancing.

 

With regards to your website, it sounds as though using WordPress may be right up your street if its along the lines of a blog. There are other CMSs that do similar such as Anchor, Perch, Fork but knowing something like WordPress will do you a lot of good in the long run.

Heads up - all clients would like their websites to be reasonably affordable, don't get taken for a ride because you're new to freelancing.

 

With regards to your website, it sounds as though using WordPress may be right up your street if its along the lines of a blog. There are other CMSs that do similar such as Anchor, Perch, Fork but knowing something like WordPress will do you a lot of good in the long run.

Wordpress is not more just a blog but can be used as a business site which got nothing to do with blogging.

 

Go for wordpress, get a nice theme, get the job done abd get paid. Show off your work and get more projects.

Building own cms is yesterday's old news.

 

Do you want to built your own cms spending hours and come up with something which is super ugly or you want to work, build your portfolio, get more projects, get rich being involved in modern web design and development time??

 

Experience speaks here, 5 projects a month, never built cms ( do know like 123) been using joomla and wordpress for years.

 

End goal, make money make money. I am sure I will get replies from people who hardly making any money from web designing/development saying: money is not important. But it is important and nice when you can do a project in 2 weeks and land £2000 (well high quality)

Edited July 1, 201412 yr by newman

First you learn the CMS, and then you can use the WordPress to serve the purpose. One more thing to say, instead if change the content frequently you will do better communicate with you clients start with the project.