Part II: Marketing Yourself and Finding Work

Even if you have little or no marketing budget you can do a lot to get your name and your services known. 

Free (or almost free) marketing

• Keep your business cards with you at all times and give one to anyone who could conceivably be interested in a site. 

• Add an email signature with your business name and a link to your site to all your emails. 

• Work on the position of your site in search engines and directories, especially those listing web design services. 

• Contribute to online forums and include your URL in all your posts.

• Add a link to your site to any that you develop on a non paid basis 

• Ask organizations for whom you have made sites free of charge to include an advertisement for you in any print newsletters they produce.

Paid Marketing

Paid initiatives like direct mail may seem attractive but have an extremely low response rate, frequently less than 2%. Listings in Yellow pages and similar directories are not inexpensive but are often worthwhile. Bear in mind though that it may be some time before editions containing your listings are distributed. 

Submissions to paid directories like Yahoo! are now quite expensive for a new business. My personal feeling on this would be that it is not worth paying at the outset but may be later. The reality is that there are hundreds, even thousands, of web designers listed for every conceivable category in these sites and that your chance of getting work from these listings is remote. Most designers will tell you that the bulk of their work comes from referrals from existing clients; concentrating on doing a good job for them is your most important marketing tactic.

>>> Part III: How to Set Fees

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