Gpost

How To Become A Freelance Web Developer

July 13, 2017 by admin Leave a Comment

by Rosie Allabarton

If you’re reading this then you’re probably thinking about becoming a freelancer, or a web developer, or best of all some combination of the two.

It’s a good idea! But, err, how?

You could have a number of reasons for making the decision to break out of the corporate machine, but if you’re looking for examples, here are four that you might have considered while sitting at your desk job, imagining all the creative ways of saying “I QUIT”:

1. A better work-life balance – you can have breakfast with your boyfriend/girlfriend again!

2. Being your own boss – you can work all morning (or all night for that matter), and then spontaneously take a couple of days off to, I don’t know, play disc golf?

3. Freedom to choose your working hours/clients/rate of pay – say a polite ‘no thank you’ to that miserable client and a ‘no thank you’ to his criminally low budget too.

4. The chance to work on more interesting projects – no more monotony, each month bringing a variety of work, clients and opportunities. Cue envious looks from your former colleagues.

Perhaps you’ve already trained in Ruby On Rails, or you learned HTML at college, or you’re a dab hand at Java. If so, now could be the perfect time to join the freelance movement and become your own boss.

Who should consider freelancing as an option?

If you’re a developer already, in all likelihood you’ve been working for the same company, or bouncing from opportunities year by year, leaving every time something that started out fascinating became quickly mundane. For a while now you’ve been thinking about calling your own shots, and breaking away from your circular work life.

On the other hand, if you’re a tech junky looking for a way to build a skillset that allows you to work on your own terms, this is a pretty stellar option.

Being your own boss has a huge number of advantages, and not just because you get to decide the theme for the office Christmas party (Jumanji, anyone?) but getting started is tough. As a freelance web developer you put yourself in a high value position, but only for as long as you are able to run your own business, which includes managing the worst kind of employee you know… you!

Just kidding, but let’s face it, self discipline is tough when your other options are watching movies on your sofa with a box of cookies. You have to be strict, but incase you need the motivation, here are a few things about being a freelance developer that work to your advantage:

Your skills are highly sought-after in every industry (AKA lots of demand)
There is a huge shortage of web developers worldwide (AKA lots of demand)
Contract salaries are frequently high (AKA … awesome)

Think this might be the career choice for you? Thought so. Then let’s get you started!

1. Find Your Niche

Wanna stand out from the crowd? Find yourself a niche and upgrade your skills. While it’s great to be a programmer that can do a bit of everything, your value will be higher as an expert in just a few.

“Becoming known as the solution to a particular set of problems is crucial to your freelance career, so you need to be willing to differentiate and then lock it in.”

– Ted Johnson, longterm freelance developer.

If you’re not sure your current abilities solve a common enough problem, consider learning a new language altogether, or try building a skillset of complementary abilities other than coding, such as User Experience Design, or User Interface Design for the more creative types. A developer who can also plan out a usable and effective information architecture is rare, and this dual-skilled approach could see you turning clients away left, right and centre.

You don’t ever just want to be “that developer guy/girl I know” but rather “an expert developer for [insert problem here]”. It’ll be much easier to advertise your skills and make a name for yourself if you can say you’re the best in a particular, sought-after area, or the only one who can do it.

Not sure what’s hot on the market right now? Here are the three most up and coming demands you’ll find today:

Ruby on Rails

Ruby on Rails is an open source web application framework which runs via the Ruby programming language. Currently the hottest of the hot among startups worldwide.

Swift

Swift is Apple’s new innovative programming language for Cocoa and Cocoa Touch. Structured for iOS development, syntax is concise yet expressive, and apps run lightning-fast.

Node.js

Node.js is a platform built on Chrome’s JavaScript runtime for easily building fast, scalable network applications. Many argue it is the up-and-coming competitor to Ruby on Rails.

As our friend and expert web developer Stephen Young (http://aestheticio.com/) put it:

“Focus on the underlying principles and driving forces behind new technologies.”

2. Start Building, Anything & Everything

So you’ve found your niche. Now it’s time to get building. The best place to start is your portfolio website, the one website you will update, edit and continually develop for your entire career. Your portfolio is a way of displaying your skills and having an easy reference for potential clients. If in doubt, remember that your goal in self-representation is to be easy to find, easy to remember, and good to know. But once you’ve published your CV, previewed samples of your past and added a contact form, what should you do?

“No one hires based on where you’ve been, they hire based on what you’ve done.”

– Emil Lamprecht, CMO CareerFoundry

Build your ideas, they are what make you, you.

Once you’ve built your portfolio, you need things to put in it, which is your opportunity to boost your personal brand by:

Practicing your niche skill
Building your own ideas
Exhibiting your technical chops

You’re essentially killing two birds with one stone: you’re improving on and applying your new skills while simultaneously showing your wares. Your portfolio is your shop window, so make sure that it, and its contents, represent your very best work.

And if you want help making it better, help others! Keep a blog that explains your process, ask and answer questions on social media and build, build, build every day.

3. Build Your Personal Brand

Getting your name out there as an expert in the field can be tough, but if you want the freelance lifestyle, you’ll have to hustle for it, so get ready for some sleepless nights.

There are so many opportunities for professionals to get known without spending a penny that advertising is not a route you need to go down, not at this stage. By showcasing your work, building a network and teaching and blogging like an expert you will find more than enough ways to connect with people and for people to find you.

It’s crucial that you talk to people. Online and off.

The internet, as you may know, is a marvellous marketing tool. There are so many opportunities for creating and building on new relationships that with a little tact your voice will quickly become vastly superior to any ads you’ll produce. Always keep in mind that you’ll have to talk to a lot of people to find and land clients, so get used to it!

As professional freelancer Rebecca Shapiro told us:

“Make sure that you seek freelancers outside of your industry, as well. Be as far reaching as possible. Go into building these relationships with an attitude of giving instead of getting and you’ll find you’ve easily built a reciprocal referral network.”

From a visibility standpoint, keep your goals simple. Getting Google to find you if you have a normal name can be tough, so focus on attaching your name across your portfolio, social profiles and content to the terminology of your niche skill, and the problems your clients will search for.

To kick it off, here are some great websites for online marketing:

Twitter – create a following by tweeting about current news in your niche, having conversations with people in your field and answering questions.
Quora – answer questions from people interested in your niche. Make these as detailed as possible: the more content you write the more likely Google is to associate your name with web development.
YouTube– create online tutorials and upload them using YouTube. Put them on your own website. Give them easy-to-Google titles like: “What is ” or, “How to ….” so that people can easily find them when they search. Try to make them personal and funny – without going too far off-topic – the more watchable they are the more people will come back to you for more videos.

Finally, a great opportunity for web developers to build a brand with is teaching. There are thousands of opportunities across the web for building, writing and mentoring in your particular niche, including on this platform, CareerFoundry.

4. Get Organised

Becoming a freelance web developer is not just about knowing how to code. It’s about being a project manager, a sales person and head of customer care. You might not have had much experience in these areas but they are just as crucial to the success of your freelancing career as anything you can do with your programming skills. This means you need to get organised!

Check out these time and project management tools and you’ll see how things have moved on since the days of the Filofax.

Quoteroller (www.quoteroller.com) is a practical, time-saving way to create and send professional proposals to clients in a matter of minutes. You can chart your proposal’s performance and even see when the client has opened it.
Toggl (www.toggl.com) can be a great way to track projects and see how much time you are spending on each one.
Asana (www.asana.com) is an excellent project management system, especially if you are working with others and need to delegate tasks or collaborate.
Google (www.google.com) has an infinite range of calanders and management apps.
BillingsPro (https://www.marketcircle.com/billingspro/) can be used to do project management and invoicing.
FreshBooks (http://www.freshbooks.com) can organise your projects, invoicing and expenses all with one app.

Do your research, ask friends, colleagues and other freelancers what they use.

Josh Boyd, longterm freelancer and writer for Crunch (http://www.crunch.co.uk), gave us his advice:

“The most useful thing I realised about freelancing was not to despair when things went a bit wrong. New tax forms to fill out and late-paying clients would make me reconsider, but it’s worth remembering freelancing is meant to be a challenge. If it were easy, it wouldn’t be half as rewarding.”

5. Build up your experience, project by project

Now that you’ve got that new, in-demand skill under your belt and a slick website, it’s time to do some real projects to show potential clients.

Elance (www.elance.com)

oDesk (www.oDesk.com)

and Freelancer (www.freelancer.com) are great online marketplaces for newbies in the field to start taking on jobs and gaining experience. In fact i can give you$20 bonus right now for your first project to spend if you sign up right now.

Do this while you’re still in your fulltime job to get a feel of the amount of time you’ll need and what you can realistically start to earn per project. While you are still finding your feet, experience is what counts.

It’s a learning curve…

You are still very much in the learning process here: Learning how to be a business person and a freelancer. Use this step as a chance to learn how to handle clients, to find out what they will expect from you. It might also be worth doing projects for local charities, schools or small businesses who simply can’t afford to pay a web developer’s rate. As Joshua Kemp writes in his blog,Confessions Of An Unlikely Developer (http://joshuakemp.blogspot.de/ ):

“Find a friend with a TINY small business (any business) or you can just find a crappy old site that needs a serious facelift.”

By doing this you are building up your portfolio and getting great references for your CV; crucially, you’ll learn how to deal with people.

6. My last piece of advice? Be brave.

Let’s face it, when you start out you’re not going to be an expert in your field. You may take on projects that you aren’t sure how you’re going to finish. If that’s the case, if you’re not 100% confident of how you’re going to complete a project…

Give your client a realistic idea of when they can expect that work back.

If you tell them it’s going to take longer than they expect it’s better you tell them that now than when the deadline has passed. No one likes (bad) surprises. Particularly people who are paying you to do something.

Our reliable friend Google (www.google.com) can help you with almost every kind of programming query you have, as well as websites like Stackoverflow (www.stackoverflow.com). But don’t let lack of confidence stop you from taking on these bigger projects. It’s how you’ll develop as a freelancer and how you’ll learn your trade.

So, in summary, how do you become a freelance web developer?

1. ) Find your niche

2.) Build, build, build

3.) Get your name out there and establish a network of other freelancers and industry professionals, as well as rebuilding links with previous colleagues and employers

4.) Do some research into and invest in some decent management and invoicing software

5.) Start getting experience every which way you can until you’re ready to….

6.) Take on your first big client.

It’s not easy. It’s damned hard work. But the rewards of the freelance lifestyle will outweigh all of this hard work by 100 times if you do it right from the beginning. Building your reputation as a hard worker, a reliable, honest web developer who treats his or her clients well will pay off time and time again as you continue along your freelance journey.

Word of mouth recommendations are worth a hundred of any advertisement you could pay for. So don’t take short cuts. Don’t rush a project or treat any client better or worse than the next one. Get as much experience as you can and always, always do a good job.

What Type of Web Hosting Service Suits your Business?

May 6, 2015 by admin 1 Comment

Web hosting is a service that every business, regardless of size or market demand needs to address, however, a company’s individual need may vary greatly in the services they require to accommodate their online needs. When deciding how to deal with your business’s web hosting needs it is important to know the basic varieties, including shared hosting, VPS, hosted services and self hosted, as well as the differences between them.

Web Hosting

The first step in finding a company’s web hosting demands is to fully understand web hosting, and the services it can provide. A website host is a server or computer that constantly remains online, making a website accessible via the internet. When visitors access the site they are actually downloading files from the computer in which they are stored.

In reality, any computer can be used to host a website, but professional services use computers specifically configured for power, using large amounts of memory and hard disks to efficiently deliver data and website content to potentially thousands of users at the same time. Any business with a website will require web hosting, and the larger the brand, and the more active the website, the more powerful the service will need to be.

Self Hosted

The self hosted approach is probably best suited to smaller businesses running very basic sites, as it consists of hosting the website independently off of a home or office internet connection. Hosting your own website has a few advantages, including freedom to do as you please with the website.

In addition to this it can be quite powerful, depending on how many computing resources you have to commit to it. Self hosting is not without it’s drawbacks, and these should be considered. Disadvantages of a self hosted site include the amount of technical knowledge necessary to execute it, and speeds can be greatly lacking due to poor upload speeds, as well self hosting may violate your ISP’s terms of agreement and all traffic you host will be reflected on your bandwidth usage.

Shared Hosting

Shared hosting is when your site is powered by one server, acting a host to thousands of other websites as well. Shared hosting is a budget friendly alternative, so it is great for small or new businesses, offering an all in one package, with domain name and hosting, bringing your brand to the internet.Major advantages of shared hosting include the cost effectiveness of the service, the ability to provide a custom domain, and an easy to use interface for blogging and forums – all requiring minimal technical knowledge.

Disadvantages are the incredibly slow speeds, and the fact that it has only basic capabilities due to the limitations of a shared server.

VPS and Dedicated Servers

These are the most ideal type of website hosting servers because they provide each client their own individual server space. VPS, or virtual private server, is a virtual machine, compared to a dedicated server that is similar in nature but is a physical system dedicated to hosting the site.

The major benefits of going with this type of hosting is that it offers essentially unlimited domain hosting and offers incomparable loading speeds, often 5 times faster than other approaches. As with anything, there are drawbacks to this particular service, and they include the associated costs as this is the priciest alternative, as well as the amount of knowledge required. These techniques are excellent for popular and intricate websites that see a lot of traffic and have a lot of content.

Hosted Services

Hosted services is the simplest form of web hosting, and involves creating a smaller, or subsite with a larger site. These websites are often committed to one purpose, like blogging, and many are free to use. Advantages of using hosted services include the simplicity and ease of getting started, as well as good speeds because you are dealing with a specialised company.

The biggest disadvantages to this technique include the lack over control over a technicality, and a lack of support for things like plugins. Also the portability is an issue, as you are part of a bigger site, and if your popularity rises it is difficult to witch hosts without losing fans and followers.

Whichever type of hosting solution you choose, ensure you go for one that is able to grow with your business.

Is online betting secure enough ?

December 3, 2014 by admin 1 Comment

Online betting is a growing market which is slowly making traditional forms of betting, such as betting shops, obsolete. The reason for this gradual take over, of the sports betting sector, is down to websites, such as www.bet365.com.au/news/en/betting and other high profile australian betting websites continuing to add additional features to their services.

_{[img from www.computing.co.uk ]}

Whilst the original online betting services when launched, offered a limited range of bets and often prohibited them from being placed once the games had begun, these days the betting options and facilities available are more extensive and complex. Now, these websites stream games live and allow punters to continue to adjust existing bets, and place additional ones, as the game progresses and the odds change. Moreover, the range of aspects that the user can bet on have increased substantially. Users are no longer limited to just betting on who wins or loses but can place bets on statistical performances such as goal scored, runs made and players sent off.

However, despite the rising popularity of these websites, some punters are still concerned about the safety and security of online sports betting. The stigma surrounding new internet forms, and their safety features, is not new. Many were initially sceptical about now commonly used websites such eBay and Amazon.

Online Betting, which is a relatively newer online activity, is now being put under the same scrutiny. However, these websites are equally, if not more, regulated as these other online giants. Therefore, to put the mind at ease of those considering entering the world of online sports betting, here are the main safety features of online betting.

Comparison Websites

Like any popular and profitable online activity, online sports betting now has a range of websites devoted to ranking, reviewing and rating their services. These judgements being based upon their adherence to regulations, performance and accessibility. Online gambling, in any form, has now been included within legal regulations – concerning user safety, protection of funds and fairness – similar to those imposed upon offline forms of gambling.

Websites now need to be awarded licences and to continually put themselves forward for inspection. Comparison websites exclusively deal with those websites who have been officially recognised and examined, moreover these websites will also often provide a list of sites that failed to reach this criteria. Therefore, a quick browse of one of these comparison websites is all you need to to ensure that the online establishment you chose is officiated.

Virtual Bouncers

The online gambling industry, if it be sports betting or casinos, is at the forefront of virtual security developments. The payment information, and funds, of users of these sites are placed within complex firewalls which span multiple servers to ensure that they are secure. These omniscient systems are developed by respected encoding companies such as Viaden and Famasutra and are designed to guarantee that neither cheating or technological manipulations occur. Moreover, online sports betting websites use up-to-date versions of standard online security protocols such as HTTPS sites.

These digital protections being built within the guidelines of policies, like the UK Gambling Act 2014, which assist online casinos with regulations to protect both patrons and site owners.

Mobile Broadband Speeds | How Much Speed Does Mobile Internet Deliver?

June 26, 2014 by admin Leave a Comment

With the world on fire for mobile broadband technologies, everyone is wondering just how much speed mobile broadband services really deliver. Mobile Internet connectivity makes our lives easier. We can stay constantly connected, ensuring that we miss nothing in the way of business communications, payments, customer service, or even just receiving that much-awaited Facebook update, you can learn more here.

The point is that we demand to be wired, preferably at all times. But we wonder if mobile broadband technologies are developed enough at this point to provide a fluent and dependable Internet experience.

The answer is YES!

Mobile broadband internet connectivity is no longer a thing of imagination and wishing. It exists, and provides excellent speeds, especially for those in prime locations. Generally speaking, the larger the city you are in, the better broadband connectivity you will receive. It’s also important to distinguish between mobile Internet and Wi-Fi. If you are using the free Wi-Fi at Starbucks, that’s not the same as using your broadband hotspot connection device.

In the past few years, mobile internet connection services have begun to drop in price. That’s directly due to the fact that on-the-go Internet is an awesome technology that almost everyone has a demand for. Even for the casual surfer who just watches a few videos here and there, and maybe checks her email every couple days, mobile broadband connectivity is desirable. Why should be restricted as to where we can access our online lives?

Mobile broadband connectivity has become so heavily demanded in fact, that it is beginning to be a common replacement for cable, DSL and satellite Internet providers. It costs less, and more and more of us are graduating to tablets and other mobile devices instead of our traditional, heavy, cumbersome, laptops.

Mobile broadband Internet vs. Cable & DSL

If you are a heavy web surfer that loves to burn data, then it’s still going to better for you to go with a traditional ISP like Comcast, Time-Warner or Direct TV. The data plans for heavy users in the mobile realm can get astronomical. This is especially true for teen users who still have no concept of what it takes to pay those large usage bills every month.

If you surf heavy, then use a home-based Internet service for the majority of your online adventures. Save your mobile broadband data for staying touch via email, Facebook and the like. Stream videos, play games and other high-data activities at home.

If you do decide to go with a mobile Internet service provider, consider the following tips to choose the best for your needs:

If you are a frequent traveler, then research the coverage areas of major providers like Verizon, AT&T and T-Mobile. The business moguls have incredible R&D budgets and will most likely blow away the coverage limits and areas of smaller, less reputable providers.

Consider how much monthly data you actually go through. There’s no sense in buying a plan that is more than you will user – and it’s very frustrating to always have to be counting every megabyte if you don’t buy enough. If you are a heavy gamer, then you should choose a plan with at least 6GB/month. On the other hand, if you just want broadband Internet to be able to stay in touch on email and social networks, then you will probably only need a Gigabyte or 2 per month. Experimentation will show you more specifically what you need – and almost all plans are able to expand at any time you want or need to.

There are very few surprises ventured from major mobile ISPs. They tell you exactly what you are in for in terms of costs and fees. You just have to read through those user agreements that everyone blindly clicks "Accept" on. If you want to develop a clear understanding of what you will be paying, just read that fine print!

Why betting on your mobile is becoming popular

June 13, 2014 by admin 1 Comment

Today, we all run our lives using our mobiles. Whether we’re paying the bills, keeping track of our diary or checking out the latest news on Facebook or Twitter, there’s no easier way to stay on top of everything than by using your mobile.

The same goes for entertainment, too, with a huge range of gaming apps available. So it stands to reason that we’ll do our sports betting on the mobile too. With all the bookmakers offering mobile betting apps, it’s never been simpler to get a bet on a sports event, wherever you are.

The real benefit of online and mobile betting is that you can now place in-play bets, so wherever you’re watching a game of tennis, a footie match or the golf, you can place live in-play bets within a couple of taps.

So what makes the best betting app? Of course, the starting point is compatibility with your mobile device – whether you’ve got Android, Blackberry or an iPhone. Pretty much all the betting apps are compatible with all three operating systems, but it’s worth checking out the reviews to see how people rate an app you’re considering using.

The other thing to look out for is whether any security issues are highlighted in the reviews. When you’re using an app to move your cash around, you want to be able to rely on it. Check out the user interface, too. Some of the betting apps are a lot more user-friendly than others. The speed with which you can place a bet is obviously crucial for live in-play betting.

You may want the betting app for putting money on particular sports fixtures but if you can use it for other gaming options it’s a bonus. A lot of the betting apps also give you access to casino games, bingo and the like. See what an app has to offer in terms of variety.

There are lots of incentives available when you sign up to a betting site via your mobile. You’ll get the same deal as you would signing up on online at a pc or laptop. For example, if you join bet365 you’ll qualify for a 100% bonus bet when you first place a bet using your mobile. You don’t have to claim the bet; you’ll be emailed a promo code as soon as you’ve placed that first bet. All the betting sites offer similar kinds of perks for choosing to use their app.

As the industry is so competitive, there are always further offers to cash in on if you use a mobile betting app. That’s probably why many people install more than one betting app on their phones – when the sites are giving away free bets, why wouldn’t we take them up on it? However, if you bet on a regular basis, you may be better off sticking with one particular app – you’ll accrue more loyalty points that way. It’s also easier to keep track of your gambling spends if you only use one mobile betting app.

Mobile casino gaming on the increase

May 21, 2014 by admin Leave a Comment

^{by gailjadehamilton}

It’s not so long ago that if you wanted to play casino games online, you’d have to download the software and take up space on your hard drive. But now, of course, with so many online casino sites offering instant play few people bother downloading the casino software. Maybe if you’re a poker player, it’s worth doing, but for most recreational gamblers, the instant play selection is fine.

Now, things are moving on again, and we’re seeing more and more people choosing to play on their mobile rather than on a pc or laptop. This makes sense; we organise most of our lives through the mobile – why not be entertained there too? Of course, mobile gaming apps are nothing new, but it seems that more people are switching to cash games now. Obviously there’s an added level of interest in a game if it can win you a heap of cash!

Even though the number of people playing cash games like roulette, blackjack and slots on their mobiles has increased, that doesn’t necessarily mean that we’re all playing those games on the move. A recent survey into UK mobile gaming by market research group comScore showed that 20 million people played games on their mobile and 6 million of those played on a daily basis. However, nearly two-thirds of those mobile gamers play in their living room, 45% play in bed and around 20% play in the bathroom. This makes a lot of sense when you think part of the reason many people choose to play games is to relax. Sitting in front of your pc doesn’t seem like the most relaxing place to play when you could be playing on the sofa instead.

You’d imagine that the most mobile gaming would take place on a commuter journey, as it would be a great way to while away the time, but only a third of mobile gamers in the UK actually play on the way to and from work. Meanwhile, 27% take a bit of time out at work to play games on their mobile.

The British aren’t alone in their appetite for games on their mobiles. Mobile gaming revenue in the States is predicted to reach USD3 billion by 2016 and it’s anticipated that the global mobile games market will be worth around UDS9 billion by the end of this year.

Added to these stats, Juniper Research has predicted that 64.1bn mobile games will be downloaded onto mobiles or tablets by 2017, triple the amount downloaded in 2012. More and more people will opt to play on their mobiles as game choice widens and functionality of playing on a small screen improves.

At the moment, the most widely available games from online casinos like 32red are those that are best suited to play on a smaller screen. Hence you get a wide choice of slots, as well as some variants of blackjack and roulette. And there are lots of promos available for playing these games on your mobile – every site wants to win over customer loyalty while the market is in its growth phase!

How To Become A Freelance Web Developer

Who should consider freelancing as an option?