20 Ways To Promote Yourself As A Web Designer
Posted on 30. Jun, 2009 by Web Design in Web Development
Web Designers can often find it hard to get their name out there, and begin getting clients. Promotion doesn’t always have to cost money. I have compiled a list of how web designers can promote themselves, and get their name out there. Some of the ways require little to no effort, whilst others require much time. Either way, you will still receive more clients. If you would like to share any others you may have, drop a comment below.
Maintain a Website
If you maintain someone else’s website, the owner may spread the word about your services. You could maybe ask for a small link at the footer of their site, linking back to your site, which will gain some exposure.
Create a Blog
Creating a blog can bring in loads of traffic, and maybe even clients. If you write great content, other people will link back to it, and it will rank higher in search engines, so its a win win situation.
Network Online
Use online social networks such as facebook, twitter and digg to promote your blog articles, design work, and do personal networking with other designer.
Create An Email Signature
Putting a signature in all your outgoing emails can generate alot of traffic, especially if you send alot of emails.
Purchase And Design Business Cards
Business cards can generate alot of business. If you have a nice eye catching design, and something that is unique, there will be more chance of people looking into your services than if you had a plain business card design.
Create a Portfolio
If you put up all your work into a nice online portfolio, clients will be able to see your work, and websites will link to your work if its of amazing quality.
Participate In Forum Discussions
Participating in forum discussions can generate buzz. If you have a clear standing opinion to many forum threads, people will begin to look into who you are, what websites you have etc. The forum threads will be in search engines, thus giving you long term promotion.
Get Personal
If you are personal and unique with your designs, people will see you as unique.
Volunteer
Contribute to open source projects / non profit online organizations. It looks great on your portfolio.
Create A Forum Signature
If you put your website link or even an image in your forum signature, and it looks eye catching, people will click it. Then you just have to post more threads, and reply to them, and it will get your link all over the forum.
Buddy Up
Get another web designer as your buddy. You can work together, give each other work and help each other out. Win win situation.
Blog Comments
Participating in blog discussion, by commenting on other peoples blog entries can give you traffic back to your blog. If you post a good comment that many people are likely to read, then you will get clicks.
Guest Post
The Internet is full of opportunity. Many bloggers big and small go on holiday, and love to take breaks. They might like you to guest post on their blog, and this means you can post link backs to your own site, when it says article written by. Especially if its a big blog you are guest posting on, you will gain loads of exposure.
Participate In Design Competitions
Don’t be shy. There are many websites such as 99designs and digitalpoint forums that hold design competitions. This can give you opportunity to showcase your work, and show people what your design skills are like.
Word Of Mouth
Tell people about your website and the services you offer. Your friends and family are sure to tell other people about you.
Get Yourself / Website In The News
Do something to get your website or yourself in the news / talked about over the blogosphere. Sponsor a charity event, turn your website upside down, it will work!
Trade Ads / Link Swap
Web Designers can help each other out. You can trade links and add them to each others blogroll, or even trade image ads such as 125 x 125px.
Develop A Relationship With All Your Clients
If you develop a personal relationship on a one to one base with all your clients, they will respect you and maybe even come back for more work or better yet, refer you to their friends.
Submit Your Work To Web Galleries
Web Galleries love great design work. Some web galleries online are immensely popular, so if your work gets on the front page of them, you will receive thousands of clicks back to your work, which means more clients.
Hold Contests On Your Website
If you hold contests on your websites, people will tell other people about the contests if it has a great prize, and it will generate alot of online buzz.
20 Way To Promote Yourself As a Web Designer is brought to you by Web Design
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Aneslin
30. Jun, 2009
woow. thanks a lot for this excellent tips.
I think its not fit only for web designers,
as a remote network admin, i can also do many of ur ideas.
just we can make ur ideas to fit our niche.
great article
thanks bro
Yoosuf
30. Jun, 2009
Huh hooooo, its a nice tip, i am doing some and not doing some!, hope to all what mention in the post!
klaus
30. Jun, 2009
Wuhu thats really an amazing tip collection
instant bookmark… keep on
Erick
30. Jun, 2009
Thanks for the tips are so nice.
Im looking for promote my services and meet people, im begin in webdesigner world.
Joel Vardy
01. Jul, 2009
Some good tips, I think new and initiative business cards are a great way to become noticed if you work face to face with people!
fandy
01. Jul, 2009
Hai, thanks for nice tips, and the one I more like is about be “unique” in the good thing…
jose pacheco
01. Jul, 2009
Seems to be a eally nice stufff… just delecious to read carefully later! ty for share.
Caitlin
01. Jul, 2009
These are all great tips, especially volunteering as a way of building a portfolio. It’s a great way to help your career and your community. Thanks!
Ayo Adigun
01. Jul, 2009
Excellnt article. Ive used 90% of the above, with great results.
Dejan
02. Jul, 2009
The article is great,
great tips.
tnx
Pooja Kishnani
03. Jul, 2009
Great tips, thanks for sharing
Zumzar
03. Jul, 2009
Indeed a great article! It contains very useful advice. Especially using forums is a good method.
e11world
03. Jul, 2009
I gotta say, I feel pretty good about the way I do this. I bascially do all of the above without even noticing. My only problem is not having enough time to complete things (such as my blog).. Nice article!
PelFusion
03. Jul, 2009
liked the article and retweeted it too
Website Design Katy, TX
04. Jul, 2009
This is a must read for any website designer! Thanks for the great list!
Alda
07. Jul, 2009
This is great advice. It’s neat that you are giving such precious information. Congratulations for the great work you’ve been doing so far.
TND webdesign
09. Jul, 2009
Aha, so commenting also helps? Well, in that case…
No seriously, this is a good list..but almost a dayjob to do correctly right? My question is..how much time should you put into promoting yourself..
Andy
09. Jul, 2009
As much time as you think is necessary. If you are promoting yourself, and still don’t see an increase in clients, you need to try new ways, and put more time in. If you put the time are effort in, you will see a rise in traffic to your website, and possibly clients.
sidhu
09. Jul, 2009
very nice artical
Website Design
11. Jul, 2009
Thanks for the wonderful tips. Much appreciated
Carson Shold
15. Jul, 2009
Great advice.
The only thing I disagree with is participating in design competitions. Yes, it may get your name out there, but the problems with spec work heavily outweigh any benefits that contributing to a design competition may have. Take a look at my a recent blog of mine about just that – http://carsonshold.com/blog/
ajay
16. Jul, 2009
Awesome article, Thanks for sharing this post.
Leo Ashcraft
21. Jul, 2009
Tweet Tweet!
Raja Raman
24. Jul, 2009
Fantastic Article.
I have recently purchased a new domain.
Have to get users for my Site.
Really helpful article.
Andy
24. Jul, 2009
Fantastic artwork Raja on the behance network
Katrisha
04. Aug, 2009
That was a great article. Have to admit, I was expecting another useless article with a bunch of “Tips” leading to this big “If you pay now” ending, like the rest of them, but this actually helped me! And I have to agree with e11world , one of my problems is the blog too. But practice makes perfect.
Thanks again for the great article. I will be sure to bookmark and ReTweet this one.
Thanks!
mickaservices
08. Aug, 2009
Thanks, I love it
Mabuhay
“I want to change the world but I dont have a password”
RTGfxs
13. Aug, 2009
Great article, Amazing tips, planning to use them asap
Alan Nowogrodski
13. Aug, 2009
Great list!
I would also add that people should use classifieds. There is tons of work in classifieds. oh, and tweet tweet!
Thanks!
Egypt Web Hosting
20. Aug, 2009
Great article, thanks so much
Tim Read
04. Sep, 2009
Great list – also add writing articles. If you can create well researched articles and post them on relevant sites, that really brings good street cred to you
NJ
08. Sep, 2009
A huge collection of CSS galleries along with page ranks and submit links can be found over here:
http://www.stonesouptech.com/blog/2009/09/a-more-complete-up-to-date-list-of-css-galleries/
It’s useful if you want to submit to 200+ websites.
TheAdamJanes
13. Sep, 2009
This was great reading. I hope that somebody notices my hard work once I start building a larger online presence.
Check me out!!! …lol : )
Team Novo
18. Sep, 2009
Great article….keeping coming…
need4design
18. Sep, 2009
Good post. Golden words for a aspiring designer
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Maveric Designs
08. Dec, 2009
Great post. Will definitely be looking into these
GH Web Design
02. Jan, 2010
Very nice amount of information. Will have to try some of these ideas.
Flash Designer
13. Jan, 2010
Something that is not mentioned, SEO, get a domain name that works for you, and optimize the site properly. If you search on “Flash designer” you may see how i rank, with hardly any special SEO effort, such as link building, articles submissions, etc
Peach
19. Jan, 2010
Another great tips here. Thanks a lot!
Tiago Alves
19. Jan, 2010
This is a great article and to prove it I am following right now advice number 12: here is a blog comment
Excellent tips for beginners and new companies. Cheers
gr8najam
19. Jan, 2010
wow great… Thanks alot.
Tai Travis
19. Jan, 2010
Most of these seem like a good idea. I am not sold on the #2 and #3 however. If I am tweeting and maintaining a blog then that is less time for me to be designing and coding. It seems like an inefficient advertising. Anyhow back to work..
Logon suunnittelua
24. Jan, 2010
Wau. Thanks a lot! I’m a rookie that wnts to be profesional.. some day.. Thanks for tips.