How To Build Your First Website For A Client - Workflow and Tools

so you want to earn money making websites five years ago i was in your shoes searching for a video like this one and whether you know it or you're about to find out building a website for a client has a lot of moving pieces design hosting communication with the client how to structure your contract and a lot more on your first project you're guaranteed to miss something and that's okay you'll get better with every project you build i would have saved so much time if someone had just sat me down before i had my first project and showed me their workflow and the tools they use and that's what we'll do today i'll sit you down and show you the end-to-end workflow of how i make a website for a client hi i'm dylan a cloud engineer living in oregon i made my first website for a client when i was a senior in high school that was five years ago i like to think i have my workflow dialed in now but it wasn't always that way it took a ton of trial and error hopefully by showing you the end-to-end process of how i make a website for a client you can save yourself the hours and hours of trial and error that i had to go through to dial in a process that works for me if you find this useful drop a like and if you haven't yet consider subscribing you'll probably like my other videos first is your initial meeting with the client this first meeting sets the tone for the rest of your interactions with your client if client relations is something you want to learn more about let me know in the comments before the meeting starts i think about getting my client in the right mindset and throughout the whole meeting i stress the value of a high quality website they're usually really busy people and you overhauling their website is a chore so i stress that the effort that we put into our website is going to directly affect the bottom line of their business which is something they do care about i have a few goals for this meeting understand the purpose of the website any special needs they have what pages we need to make the vibe of the website they're going for and then we collaborate on the high five conversion formula for more on the high five conversion formula check out the video card and if there's one thing to steal from me it's asking the golden question when someone comes to your website what do you want them to do this allows me to understand how i can help them achieve their business objectives at the end of the day 99 of the time a website exists for users to buy schedule an appointment or subscribe a tip for understanding the vibe your client is going for is to come prepared to the initial meeting with three different websites of similar businesses in their space then have them go through and say what they do and don't like about each of the sites i keep all the meeting notes in a shared google drive with a client that way we can both reference the notes as the project goes on next i use figma to make an initial design of the website it's so tempting to hop right into building especially if you're new with the tools but just trust me that taking the time to use a tool like figma will save you so much time later down the road the mock-up stage is where you want to get as close to your final design as possible once you and your client are both in love with the design then and only then do i move on to the building step for a long time i thought it was cool to build a website with pure html and css and i had this fear that the client would think i'm cheating if i used a tool like wix but let me let you in on a little secret they don't care at all they want an awesome website that's all they want actually let me repeat that all your client wants is an awesome website they don't care how you get there that's why they hired you it's up to you as the expert to decide the best tools for the job if i'm doing a website for a local dentist office i'm going to use wix they don't need anything custom and it'll probably look better than trying to design it on your own if they need something custom i'll probably use react and tailwind css for the front end and aws amplify for the back end after the website's built i test it thoroughly and then demo it to the client almost always there'll be some changes once you're both happy it's time to deploy if you're using wix they make it obvious how to deploy through them and as of right now they'll give you a free domain name for a year if you sign up for their premium plan if they don't have the domain name promo i use namecheap amplify is also very straightforward to deploy and i just follow the steps on the dashboard lastly is payment one of the most difficult parts in the process is getting my clients to pay me i finally found a strategy that works out of the book clockwork by mike mikallowitz when we negotiate price at the beginning i offer a 15 discount if they're willing to pay in full up front i just mark up the price by 15 that way if they choose the discount i'm getting what i wanted in the beginning and if they don't i get an extra 15 percent and they still have to pay half up front or we make milestones and there you have it that was a 10 000 foot overview let me know if you want more depth on any of the steps in the beginning i referenced the hi5 conversion formula the ultimate goal of your client's website is to get someone to buy schedule an appointment or subscribe the hifi conversion formula outlines how to make a website that does that check it out here if that seems interesting to you thanks for watching we'll see you in the next video

Channel: Dylan Albertazzi

Views: 6,111

Keywords: build a website, wordpress, bluehost, freelance, How to get your first web client, how to start a website business, how to get your first client, how to sign your first contract for web developers, how to sell your first website, how to sell your first web development contract, website design clients, how to make money with your website design business, how to find web design projects, how to web design freelance jobs, getting web design clients, how to get web design clients

Id: CwKzveMzhoQ

Length: 5min 38sec (338 seconds)

Published: Fri Mar 19 2021