Amber Weinberg talks about freelancing and developing your 6 month plan to freelancing riches!

You may not have heard of Amber Weinberg but this web developer has the knowledge and extensive web development background to know what she’s talking about when it comes to freelancing. I first read her article entitled “How to become a freelance web developer: A six month plan” on the FreelanceFolder and after reading it I read a little more of her blog i decided to contact her and ask her some more questions about freelancing and her web development experiences.

Amber, who has been developing for the web for the last ten years decided after discussing freelancing numerous times decided to put together a practical guide to freelancing. The idea of a 6 month plan is very reasonable considering that most web developers, web designers and other freelance style types of jobs require by nature some planning.

Some specific points that Amber makes in her article about freelancing address the fact that freelance work and more importantly a freelance business needs like most businesses certain things to grow including saving and creating a personal budget, developing a portfolio site, using social media like twitter, LinkedIn and facebook to your advantage, starting and keeping a blog, getting some health insurance, where to look for freelance work, invoicing your clients, leaving the current company you are working for currently and doing it gracefully and finally getting out there and starting your freelance career.

I know that I’ve interviewed a large number of web design and development professionals but I also know that there is a large amount of people reading this who haven’t taken the leap yet, who read articles like Amber’s and who are still on the fence about a freelance career. Really, you are the only person who can make up your mind about it and depending on where you are in life and your responsibilities can impact the choices you make on becoming a freelance web designer or developer. With all that said, many of the people I’ve interviewed so far from the husband and wife design and development teams to the solo web designer that’s fresh out of school and looking to make a name for themselves, the one thing that everyone shares is a passion for continuously learning and improvement.

Amber Weinberg had this to say about why she decided to write the article, networking as a freelancer, her thoughts on email marketing as well as how she turns out some amazing content on her blog.

Luc @ SWD: After reading the article you wrote about “How to become a freelance web developer: A six month plan” my first question is what caused you to write the article in the first place?

Amber says: A lot of the readers on my own blog had asked me how to get started. I’ve heard a lot of people talk about wanting to go freelance, but since they didn’t know how to start, they never did. I thought a nice step-by-step plan would help ease some of the fears of freelancing.

Luc @ SWD: You make some good points about designing a portfolio that i can personally attest to some web designers and developers don’t do especially when it comes to showcasing code snippets.  Do you think it’s important for web developers to show code with a project and why do you think clients like and trust this method so much?

Amber says: I think showing the code is essential to any developer’s portfolio. I see a lot of developers that just show links to the website, or that showcase the design of the website. They didn’t design the website, so why are they showcasing that part? I think clients like this because it’s not only different, but shows that I care about my code which ultimately means my code is better than someone who doesn’t.

Luc @ SWD: I like that you mention that web developers should network and market themselves using social media networks like facebook, LinkedIn and twitter.  Should web developers ever limit the information that they put on social media networks and why or why not?

Amber says: If by limiting your information, you mean personal information, then yes. If by limiting information, you mean information about clients or projects – it depends. It’s important to remember the web is not a private place anymore. Anything you tweet or facebook about is now showing up in search engines. (Unless you set your social media to private). It’s important to use these outlets wisely. I like to tweet about what I’m working on (people who follow really love seeing what you’re doing – even if the site is still jumbled). If the information is sensitive (because the client has a non-disclosure) I’ll talk about what I’m working on in general, without much detail. Social media is a great tool, but it can’t replace clients, so it’s important to remember which relationship comes first. (So please avoid gross/inappropriate tweets/updates if you expect your clients to see it).

Luc @ SWD: One of the areas that you didn’t really touch is do you think that web developers should use email marketing to showcase their latest projects to existing clients and potential new clients?

Amber says: Personally, I don’t use email marketing to clients. I believe it’s annoying and ineffective unless you’re a big firm that gets a lot of real press. I’m pretty sure none of my clients care if I’m doing a website for X agency. If they do care, they can easily get updates on my projects via my portfolio, blog, or any of my social media accounts. I do use email marketing for cold emails, which I explain in several of my blog posts. That technique works extremely well in gaining new clients.

Luc @ SWD: Amber, you’ve been developing for the web over the past ten years and i wanted to know what are the biggest lessons you’ve learned since you started?  How did you first get started?

Amber says: I first got started in the 6th grade building websites for anime stuff I collected (web galleries, fan fics, etc) Back then the web was mostly text, frame and table based. I stopped building websites for a few years at the end of high school and through college, and realized when I decided to come back that I had a HUGE learning curve ahead of me thanks to CSS. Even though I feel extremely competent in HTML/CSS and browser compatibility I feel like there’s always more to learn. If you look at my code in order of newest to oldest, you’ll see I’m constantly tweaking my organization and techniques. I’ve learned that you really need to be learning new things every week, or you’ll get quickly left behind. Also, semantics and validation are king.

Luc @ SWD: What are some of you’re tried and tested methods for testing and dealing with web browser compatibility issues that you see on a daily basis?

Amber says: I can say 90% of the websites I code work perfectly in IE6 in less than 5 minutes and most of the time I use no hacks. Once you deal with IE6 enough times, you’ll learn to start anticipating its bugs. For example, when I’m coding something that has a float: left on it, I immediately remember to give it padding-left instead of margin-left – otherwise you’ll deal with IE6’s double margin bug. The biggest help to me is the CSS Reset I use. Because of that I have fewer bugs in IE6 and 99% of the time I have none in IE7. Today, I also found a wonderful transparent PNG fix that doesn’t have problems with backgrounds, positioning, or jQuery like the others do. Keeping your own personal code and plug-in library really helps.

Luc @ SWD: How do you come up with writing excellent articles aimed at web developers and the web development community at large?  Has running your blog helped you land new clients and if so what do you think people like about reading your blog?

Amber says: I have to admit, it’s extremely difficult to come up with good articles every day of the work week, especially when I’m super slammed like I am now. Most of my articles come from real experiences. For example, when I blogged about things to do when work is super slow, it was because I had no client work at the time! If I’m stuck in a coding project, and figure out how to fix it easier/quicker, I blog about it. Some days it’s tough, especially when you spend a lot of time blogging and no one comments or retweets. I’m not sure if I’ve gotten work specifically because of my blog, but I know that clients have seen me active on both the blog and twitter, and a lot of them comment on that point. I think both can elevate your business and make you an expert in their eyes, even if they don’t understand the tech articles per se. Most of my dedicated readers are other freelancer web developers, so I try to keep a mix of both freelance and tech articles. I think they like that I’m actually working on getting some guest writers on that are going to be writing about design, WordPress and advanced programming. Variety is good!

Feel free to read more of her articles by visiting her blog or her article “How to become a freelance web developer: A six month plan” today for her excellent insights into the world of freelancing.