Posts categorized as Blog

I’m ready to play!

I’ve completed the WordPress professional course, and I’m stoked to say I’m ready to build some dope sites! You can see my latest practice project at https://soverynoma.com It’s a fully functional site for a fictional company called Accelerate Marketing. If you’re wondering about the domain name, I bought SoVeryNoma for my mom’s future project: a Sonoma Valley centered website. I am now officially ready to start building it when design is complete.

WordPress is a CMS (Content Management System) that facilitates website building and is more advanced and customizable than advertised ‘competitors’ like Square Space or Wix. More than a third of the entire internet uses WordPress. Some advantages over cheap website-builders are: superior SEO (Search Engine Optimization) – so the site will be found more often by being higher on the Google search; customizable layout – so the site won’t have to look like thousands of other sites; and its free!

For my next project, I’ll be making my first professional portfolio site to present my work! This domain (ProgressCreation) will be used for my portfolio, and this site will be one of my example projects. The sites I’ve made so far will be included, and there will be more projects I’ll be adding from my classes. Then I’ll have a nice little web-developer site I can use to land some freelance income making websites while I continue my voyage into the tech world.

There is still so much to learn, and I have many classes left to take from Skillcrush. So far I’ve learned three languages – HTML, CSS, and PHP – JavaScript is next. After that I’ll be diving into a web design course, which will add to my website making skills. Beyond that, there are courses I’ve purchased including data analytics, user experience, web marketing and app building I’m excited to explore before I start targeting a field to focus in on. I’m pumped on the myriad opportunities, though I can see it being overwhelming, it’s so good for the passion levels!

Are you charging too much?

Or not enough?

When you are a freelancer, you set your own prices. There’s no boss to give you a raise, and no HR manager to negotiate your salary with.

Getting your first couple freelance jobs is exhilarating. Someone is trusting YOU with their business, putting their brand in YOUR hands. It’s easy to feel like you are the lucky one. They hired ME? But I’ve only been doing this for a few months!

Even so, didn’t you start this whole freelancing thing so you could up your income? But how can you avoid lowballing your client if you aren’t sure what fees are standard in the industry?

When it comes to setting your freelance rates, there’s no one-size-fits-all. There are so many questions to consider: How long will the project take? Is the client a breeze to work with? (or not?) How much money do you need to make to turn a profit? How much experience do you have?