Website Start Up Business

Hi,
I am looking for advice into how I can up skill to be able to work as a self employed freelancer in order to provide the below services:

*Create websites for small businesses.
* Provide SEO

I have a degree in Business Information Systems and I currently work as a technical analyst but I do not know HTML to build websites from scratch so I would like to know where I can learn this online to equip myself to be self employed and know everything to create a website for a company.

I also need to know where I can learn SEO, but where I can do this is a minefield.

If you think I would benefit from other courses to equip myself please let me know!!

Online courses are preferred please.

Many thanks!
Lisa

 

Hi Lisa,

Its great to know that you are planning to provide services as a freelancer. There are many online courses available where you can learn the basics of web designing and SEO. Whereas there are many website theme builders also available in the market, that you'll not have to learn the codes and just basics will be enough. Example, there is an offline software TemplateToaster which helps to build high quality websites from scratch without writing a single code. You'll just drag and drop the elements and images and after few clicks the website will be complete. Plus, there are options to select the CMS from Magento, Wordpress, Jomomla and many more.

Being a freelancer myself, I use this software not because I don't like coding but to save a lot of my time. I think you can download it for free and try as many times as you want. So start building websites on your own while you get good exposure of SEO only with experience. All the best in your new journey!

Warmly, Mike.

 

Hi Lisa,
Template website design sure is a quick and easy way to work and build a website - moreover they have the creative tools to make something look pretty great without all that much work. The downside of this is that you will be massively restricted in terms of what you (or potentially your clients) will want to do but the fact that it is a pre-existing wireframe. My piece of advice would be to have a good go at a wordpress site yourself, just to get the feel of designing and working with one, but take the time out to learn HTML and CSS so that you can at least understand and make small edits to the underlying code. It does not take too long to get to grips with the basics of these languages, and once you have it will unlock a lot of potential for you - plus they can be really fun to learn and play with! Code Academy is a great resource that is well structured for beginners looking to learn HTML, CSS and a whole heap of other languages - it comes highly recommended from me.

In terms of SEO, most of what you need to learn is unfortunately locked behind software programmes that require you to dish out some cash first. There is a lot of resources out there to learn the theory of SEO and to understand a lot of the on-page SEO techniques that you can implement as soon as you have a site (the MOZ beginners guide to SEO is a fantastic starting point). However, a lot of SEO revolves around analytics, especially analytics of how you compare against your competitors (hence the 'optimisation' part). To get to grips with these, it might be best to have a look around at the available programmes and see if you can find anything offering a trial - Screaming Frog, Ahrefs & Search Metrics are good places to start. Also check out companies such as Yext - they do a whole heap of stuff, including offering advice for learners (however you will never beat Moz).

A lot of the paid online courses are likely to be very expensive whilst only teaching you a fraction of what you would need to know to be a paid, working professional in the field. My advice is to take the free lessons you can to get to grips with the fundamental elements of what you are doing and then experiment and work with what you know on your own to become truly competent.

 

Hi Lisa, It's good to see that you are planning to start a website business, it's a good decision, you can also take a look on how to start website design business for starter's like you! even I also had same confusion and cleared my thoughts after going through this blog, I hope this may help you!.

 

I got this post late and I hope you have started working as a freelancer for website business. Here, I am replying on your post because I like the idea of working as self employment or as a freelancer. And on your post you got the good replies by other members which are so beneficial..

I enjoyed.....

 

Hi Lisa, with the arrival of quarantine and I started thinking about working as a freelancer.