How to Get Started on a Small Budget – Option 4 – Find a Low-Cost Freelance Web Designer

This is the fourth article in a series of 5 called, How to Get Started on a Small Budget. The previous few are: getting a free coaching websites, bartering with a professional web designer, and finding a friend to do the job. 

Today’s article is about finding a low-cost freelancer for hire.

There are quite a few websites out there for finding and hiring a freelancers such as web designers. Often, these people live in lower-cost-of-living countries which is great on the purse. Some popular places to find them are Odesk.com, Guru.com, Elance.com, and Freelancer.com.

The key to hiring on a freelancer website is NOT to post a job offer for the masses to apply to. That’s a recipe for SPAM disaster.YOu’ll get an endless supply of emails that you cannot feasibly read and respond to (almost all written the same) from India. Instead, search and cherry pick a few, interview them, and test them out with a small project.

When it comes to managing your freelancer, the way to make this work is to be clear about how you want your website to look like when finished. This will include things like what pages you want, what functionality you want, and what visuals you want. Get examples of other websites you like. Get stock photos to use.

If you don’t get clear, you’ll find yourself with a designer who is waiting on you for content and you’ll find yourself scrambling to write stuff.

If you’re looking to hire a freelancer and you want to save money, then The Coaching Site Guide can help you find a great hire, create juicy content, and get it done smoothly. Don’t waste months to years floundering and instead get it done right from the get-go. Learn more about how The Coaching Site Guide can help.

This common problem when hiring someone is the endless back and forth. What frequently happens to coaches is they go back and forth with a web designer forever and never get the website done. This is a direct result of not having a clear outline for the website. The coach is unsure of what to write and where to put content and struggles to be at peace with her website. This causes the endless over-thinking, redoing and tweaking.

Finding a great hire is a vital step. A good hire will not only save you a few bucks from the get-go but heaps in years to come as you grow.

You would think, as a web designer myself and a wise human being (I have a few greys, hey!) that I would have no trouble finding and hiring a web designer. But I have gone through at least 10 hires to find my personal rockstars.

Nearly two years ago I wrote an article detailing five thing you need for hiring overseas web design help. This is a good next read if you want to find inexpensive web design help.

In summary, finding a low cost freelance web designer can be a great move for saving money on your coaching website. Be sure to (1) search through profiles to find your ideal one and (2) take control by defining the website outcome you want in terms of content and pages and visuals.

This covers four of the five options. They are again:

Option 1 – Get a free website
Option 2 – Barter with a pro
Option 3 – Get a friend
Option 4 – Find a low-cost freelancer (today’s article)
Option 5 – Do it yourself

Ever hire a low-cost freelancer online? Did it work out? What did you find worked and didn’t work? I’d love to hear from you. Just comment below.