
Ask HN: Web development business workflow? - botterra
Hi,<p>I am student&#x2F;beginner in web development (PHP, JS, HTML, CSS, WordPress), and I want to ask here some experienced developers (freelance and agency guys) about &#x27;business workflow&#x27; in web development; primary about web site development.<p>How do you price projects? How do you get clients? Do you buy WordPress templates from marketplaces (like Themeforest) and use them on projects? How do you price SEO and maintenance?<p>Pardon me for ignorance and bad English.
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jamesdelaneyie
1\. Take who the client is, think about how much I like the job, how
technically hard it is, how long I'd be at it and the deadline they want and a
few other variables then pick a figure from the air that seems good.

2\. Word of mouth or chatting to people in person.

3\. Fuck no. Faster for me to build a custom site than to wrangle with
someone's theme that's been built for the lowest common denominator.

4\. A good SEO setup is included in the cost, but I don't write the headlines,
meta desc, etc. If I am, that's extra.

Agency for 2 years, Freelance for about 5 in total.

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davemac8
My process is very similar. With 4) I charge a yearly maintenance/managed
service fee.

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hanniabu
How do you figure how much to charge? Do you give them x amount of hours a
year, use it or lose it? Or structure it some other way?

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marcofloriano
Hi, i´m a freelance web developer, small agency owner and instructor for six
years now. Here´s my experience:

How do you get clients? (Comes before How do you price projects) \- Usually
from connections from previous work. Any kind of work. I´m a instructor, for
example. Some student's ask for my work if they can´t do it. Or old clients
recommends my work. Friends usually indicates my work too. \- Internet
Marketing myself and my business on Google Adwords and SEO.

How do you price projects? \- That´s hard. Too many ways. None is the RIGHT
way, i think. Usually i charge R$75,00 to R$100,00 hour (like US$35.00/hour).
It´s even harder to predict how much time will be spent in a project.
Experience helps a lot here.

Do you buy WordPress template? \- Yes, for small projects or projects that
don´t demands much customization. \- No, for bigger projects (because i can
spend money with my team (i have a frontend designer, a backend coder and a
marketing assistant). For projects that´s demand too much customization
(startups, business ideas and like) it´s better to code your theme from
scratch.

How do you price SEO and maintenance? \- The client indicates his monthly
budget for the task (site maintenance, for example). My team works X hours
according to their budget and our hour rate.

~~~
botterra
Thank you for answer; Do you charge clients upfront or?

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brudgers
Your English is fine and learning is an important part of Hacker News.

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hanniabu
I agree, I would have never guess English wasn't your first language if you
didn't mention it.

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nilmonibasak
1\. For projects pricing time and your hourly rate. 2. Getting projects try
elance.com/freelancer.com/guru.com 3. Depending on your clients.

