Getting Started as a Freelance Web Consultant

January 25, 2008

A Web consultant is more than just a designer or writer. You need to be someone who understands what it takes to help businesses get established and succeed online. You’ll be helping clients navigate a constantly changing river of options.

Web consulting is the intersection of design, writing, ecommerce, and usability.

So, how do you get started in this lucrative field?

You’ll market yourself to businesses that are eager to move to the next level online. Maybe a local retail outlet is eager to start selling nationally. Or a local attorney wants to establish himself as an expert in tax law.

Your job is to seek and find those businesses and individuals who are eager to fully exploit the Web. This will be a tight niche but will allow you to market nationally as well as internationally.

Small businesses may have ideas about where to go with their Websites—getting started will be their sticking point.

Want to know a secret? Selling on the Web isn’t hard but can be complicated for even the savviest computer user. If you can learn this process thoroughly, you will become a highly regarded Web merchant consultant.

What will you be doing?

Examples include…

1. Performing a keyword analysis for a site to determine which keywords are the best to target in search engines and search marketing campaigns.

2. Writing and submitting press releases to online news sources.

3. Writing and submitting articles to established article directories.

4. Seeking, requesting, and getting links from highly relevant Websites.

5. Recommending design changes to better position product and service sales.

How much can you charge?

The price range for these types of services are all over the map. The key is to put together service packages and charge a single, one-time fee for each.

Examples of service packages include…

Package 1: Site promotion consulting package Cost: $300
Includes a Website review to go over the best way to create resources that will bring traffic and natural linking. Includes a discussion about testomonies, blogging, databased resources, how-to’s, forum posting, and networking with other companies and Websites within the client’s market.

Package 2: Site Checkup Consulting $500
Check for bad SEO practices, check pages for optimization (keyword in URL, Title tag, Meta description, Meta keyword, h1/h2 tags, bold in the first paragraph), check sitemap (do you have one, does it have to many links, or is it to large file size), submitting xml 0.9 sitemap, etc.

Growing a Web consulting business will take time. Bad consultants, using “guaranteed results” sales pitches have given the industry a bad name.

If you can setup a well positioned service and establish efficient operating procedures, you should be able to make a comfortable living.

Tags: web consulting, start a web business, web consulting business