Freelance Web Design Jobs For Beginners

Are you skilled with web design and development? Whether you’re a hobbyist looking to market your skills or a full-time webmaster looking to branch out into freelance work, this post will help you get started right.

We’ll look at 8 ideas for freelance web design jobs for beginners that you can use to find your first clients fast. These are meant to go beyond the obvious offer to “build a new website”, instead narrowing down on more specific needs of specific clientele.

#1 Make Old Sites Mobile-Friendly

The internet has changed a lot over the past few decades. But that doesn’t mean Joe Plumber’s website from 1996 changed with it.

There are TONS of old websites out there that need to be brought up to modern standards. They were designed in an age when the average person didn’t have a computer in their back pocket. Ever since Google moved to a mobile-first index, it’s become more and more important for every website to be mobile-friendly.

If you are looking for freelance web design jobs for beginners, this is the perfect place to start. Offer to update old websites to be fully responsive. It will do more than improve the user experience; it might even help their rankings increase as well.

#2 Optimize Page Load Speed

A vast sea of drag-and-drop page builders have made web design easier than ever for people who are otherwise not very tech savvy. While this might reduce their barrier to entry, it does mean that there are plenty of websites out there that aren’t built with the fundamentals in mind.

Their images are bloated. They have a ton of useless plugins installed. And their site is riddled with inefficient code. The end result is slow load times that scare visitors away before the page even opens up.

But it’s also an opportunity for you to offer a simple, easy service that could be the start of a much longer relationship.

#3 Convert Websites to WordPress

A lot of bloggers, business owners, and entrepreneurs get started with platforms like Wix or Weebly because of how easy they are to dive into. But down the line, they realize the limitations when it comes to customization and SEO.

There’s a reason that about 35% of the internet is powered by WordPress. But converting an existing site to a new platform isn’t easy for a layperson. You could help make it a lot easier, and maybe land a long term web maintenance job out of the deal as well.

#4 Audit User Experience

If you are into web design, you probably know a little something about user experience (UX). Probably more than your ideal client does, too.

UX audits are the perfect tripwire offer. You can sell them for a price so low that it’s hard to say no to. And even if they aren’t directly profitable to you, a lot of clients will hire you for follow-******* to fix the problems identified in the audit.

#5 Implement E-Commerce Solutions

E-commerce sales are expected to double between now and 2024, which means more and more websites will be looking for ways to sell their wares securely online.

Whether these are brick-and-mortar stores looking to venture into online retail or popular bloggers who want to move into sales, you could be the bridge carries them to success.

Be prepared to find a wide range of customized solutions for these clients. Some may want a completely new site built on a platform like Shopify. Others may want you to integrate a plugin like WooCommerce into their existing WordPress site. Regardless of their specific needs, they’ll all be looking for you to ensure that they can capture payments and track inventory in a manner that is secure, efficient, and scalable.

#6 Design Lead Gen Sites

If you are into the internet marketing world at all, you may know about the practice of lead generation. Simply put, it involves creating a website to capture leads for a service, such as plumbing or roofing. These leads are then sold to a service provider who can fulfill the desired work. HomeAdvisor is an example of lead generation extended to a very large scale.

It’s a popular business model because once it’s all up and running, the income stream for the website owner is fairly passive. While some people in this business like to design the websites themselves, there are also plenty who are happy to hire people like you looking for freelance web design jobs for beginners.

#7 Design Affiliate Blogs

Another popular type of passive income site is an affiliate blog. These sites typically revolve around offering detailed product reviews. When a visitor uses one of the writer’s links to order a product, the writer earns a small commission on the sale.

Some people in this business like to focus all of their energy on the writing and research, which presents a good opportunity for web designers like you. Often, once people find success in affiliate marketing, it’s not uncommon for them to create dozens of sites (or more). So if you can do the job well and find the right client, you could rack up a good deal of repeat business.

#8 Design ClickFunnels Pages

ClickFunnels is a landing page builder very popular among internet entrepreneurs for creating conversion-optimized sales funnels without the need for any technical knowledge. But that doesn’t mean that everyone who recognizes the power of ClickFunnels wants to do their own web design.

And because ClickFunnels has such a strong affiliate program, you have even more opportunity to snowball your success. If a ClickFunnels affiliate likes the work you’ve done with their pages, you can bet they are going to refer you to anyone who they are marketing the platform to.

There are plenty of ClickFunnels alternatives out there that you could learn as well, such as LeadPages and Unbounce. The wider you can cast your net, the more fish you’ll be able to catch.

Get Your Freelance Web Design Career Started Right

These are just 8 laser-focused freelance web design jobs for beginners. We are sure you can come up with plenty of others on your own.

The trick is to offer a service that fulfills a very specific need for a very specific type of client. This will help you speak to them more directly and make it clear that you have what it takes to solve their problems.

You can get started today by creating your first service on Legiit. We offer a secure freelance marketplace that partners high quality talent like you with the clients who need your skills to get more work done.