Last updated on November 21st, 2022
Freelance graphic designing is one of the industries showing upward growth. It gives freelance designers the freedom to work on their own terms, get hired, get projects, and earn more. But sometimes, it puts a bitter taste in their mouth. It’s because the majority of them fail to get frequent work opportunities. What could be the reason for that? Let’s understand it and uncover the mantra for earning more on Designhill.
Success comes to those who work for it. Day-dreamers, however, achieve nothing but a hollow concept clouding their mind and later on their career. Working from home is fast becoming a fad. In 2018, 56.7 million American people worked as freelancers. The number is growing. There are many platforms out there that are nurturing the concept of freelance designing.
Designhill is one of those platforms. The site could be your first step into the universe of freelancing. The platform not only empowers designers but also helps businesses find quality work to meet their creative demand.
Of late, the site organized a free webinar on — “How to Earn Money from Designhill” on June 26, 2019. In this 1.5-hour-long webinar, the guest speaker Mr Rahul Aggarwal explained “how to get hired and earn more on Designhill”. Mr Aggarwal is a co-founder of Designhill and a profound entrepreneur who visions to evolve the design industry through the introduction of the latest technology. Having over a decade of industry expertise in diverse fields, he aims to provide massive employment to young creative minds through Designhill.
Mr Aggarwal explained how getting hired on Designhill is so easy. Designers who require a freelance job to work from the comfort of their home need not go anywhere. While answering the questions from attendees, the speaker shared the success mantra to earn more.
Check Out The Webinar Video
Here Are Some Important Excerpts From A Particular Section Of The Webinar
The first question that a designer comes across is — “how to showcase your work and get hired?” Many people even keep asking this over and over again. So, here is the answer.
01. Take Graphic Design Gallery Page Seriously
What we have seen at Designhill is that designers hardly visit the Graphic Design Gallery Page. It’s the main page on a website that attracts massive traffic. This is the section where every personal design that you upload in your portfolio is vetted and approved. Later on, each vetted design gets added to the design gallery.
It’s a very crucial page not only for making money but also to be a part of the community. Here, you can also see what other designers are creating. You can check their quality, and comment on their designs. You can see people liking their designs and many more.
The good thing about being in a community is that you can showcase your work, exchange ideas, get inspired, and even get hired!
Why is the design gallery so important? It’s because every month we get more than 60, 000 customers who visit this page while looking for graphic designs.
Keep updating your designs regularly on your portfolio. It makes you get discovered. You can attract customers who may visit your portfolio through Design Gallery Page. And, who knows if they would hire you!
From our side, we make an effort to send traffic to the Design Gallery Page. Look at our homepage from the client’s perspective. The first thing a client sees is a link to this page. So what we do is we redirect the customers who come from other places to this page. They can visit the design gallery page and can discover your work.
So what does it mean? It means that the designs that you upload to the design gallery page have a ‘Hire Me’ button on every page. Also, the page includes your name and a like icon. Customers can hire you and discover your work right from there.
02. Create And Update Your Portfolio
When the customers visit a designer’s portfolio, you don’t only get appreciation but also catch the eyes of the customers. They can communicate with you and hire you. As you can see, we have -Hire Me – and other call-to-action buttons strategically placed so that customers can reach you in no time. But for that, you need to update your portfolio regularly.
The traffic that we are driving today to Designhill can come to your portfolio or your profile page. And, we want customers to discover you and hire you.
When you go through the website, you find a Get Started Button on every page. We promptly provide call-to-actions which say ‘Start a Project’. This button will also take them to the design gallery page.
Here again, we have a button — Hire A Designer. Our focus at Designhill is to get you hired. Not only for contests, but also clients can hire you for some other projects. Here is the catch – upload more designs to your portfolio. You need to showcase your skills. The moment your designs are verified, it gets listed on the Design Gallery Page.
When customers come to your Portfolio, there they also find a button with the name — Hire a Designer. Customers can see your portfolio and hire you instantly. It’s simple as that.
03. List Your Services On Design Services Page
We also drive traffic to our Design Services Page. Here, you can set prices for the services you provide. It also gives you the flexibility to set your own terms. Everything is simple. But you can do all this if your profile looks good. If your profile doesn’t look right, no matter how much traffic we drive to your profile, the customers won’t be able to hire you.
Here are some simple steps to make your profile outstanding. Look at each of the sections while creating your profile.
There are six steps for a designer to cover in his/her portfolio—
i. The Profile Cover
ii. Avatar Image
iii. About Section
iv. Portfolio
v. Gigs and Services
vi. Testimonials
i. Profile Cover
It’s a horizontal banner or image on the top of your profile page. This is the first thing that any client notices about your profile. So, be creative with your profile cover. Use it as a canvas to your skills because this is where you put your first impression on customers. And, as you all know, the first impression is the last impression. Have a professional profile cover. Add illustration, slogan and tagline to make it even more attractive.
ii. Avatar Image
It’s your visual identity. You can add a professional photo, a branded illustration or logo. But don’t add personalized images or simple icons. It’s because they don’t really stand out and they don’t make you look professional. It’s essential that you look professional when customers visit your profile. So having a professional photo is something that you must keep in mind.
iii. About Section
It’s really essential as it helps the customers understand your experiences, your expertise, which will instantly help build trust. What we have noticed is that more professional your profile is the more you grab the attention of the client and heighten your chances to get hired.
It’s not a coincidence that a lot of designers that Designhill has today they get many one-to-one projects; they get many invites for contests, and projects. It’s because they have a professional profile.
iv. Portfolio
A portfolio is an essential part of a designer’s identity. It’s where you showcase your skills, experience, and expertise. Don’t take it lightly. Add your designs, display your creativity, and let people know what kind of designer you are.
Some of the other points to consider are to be consistent. Don’t just create a portfolio and forget it. Post your designs regularly. If you are a branding designer, showcase your logo designs, brochure designs, business card designs and more.
If you’re a t-shirt illustration designer add your creative designs. Make sure to crop the images properly. Most of the time, what happens is people get lazy.
They don’t crop their images, which puts customers in confusion. Customers aren’t able to understand what kind of design is that. Don’t be like that.
v. Gigs And Services
It’s where we try our best to push customers to. We send traffic to these pages. But again, it’s upon you, how you are going to leverage that traffic. If you create a gig or service, it will be listed on your profile. The best we can do as a leading graphic design platform is to send the customer to your profile through the design gallery and different call to action buttons. But at the end of the day, if you don’t list your services, you don’t get hired. Conversion rates are faster in this section, so don’t skip it.
Listing your designs or services will help you convert more customers and on a faster scale. The services include pricing information, turnaround time, and details.
vi. Testimonials
For every designer communicating well with the client is of utmost importance. Designhill is a platform that gets traffic majorly from the US, Canada, UK, and Australia, and it’s imperative that your communication skills are excellent.
If you look at the best designers on the platform, their communication is excellent. They understand the client’s requirement thoroughly and communicate well. That’s one of the many reasons why they get hired; they win more contests and get one-to-one projects based on excellent communication skills.
Besides, a good designer also gets ratings. It helps not only in attracting and converting clients but also helps in winning the contests. Focus on getting good testimonials from the clients you work for. Don’t rush them into completing a project or contest handover.
Focus on providing the exact solution they need. Understand their needs best. It will help you get a good testimonial from them. And trust us! It really helps.
When you come across a client’s design brief, always pay close attention to it.
Consider these four rules that will help you come up with the exact solution they need —
a. Read the design brief carefully.
b. Check for reference image or attachment.
c. Breakdown the description and understand it well.
d. Focus on quality, not quantity.
Conclusion
As a designer, you need to pay attention to every detail that might create an interest in a customer. These may include portfolio, profile cover, avatar, about, gigs & services, and testimonial. Skipping any detail which you think is very common may obstruct the clients to discover you. If you want to earn more, follow the simple mantra Mr Aggrawal provided you in here.
Have happy designing!