Every web designer has slow times now and then, where clients are just not coming in and the emails start to drop each day. I was in this stage about a month ago and in this post I am going to explain how I got out of this funk and finally turned the tide and landed some new clients.

There were a couple of tools I used and below I am going to mention each tool and how I used that tool to land some clients. Ok well here we go…

eBay

I never really considered using eBay to sell my design services because all I really thought of when using eBay was there auction format. However once you start to dig around eBay a little more you will notice that they have a format called “Classified Ad”. A classified ad does just what its name suggests, its a classified ad. How it works is you pay 10$ and you get a 30 day listing on an category you would like. I always post my services in this category series “Specialty Services > Web & Computer Services,Web Design“. I have found that if you have a good looking ad layout and you word your ad right you can easily turn viewers into clients. I usually got about 2-3 clients per listing, so that easily pays the 10$ listing price right back.

Craigslist/Gumtree

What? You can’t use craigslist to find clients! Says who? Have you ever noticed that little link on the right side of the page that says “web/info design“ if you have never clicked it, go ahead and click it now. You will see that there are about 1-2 jobs posted each day for each town. Just because you live in Cincinnati doesn’t mean you cant use the Atlanta craigslist, most of the jobs posted on there are nation wide. If you want to visit a different towns “web/info design” page then just go up to the url bar and change the http://cincinnati.craigslist.org/web/ address to http://atlanta.craigslist.org/web/ and there you go you are taken right to the other towns web site. In the past month I have landed about 3-4 clients just from this page.

Forums

If you have ever been a member of a online web designer forum you will most likely see that the forum will have some type of “Looking to hire” forum. For an example of this type of forum visit http://www.webdesignerforum.co.uk/index.php?showforum=82. You have to know that competition will most likely be pretty fierce, but if you have a good looking portfolio and good communication skills you can get a few clients from this type of online forum. So go ahead and register on a few forums but be careful because most forums have a certain post limit that you must reach before you can inquire for a job.

99Designs

Now I don’t recommend this option over any of the others just because if you do a whole design you are not necessarily going to get paid for all that work. This site is a online competition site which means that clients post there ads of what they want and a lot of different designers post there drafts on to the site and the client picks which ever design they want. Now this form of gaining clients is a lot harder than the other three because you are going against a ton of different styles and abilities, but if your skills are good enough and you are hungering for clients you could do very well on this site. Check them out at http://www.99designs.com.

Strategic Partnerships

Now I never really though of this until it was brought up in a comment below by Wizely. However, its a really good idea! The basic idea behind it is look for partnerships that are going to get you business. So maybe go to Google and type in “Copywriters”, and then email some company’s and propose a deal to them. For example tell them that for any emails they get looking for web design they will forward that client to you, and in exchange any emails you get looking for SEO or Copywritting you will forward those emails to them. Its a good way to land new clients and to also make friends and networks around the internet.

These are just a few of the very many ways to get clients online. Do you have a couple of different ways that I didn’t post? If so then just leave me a comment and I will post your technique along with a link to your site. Also if you like the post then please Digg it using the button right below! Thanks