Ask HN: How do you land the first online clients?

#1

Post by victorin » Mon, Aug 13, 2012, 9:48 PM UTC

Long story short, my girlfriend and me have been living in the US for the last year, but in a couple of months we'll move back to Spain.

I'll continue working on my current project, but my girlfriend will need to enter the labour market. Right now the unemployment rate in Spain is at 24.8% (53% for under 25), so I think our best bet is to set up her own company (like somebody said "when jobs are scarce, create your own" ).

She is a graphic designer so we have set up a website with two landing pages offering Logo and Business Card design services.

It is a crowded space, but I think it's not totally impossible to make a full spanish salary (around $1200/month) in the long term.

BEING SAID THAT, I'd like to ask for some methods to land the first clients that may worked for you in the past.

Although our budget is tiny, our initial approach is to start some adwords campaigns and keep optimizing landing pages and ad copies to see if we're able to reach a profitable cost-per-conversion.

The website for the new graphic design studio is http://mylidias.com

So, How do you land the first clients for your recently launched online service?

Re: Ask HN: How do you land the first online clients?

#2

Post by victorin » Mon, Aug 13, 2012, 9:56 PM UTC

Clickable link: http://mylidias.com/custom-business-card-design/

Re: Ask HN: How do you land the first online clients?

#3

Post by negrit » Mon, Aug 13, 2012, 10:07 PM UTC

I can't tell what but there is something wrong with the website may be the design.

You should may be display some sample on the home page. Also, you can try to go to/sponsor some local hackathons/startup weekends/... Those people might be your target.

Re: Ask HN: How do you land the first online clients?

#4

Post by andthejets » Mon, Aug 13, 2012, 10:45 PM UTC

Second on the website. I mean no offence, but the current design of the website would cause me to never hire your girlfriend. The logo font is pretty bad and the design is too wide. Make it really simple and responsive.

I'd recommend doing away with the categories that you design for and just include a page with sample work basically a portfolio.

If someone is looking for a graphic designer they are going to be turned off if your website looks pretty bad :( The logo also needs some work if you expect someone to pay you to design a logo.

Re: Ask HN: How do you land the first online clients?

#5

Post by victorin » Mon, Aug 13, 2012, 11:08 PM UTC

ok guys, got it

First of all we need to improve the website and corporate image, cause that's what we sell.

Re: Ask HN: How do you land the first online clients?

#6

Post by victorin » Mon, Aug 13, 2012, 11:09 PM UTC

andthejets wrote: post #4

Second on the website. I mean no offence, but the current design of the website would cause me to never hire your girlfriend. The logo font is pretty bad and the design is too wide. Make it really simple and responsive. I'd recommend doing away with the categories that you design for and just include a page with sample work basically a portfolio. If someone is looking for a graphic designer they are going to be turne…

I don't see why it's better to create a general portfolio app. Then what's the strategy to get new clients? I mean, the purpose of the categories is to have landing pages that rank on google and have good score for adwords

Re: Ask HN: How do you land the first online clients?

#7

Post by victorin » Mon, Aug 13, 2012, 11:33 PM UTC

andthejets wrote: post #4

Second on the website. I mean no offence, but the current design of the website would cause me to never hire your girlfriend. The logo font is pretty bad and the design is too wide. Make it really simple and responsive. I'd recommend doing away with the categories that you design for and just include a page with sample work basically a portfolio. If someone is looking for a graphic designer they are going to be turne…

Another problem is that we have no portfolio yet because we're starting.

We could solve that participating on some logo contest on 99designs

Re: Ask HN: How do you land the first online clients?

#8

Post by freshfey » Tue, Aug 14, 2012, 11:31 AM UTC

Check out http://jobs.freelanceswitch.com/ - for around 7$/month you can apply for jobs even if you're not US-based. There are some Graphic design jobs your girlfriend could apply to.

In the beginning use sites like these and your personal contacts to get a few jobs. Adwords seems not really fitting for your budget at least in the beginning! Good luck.

Re: Ask HN: How do you land the first online clients?

#9

Post by victorin » Tue, Aug 14, 2012, 1:13 PM UTC

freshfey wrote: post #8

Check out http://jobs.freelanceswitch.com/ - for around 7$/month you can apply for jobs even if you're not US-based. There are some Graphic design jobs your girlfriend could apply to. In the beginning use sites like these and your personal contacts to get a few jobs. Adwords seems not really fitting for your budget at least in the beginning! Good luck.

Thx, freelanceswitch.com looks awesome, it has plenty of jobs she could apply for. We'll start there for sure

Re: Ask HN: How do you land the first online clients?

#10

Post by andthejets » Tue, Aug 14, 2012, 7:59 PM UTC

victorin wrote: post #6

andthejets wrote: post #4

Second on the website. I mean no offence, but the current design of the website would cause me to never hire your girlfriend. The logo font is pretty bad and the design is too wide. Make it really simple and responsive. I'd recommend doing away with the categories that you design for and just include a page with sample work basically a portfolio. If someone is looking for a graphic designer they are going to be turne…

I don't see why it's better to create a general portfolio app. Then what's the strategy to get new clients? I mean, the purpose of the categories is to have landing pages that rank on google and have good score for adwords

I get that but maybe put those keywords as examples of things you do. I'd imagine you want to take any design work possible so at least make sure you have an easy process to make inquiries. Also your pages are basically the same which just strikes me as kind of weird.