How to write contracts for web design and web development projects

Being your own brand

Being an artist is more than just learning how to use software and hardware. Your reputation and professionalism are the primary way you'll get clients. When the people who know you, have a lot of positive things to say about you, you'll get a lot of referrals and freelance jobs. So make sure you take the time to nurture and develop your own brand. My freelance company is called Pixel Prowess. When I chose my name for my company, I wanted something that could encompass all of my capabilities, not just web design, so I thought that Planetoftheweb, although a great name, wouldn't work if I decided to do print or photography projects; PixelProwess is a much broader brand.

Finding Clients

The easiest way to find clients should be obvious to you. Since you are a web designer, the best way to find clients is to build a web site. The unfortunate fact is that most freelancers don't have a lot of time to build a good portfolio site because that would take time away from the time they have to work with clients.

Unless you plan to do this full time, a portfolio can be simple and client focused. A page with screenshots with links to the sites you've worked on is sufficient. Any portfolio that has samples of work you've done for real clients is more powerful than anything else. The work will speak for itself. I'm not saying that you shouldn't have a great looking page, just that people will pay more attention to the work you've done for others than to your own page. They will look for experience in fields that relate to their own needs.

Update Often

A portfolio should be updated constantly, whenever you have new content. As your talent improves over time you'll find that what appeared to be cutting-edge design should be put to shame by your newer projects.

Link back to your site

Don't forget to link back to your site from every client project. It's a great way to get referrals...if someone likes the job you've done for someone else, chances are they will go to your website and contact you about doing work for them.

Have a contact page on your site

This seems obvious, but people need to know how to get a hold of you. You need to have an contact us form so that people can get a hold of you. I would advise against putting your email address online because many spiders scour the web for emails they can send spam to. A Simple form forwarded to an email address will do.

Making a Good Analysis

Once you've found a client, the first step is to determine the client's needs. You will most likely not be extremely familiar with a client's business, so talk to the client and find out as much information about your potential client's business.

One of the best ways to prepare a quote is by figuring out the size of the site, so you need to determine the site through meeting and speaking to the client about their needs.

Research your client online and find out who his competition is. If the client already has a website, take a look at it's current structure and see where you can make improvements. Find out if they're listed under the Google Local Business Center. If they have analytics, try to find out if they know some of their metrics. This shows your client that you're a professional and can really help them more than just create a website, but also market them online.

The Site Map

Before you prepare a quote, a site map will help you figure out what your site needs will look like. It will also help you with pricing. I like to use an outlining tool like bubbl.us to create site maps. It's a flash based outlining tool that is easy to use and allows you to export your site maps as PNGs, which you can then place in your word processor. The other advantage is that any site maps you create are saved, so you can always refer back to them.

Preparing a Quote

A formal quote is an important agreement that helps the client understand their responsibilities as well as define your limits and expectations. I like to use Google Docs to create proposal quotes because it allows you to store them in central location that you have access from anywhere. It also gives you tools to export the document as a PDF and import graphics (like the site map). You can easily look through the previous quotes and duplicate an existing quote for use as a template for another client.

Zenful Creations put together a great webiste design contract template. It's a good starting point that needs to be customized to your needs. I use the following sections with my own version to generate my proposals.

Description of Work

This is a short Summary describing what the parameters of the job are. Just a paragraph summary of what you were hired to do. It's good to start off on the same page here. Talk about wether you're offering hosting, if there are maintenance feeds, etc.

Confidentiality

To put clients at ease, let them know that the information that you share with the client and that the client shares with you wont be shared with other unless agreed to by both parties.

Recommendations

This is where you place your site map, talk about your research and speak about general features. You might be creating some custom programs that need to be explained here. Talk about each page or section of your sitemap and explain what that section will need.

Rates

Describes what you're goint to charge here. Read my article on What to Charge for a Freelance Job. For a website project, I estimate my time, but figuring out how many pages the site will need and multiplying it by your page rate.

Page Rate

The page rate is simply how much you charge for every page that gets made. I don't usually have a separate design and setup fee, I just fold everything into my page rate. Some pages will take very little time to create and some will take a long time, so your page rate needs to account for that. Figure that every page will take between 30 minutes to an hour to create.

Hourly Rates

Mention that the quote above is for the items discussed on this proposal. Anything that is not included in the proposal will be charged at your hourly rate, which you'll state in this section.

Monthly Maintenance Fee

If the site will require an ongoing relationship between you and the client, then figure out a rate to charge for that. State how many hours the rate includes so the client understands that there's a limit to the amount of contact that is included with their plan. This will prevent the client from assuming that you're at their beck and call 24/7 for as much time as they want. Make sure you also list what this time covers. If you plan to charge extra for certain types of work, then state so here. A monthly maintenance fee/hosting fee is a great way to get some ongoing monthly revenue.

Deposit

I require a 50% deposit of the quoted amount to get started. This is standard business practice for designers. Don't ever under any circumstances whatsoever for family, best friends, girlfriends or favors ever EVER ever do a job without a deposit. If you do, it's just a matter of time before you get burned. Trust me, it's happened to every freelancer. A deposit is a way of having the client make a commitment to you. Wedding photographers, for example won't show up to your wedding unless their fee is prepaid by the wedding date.

Monthly Billing

If there is to be maintenance/monthly fees, make sure you talk about when the bills are due, when the bills are overdue and include a penalty for overdue bills. A 15-20% late fee is standard. This will encourage folks to send their payment on time. Also mention what would happen if you don't receive payment for an extended period of time. The site should come down if that happens.

Due Dates

It's important that you set up some due dates for your work. Set up a due date for the first mockups and make sure you include that work will begin after the receipt of the deposit. Estimate the completion of the rest of the items described in the site map. This will show you are serious about the work and sets up expectations for you and the client.

Make sure you mention that the times quoted are dependent on how quickly you receive all assets from the client and that failure to submit required information or assets will delay the timeframe of the delivered of the final work.

Staging your sites

It's really important to have control of all of the pages, scripts and assets you generate for your site. For that reason, you should keep all of the work on your own servers until you've received payment from the client. Create a subdomain on your site that is password protected so that only the client will have access to the page you're designing for him. Once you receive the second half of the deposit, then you can either move the pages to their servers or modify your server so that the domain points to the appropriate folder.

Copyright Notice

It's important to protect yourself in regards to intellectual rights. This is a statement that all of the copyrights to the designs and pages generated by you remain in your possession until all of the payments for the completion of the site are received. All copyrights to programming or software created by you should remain in your possession. You should grant the client a license so that he can copy, modify and redistribute code created by you. They are not allowed to sell the software you've developed. This will make sure that your client doesn't assume the rights to all of your programming, but is free to use it and make changes in the future should your contract end.

Termination

All good things come to an end, so make sure you have a section that talks about how many days of written notice are required for a cancellation (usually 30 days). If the client cancels the job, you should specify that you'll have the right to bill for the amount of work you have finished. You may choose to refund or not refund the deposit.

Online Business Software

The easiest way to receive payments online is through a company like PayPal. By creating a PayPal account, you can receive payments via an email address that you set up with them.

You can also set up automated bills through Freshbooks, which also allows you to send your clients a physical snailmail bill. The way it works is that you set up a postage. If you have a client that requires monthly billing an automated setup can help you bill them consistently without you having to worry about it.

Setting up your business

Consider creating your own business. It will allow you to have a separate bank account for your business which will simplify the way you prepare your taxes and will make you look more official. There's a few things you need to do and you can do a lot of it online.

Ficticious Name Document

First, In Florida and other states to officially do business as a name, you'll need to file a ficticious name letter with the Florida Department of State or other state authority. It has to be renewed every five years for a small fee. You'll need this in order to create a bank account and for other things.

Business License

Next, you'll need to go to your county and or city and apply for a business license. I live in Volusia County, so I would apply with them; you'll also need to check with your city to see if they require a city license. You'll need to have completed the ficticious name letter and received a reply from the state. You'll also need to consult a bit with the government folks about your business to make sure you can operate a business from your home, which is normally fine for graphic designers and some photographers. You'll need to fill out a small form and pay an annual fee to continue to operate your business. You can also find out from them if your business needs to pay taxes for web design or development. Most states don't require you to charge sales tax for services, but some do.

Bank Account

Your next step is to create a business bank account. Shop around because the different fees will vary. If you can, look for a way to tie your business account with your other accounts so that it's easier to move money from your business to your personal accounts when needed.

You might want to look into an online bank manager tool like Mint. They keep track of all of your accounts which allow you to do searches for different expenses that might help you during tax time.