How to handle web design hosting?

Question

I'm very new to web development, it's something I'm trying to learn myself with addition of online courses so I hope I'm not insulting anyone with my questions.

my questions were considered to broad so I'll give this a new attempt and hope I get it right this time. If you're not sure what you're asking it's difficult to narrow it down.

What's the best option: asking your client to purchase the domain and hosting or get it yourself? I've already received a great answer on letting your client deal with that part, thank you very much for this answer! But what if you have someone who really doesn't know how to do any of this and I end up purchasing the domain and hosting, is there a way to transfer both so the client ends up paying the monthly/yearly fee instead of me? If so, how is this done?

It's a bit early in the game for me but I'd still like to know. When you and your to be client decide on working together I guess you make up a purchase agreement(probably the wrong word but not sure about an alternative) of some sort. As I don't think it's the same with something like buying a fridge, what should be present in the agreement?

All the info and courses I follow are all about html, css,... But they don't explain how to actually bring the website together so I'm a bit lost in this part, I hope I was able to narrow it down a bit compared to my previous question.

Answer 1

If you provide the service, you can potentially charge for it, so it's a great way to keep a small income coming in regularly if you have many clients. But you also have to deal with potential technical issues and renewals (and trust me, you don't want to mess renewals up). I think it's an interesting option if all you do is freelance web design and you're able to streamline the billing for this and make it fit into a routine schedule.

In my case, I do a bit of everything (print, teaching, web) so I'd rather not bother with that stuff as it would only show up occasionally. I usually just pinpoint my client to a host that suits their needs, advise them on which package to get, which they get themselves and then send me the information so I can do whatever needs to be done. But I don't need to remember to bill them for anything on a monthly/yearly basis.

Answer 2

The first thing I think you have to ask is how good are you at the job?

I first started on what was a really hard project for a global band, the website's still going now, the code was / is horrible! I don't have to do much to it now but I had to quote this job based not on how much time I'd spend on it but how much I thought it was worth, and what another company might charge.

Obviously I spent vastly more hours learning on the job and the payment per hour was really really bad at the end... but I now run a pretty successful design / web business.

My point is be prepared to work for a bit less to get yourself a portfolio. Get a good one and work extra hard to make sure you deliver a result that's as good (or as close to) what you find online. You'll take a hit on your hourly wage for the first few projects but then you'll get on your feet.

My final bit of advice (and this isn't for everyone). If you can charge hourly IMO it's the best way to go. This way the client can ask for as many changes as possible but you're still getting paid (this model only works if you know how to code). Otherwise make sure you make a good proposal detailing exactly what it is you're going to do for you client. If you're asked for more, refer back to your proposal.

Good luck - if you work hard I think there's still a lot of scope for work in websites, design etc :)