Tag Archive for: Experiment

Ever wondered how people calculate what they are worth, per hour, or per job?

Due to being asked about why I charge $88 per hour (minimum 3 hour blocks), I thought it would be interesting to ‘investigate’ and finally answer this question.

OK, let’s get to it.

First up, I’d like to say that I’m not the highest paid WordPress Professional. There are many freelancers like me, that took it upon themselves to build their own name / brand, instead of working for another company, for a lot less money – resulting in more hours needed to work for the same money.

In the beginning, it is hard – no doubt. YOU need to chase work, often working many more hours for roughly the same money you’d earn working as an employee – or less!

The best advice I could give you (if you’re deciding to go down the freelancer road), is to have a willing partner who can see and understand what you are ‘trying’ to do, and support you, both morally and financially. My Mrs is the best.

My hourly rate has not changed in about 3 years. As of January 1, 2019, I am actually increasing it to $100 per hour (minimum 4 hour blocks).

Demand for my ‘skills’ are increasing due to the fact that more websites are being built with the WordPress Platform, both privately (blogs) and Business Websites, both static and eCommerce.

Being skilled in numerous coding languages is an obvious benefit. I learned basic HTML, CSS and JavaScript about 20 years ago, and followed this up with with PHP and SQL a few years later. I’m also quite ‘fluent’ in JQuery, JAVA, Ruby and Python to a lesser extent. There are pro’s and con’s with all languages. Some developers will absolutely love one code, and hate another, but in reality, they ‘can’ work together if you know how to implement properly.

Obviously, the deeper the understanding of ‘how’ the WordPress Platform works, the better.

To be a successful WordPress freelancer, you also need to know about a large number of plugins, how they ‘work’ and how to customize them, if need be. With new plugins being released every day, and existing plugins being updated regularly, there is a lot of work you need to do to stay on top of the game. BUT, if you enjoy it, it’s not a problem.

Right, the nitty-gritty of this post – MONEY.

There are websites that will give you an idea of what current rates are for freelancers, such as Hello Bonsai. Hello Bonsai gives you some options to choose from, see below.

As you can see, I’m actually on the lower end of what the going rates are. I believe (although cannot be certain), if you’re paying $140+ per hour, you are probably also paying for graphics etc. Personally, I just stick to what I do best – WordPress.

Is there a ‘demand’ for work at $120 per hour? Absolutely. BUT, as I’ve stated above, knowledge of various coding types and plugin (customization) is a must. My rate incorporates the knowledge and understanding of numerous coding types and plugin development, allowing me to do the work of, lets say 3 or 4 people. If you were to go to a Web Dev company offering what I can do, your website will cost you $200+ per hour. On that basis alone, I’m cheap.

Don’t get me wrong, sometimes I do get stuck on something, but it’s easy for me to pick up the phone, send an email or get onto a forum to help me solve a ‘problem’. That’s on me.

Instead of just taking my word for it, visit wpmudev to find out more of what I’ve screen-grabbed below, about Pricing Your Services.

If you visited this blog because you found it via Google etc, thanks for visiting.

There are lots of resources out there that allow you to judge what you should charge / pay (if you’re a client). Some people may have differing opinions on how to charge, and that’s fine. I haven’t been short of work for a long time, so I guess I’m doing something right?

Again, everyone will have their own ways to calculate their worth, with regards to WordPress freelancing. If you are just starting out, may I suggest that you work for an organisation for a few years to gain more of an insight into the industry, and gain some contacts. I did it the hard way, which isn’t bad, but at least I can offer the advice now.

For the record, I am contacted by at least a dozen people each week, wanting to know if I can help them. I can, but I’m up front about what I charge, and they say no thanks. It’s interesting to note, that some people have gone off and had work done by others, only to ‘come back’ when their website ‘breaks’. Sometimes I’ll help them, most time, I say no.

When you can choose who you work with, you know you’ve done something right. Word of mouth in this industry is supreme.

If you are looking at getting into this line of work, I wish you well, and if you require further help, please get in touch. If you came hear to read my thoughts and find out about how and why I charge what I do, I hope you now understand.

Like always, if you have a question, contact me.

So, you were wondering what WordPress is. Let’s find out.

OK, Wikipedia describes it best (?), so here – ‘WordPress is a free and open-source content management system (CMS) based on PHP and MySQL. Features include a plugin architecture and a template system. It is most associated with blogging, but supports other types of web content including more traditional mailing lists and forums, media galleries, and online stores. Used by more than 60 million websites, including 30.6% of the top 10 million websites as of April 2018, WordPress is the most popular website management system in use. WordPress has also been used for other application domains such as pervasive display systems (PDS).’

You might still be thinking, Um ok, so what is WordPress?

Put simply, WordPress was originally used as a blogging platform, which after years of development (still ongoing really), allowed people, like me, to develop websites for personal use, as well as design, develop and build business websites – from a simple ‘this is me, this is what I do and I’m located here, so click here to contact me’, to a fully functioning eCommerce website allowing businesses to sell products and services online.

What WordPress allows any user to do, is almost limitless.

If you’re interested in setting up a ‘family’ website (for example), showing off some family photos you’ve posted on Instagram, and writing a blog post about work you’ve done on your house, or you may want to write about your holiday, it’s just so easy. Done right, you can set up affiliate links throughout your posts, advertise a friends’ business or use Google AdSense to earn revenue – even if it just pays for the website and hosting.

There are some drawbacks to operating a WordPress website.

Now, these drawbacks have nothing to do with WordPress itself. It has to do with people being cheap – paying for cheap hosting, using slow themes, as well as starting a project, thinking that it will be easy and the moment it seems too hard, people call it quits.

It’s not expensive to contact someone like me to help you through the initial setup phase. I can also teach you how to update your website themes and plugins, and guide you through to self management.

WordPress is not necessarily easy to navigate, but at the same time, you don’t need to be a rocket scientist to manage your own WordPress website.

Given the popularity of the platform, its’ usage will only grow bigger, and the need for more WordPress Professionals will also increase. You never know, you too, may find it as interesting as I do, and make a pretty good living from working your own hours, building and maintaining websites for others

Any questions? Like usual, Contact Me.

 

Earlier this year, I decided to set up a couple of eCommerce websites, acting purely as an affiliate partner with Amazon.

My intention with the websites, was to write a post about how successful (or not) the websites would be, using limited resources. The websites sold baby products and clothing.

There were certain restrictions on what I could do, such as;

  1. All the plugins I was to use had to be FREE through the WordPress repository
  2. The themes I used had to be FREE through the WordPress repository
  3. Setup could not take more than 6 hours per website

I deliberately broke Amazons T&C’s. I won’t get into their terms here though.

The clothing shops made no money, and did not even rank after doing a small amount of meta/seo work.

The baby shop earned just under USD$5000 in sales over a two week period – after being indexed only for a few days.

There were 17,000 baby products available (just prior to Amazon cancelling the affiliate). The products were automatically being added via a bot at a rate of about 10 an hour, and due to the website being constantly updated via this process, Google considered it an active site, content was relevant to the domain and meta tags, which boosted the SEO.

The point I was (trying) to prove, is that making an eCommerce site can be done, quickly without costing much.

How much would the site be making today if I hadn’t breached Amazons terms? I don’t know, but I assume it would be in excess of $20k per month in sales – not profit. As an affiliate partner, you would expect around 3-5%.

Just quickly, the reason I breached the terms, was due to the site being solely product based. I did not provide any blog posts, or review the products available. Amazons terms are rather strict, and from the sales I generated, I did not get paid due to the breach. That’s ok, it was only a test.

Using WordPress CAN make you a semi-passive income. I say semi-passive, because there are rules you need to abide by (such as Amazons). If you like writing reviews, or if your website is of a certain niche, register as an affiliate that is relevant to you. Why not make some $$$ from people clicking onto some links?

Do you have a question for me? Send me an email.