6) Content
Perhaps you think you are going to need to come up with some clever lies to convince your user to work with you. Actually all you need to do is make yourself sound good, but not to good to be true. If you are out of 1st grade, you should have enough knowledge to put together a fully structured sentence and paragraph. If not, I suggest you Click Here. In all seriousness, do not use "chat" lingo. Make yourself sound professional, take the extra two keystrokes to finish a full word, it will not kill you! Stick to the subject that you're talking about. Try not to repeat yourself, or we will have to report you to the Department of Redundancy Department! Don't drift off and start talking about how your girlfriend dumped you last week. Your client does not need to know that.

7) Advertise
Now you need to reel in those clients. The only way to do this is to advertise. Submit your site to all of the larger search engines, like Google, Yahoo, MSN, etc. This is the easy way to do it, but if you're serious about this, you'll do more. Get some business cards. When you are eavesdropping on a group talking about their new business, go over and tell them about your services and give them your fancy business card. You can also make some flyers to put around town. Local work is great, as you actually meet the person you're working with. You can also buy ad space and put your banner up on websites, shave your sites URL in your back hair! There are many ways to go about reeling in clients. Get creative!

8) Communicate
You need to know how to treat your client. First and foremost, communicate! You will not get anywhere if you and your client just sit around. Don't be afraid to ask questions. I encourage it. Also, make sure your client feels comfortable being fully open with you about your work. If they are not, they will end up paying for something they don't like.

The second rule is to forget what you think looks good after the initial example. If the client wants you to change something and you think it looks terrible, who cares? He/she is the one paying for your work. You can suggest things, but if they say that they would really like something changed, do it. If they want an animated gif of a pink monkey holding a sign that says "Bite me", do what they say. They are paying you good money for your work, and after all, isn't that what you want?

The third rule is not to boast about your age. Don't say before you start work "And I'm only 15, ain't I great?" This is a major turn off to a client. If they ask, let them know. If they do not ask, just hush up. People seem to think younger people are stupid, and are easy to take advantage of. You do not want to be ripped off in terms of respect or money.

9) Money
Now you need to figure out payment plans. While you're working on the design, you should watermark everything. This is a mandatory precaution. If the client takes the layout without paying, they will have an ugly watermark with your name on the design. It's really a win-win situation. If the client does steal it and use it, you've just scored free advertising!

I find that online payment is one of the hardest parts about doing business over the web. The other person usually thinks that they are going to get scammed. Actually if both parties are not thinking that, they have no business doing work over the Internet. There is always the risk, and the only way to prevent being scammed is not to work or to purchase online. Before you even start to work on your client's site, you and your client should have talked about payment. Again, make sure you don't boast about your age. If your client knows how old you are and says something ridiculous like "I'll give you $50 for a full website", stop there. Tell the client that you are sorry, but that is not enough for your time and effort. Don't be afraid to say no. If he says that you are a punk, so be it. Time is money, whether you're 130 or 13.

The basic idea is not to under-cut yourself. You'll just be wasting your time. But meanwhile, you do not want to charge too much. This may either scare the client away, or they may think you are trying to rip them off. Treat people the way you want to be treated.

If you are under the age of 18, I suggest having any client that you deal with pay you through Paypal. Have the Paypal account set up so you can deposit the money into your father/mother's bank account. Almost everyone has a Paypal account, and if they do not it's very simple to register.

10) Closing Thoughts
None of what I said is mandatory, merely suggestions. Get your creative juices flowing on the layout. Be original, stand out from the rest of the crowd. After all, what separates you from the rest of the design "companies" out there?

If you need some help to get moving in the right direction, check out some of the links to other useful resources on our site. Below are free .psds of basic layouts to mess around with. The only requirement is that you do not sell these. After all, you'd only get five cents for them anyway.

( http://pixelstructure.com )