Your First Client Project
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Your First Client Project: New Premium Tutorial

on Dec 9th 2009 with 48 comments

Once you’ve gotten a handful of client projects under your belt, you manage to forget just how difficult that first one really was! Even outside of the design/approval process, you must purchase the domain, purchase hosting, assign the nameservers to your host, upload your design, convert it for some CMS like WordPress, and then create custom email addresses – like john@john-doe.com. If you’re doing it for the first time, it really is a confusing pain in the butt!

In this week’s Premium screencast, I’ll take you through the process from scratch. Become a Premium member!


Example 1

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I'm the editor of Nettuts+, and love making the process of building for the web as easy as possible. Also, I'm finishing up my latest book on Laravel Testing! If you want be friends, say hi on Twitter.  

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  • http://sffarlenn.net Laneth

    This is excellent Jeffrey, just what folks like me starting out will need as a decent, thought-out reference.

    Am looking forward to this one!

    • http://www.jeffrey-way.com Jeffrey Way
      Author

      Remember – it doesn’t cover the design/approval stuff; just the process of actually getting it up and running! :)

    • http://joeldt.net Joel

      Thanks for not shouting “FIRST! GREAT TUTORIAL GUYS”
      I’m honestly grateful. Also, this would probably indeed be a fantastic tutorial if I could read it…I’ve had a few client projects, but I haven’t actually needed to register a domain yet, so it should be interesting…

  • Andrew Miesner

    Boy I wish I had Plus+. I just can’t afford it atm :(

  • http://newfasttowing.com Hassan

    Just asked brother for the credit card! And about to purchase the Plus Account :)
    And Jeff, can you please look into the website the URL that i typed. I have modified your template =]

    • http://www.jeffrey-way.com Jeffrey Way
      Author

      Very cool. It’s getting there! :)

    • http://laranzjoe.blogspot.com lawrence77

      Now itself u r about to buy plus account, then how could u get that psd-to-wordpress plus tutorial? :P

  • http://tutorial-city.net/ Tutorial City

    Very cool idea. Thanks Jeffrey

  • Towel

    I really could have used this two weeks ago when I finished my first client project! But thanks anyway, this will help for the second time around.

  • Jaysone

    Very nice tutorial..a good supplement to strengten your basics especially if you’ve seen Chris’s screencast on css-tricks.

    http://css-tricks.com/video-screencasts/46-domains-dns-hosting-and-google-apps/

  • http://www.thatbelinda.com Belinda

    It’s always interesting to look over stuff like this and see the little differences in the way that people do things :-)

    Thanks for this, great watch!

  • http://parenting.pl Marcin

    Even though I have the Plus subscription, I really feel that in case of nettuts, the free tutorials are usually way more interesting and valuable than the Plus ones. Or at least there is no significant difference between them.

    • http://twitter.com/xrommelx xRommelx

      many times i think the self thing

  • Tracey

    Oh I love this. Thank you Jeffrey. I will sign up as a plus subscriber in my Christmas break.

  • Paul

    I was with you until you got to the Google Apps. Why use Google Apps? Why not just use the email system provided by the host? Particularly in the case of Media Temple with there simple client email admin area, the name of which I can’t remember off the top of my head.

    • http://www.jeffrey-way.com Jeffrey Way
      Author

      Because many people are already comfortable with Gmail. This makes the transition super simple for the client.

      • Aerendyl

        Thanks on the fast answer! Are there any other ways to set up email account?

      • Paul

        If they are already comfortable with Gmail, than they must already have a Gmail email address and all the other Google stuff, docs, calendar, etc. I still say, to get an email address with your own domain in it, it would be much easier to use the host providers email system and just add the account to your existing Gmail account.

  • Tom

    If you cant do all that stuff already, You shouldnt be charging clients.

  • Vincent

    Guys… Please do not buy from Go Daddy… they are shady as $**#.

  • Moneyxl

    Can you pls explain how we can download screencast, so many times I want to download a screencast and I can’t, I don’t really have the time to sit/watch in one sitting, I’d like to be able to follow offline, shouldn’t members be able to download screencast?

    Pls answer cause a lot of the times, people ask and I haven’t really seen an answer to this!

    • http://www.jeffrey-way.com Jeffrey Way
      Author

      Once you login to your PLUS account at tutsplus.com, you’ll see a “download sreencast” link next on the Net Plus page.

      • http://twitter.com/xrommelx xRommelx

        but i can’t download this screencast, the link is not available ):

      • http://twitter.com/xrommelx xRommelx

        i find the link hehehe
        #epicfail

      • Moneyxl

        Thanks, I was viewing it under the latest plus and only saw the link to view but when I went to Nettut plus, the download was there.

        Cheers

  • Kevin Jensen

    That was a nice tutorial! Thanks, Jeffery!

  • Aerendyl

    Really nice tut Jeffrey but i have a question. Do i need to use the google app to set the mail? Can i use the cpanel (i did in that way.)? Thanks in advance!

  • http://twitter.com/xrommelx xRommelx

    thank you, for this tuts
    i hope learn so much in this screencast

  • denny

    Thank you very much for this one! Hopefully mine will not be a pain in the butt…

  • http://www.a1media.ca Douglas Helmer

    Nicely done, Jeffrey. Great to see your approach.

    About the only thing I find frustrating these days is figuring out a client’s domain registrar’s user interface. There’s so many registrars now, and they all have different user interfaces, that it can be a headache just figuring out where the DNS settings are for the name servers. I had one client where I made the changes to the DNS but they wouldn’t stick. Over and over I reset the name servers to no avail … then I saw a little tiny checkbox with no label that had to be ticked and then everything worked. LOL!

    As for web hosting, unless I host the website myself on my own hosting reseller account, I don’t take the job. I simply don’t have the time to deal with all the idiosyncrasies of other people’s hosting choices. If I could give new web developers one piece of advice, that would be it: use your own hosting. By sticking with one web host, you learn all the quirks of that system, then when problems come up (and they will), you can react more quickly than if you built the site using an unfamiliar web hosting firm. Clients will appreciate your improved customer service and you’ll save your sanity.

    • http://www.jeffrey-way.com Jeffrey Way
      Author

      Excellent point. I wish I would have mentioned it in the screencast. It MUST be your own hosting – if you value your time and sanity. :)

  • GC

    Great stuff Jeff, normally dont comment on these things but that was really good.

    • http://www.jeffrey-way.com Jeffrey Way
      Author

      Thanks so much!

  • http://creativemedia2.com Connor Crosby

    Wow, thank you so much!!!! This is very much appreciated! I didn’t know about Google Apps, I just made a new account with that email. Thanks again!

  • yassi

    designing a site with ready-to-use CMS is very amateurish!!
    Try to publish real tutorial, designing a site from scratch with php, no ready frame works, no ready css.
    Creating admin panels, register and login scripts, upload images, image galleries …

  • http://slackrmedia.com Keenan Payne

    Woah, cool. I’ve been looking for something like this as I’m just getting into dealing with clients and such.

  • http://ashwinkonireddy.tk Ashwin

    This is a good Tutorial. Every new web developer exactly wanted to learn these essentials.

    * * * Hope To see More Tutorials like this * * *

    Thank you Jeff.

  • http://www.emdesigns.de Michael

    I would like to see this but I don’t want to pay every month for things I don’t need right now :-(

  • Kenny Elshoff

    I’m having troubles viewing/downloading the screencast.. It stops at around 20% each time..

  • http://bloggerzbible.blogspot.com/ Bloggerzbible

    very good tutorial

  • http://www.sanalsirket.com sanal şirket

    verry good sharing.. Thanks tutsplus

  • http://www.tiffanybestsilver.com Discount Silver Jewelry

    It’s the very thing i want to catch. Thanks!

  • http://mounir.tv/vb Soly Mounir

    i like this one alot , and i`ll try to follow this tutorial

  • Matias

    Just watched this, nice. :-) One question though: am I allowed to make profit with ready-made templates? For example, I buy a template (e.g. at ThemeForest), set the website up for my client, and then charge more than the template cost. In other words, I’m making profit using someone else’s work. Is this okay?

  • Lizzie

    I logged into premium area and I can’t find the way to download this tutorial… Where is the link for members?