Freelancing in website development

Hey, guys. I'm a programmer who uses mostly c++. However, I have done a study of the web design programs such as PhP and Javascript. Even dabbled in SQL. Not an expert in it, but I get the concepts and will mainly just need to review it until I have the common stuff in my head. I looked over several freelancing sites. I'm a bit overwhelmed, of course, of what they ask. Though talking with a friend, he says it's not as hard as it looks. A lot of people ask for plugins, web designs, and adding ecommerces.

As a programmer, how hard is any of this stuff is and how does the freelance process usually work?

>>5
Take the effort this book and you will have the theory you need to design and study pretty much any system. It is not about web design, it is about general systems analysis.
http://yourdon.com/strucanalysis/wiki/index.php/Table_of_Contents