Senior interested in freelancing

Hello all,

I am about to graduate highschool in the year 2009 and my interest are based on web design. I started web design at a very early age, dating back to 2005 creating websites for family and family friends. I have a few questions.

What is the average pay for a freelancer monthly?
I have heard freelancers get paid this much per website:
$1200 USD
or
$20-$40 USD / hour

How do you write a quote?
Every web design service has a "Request a quote" section and I am curious what they write back. I studied business letters during my early years in high school however i am unsure if that applies to this certain topic. Please include length and template with descriptive sentences.

Is there any certain laws?
I live in Ontario, and i plan on using a company name rather then my full name, must i register this business?

What does the customer expect?
It's quite obvious customers have different expectations, as some have no clue and perspective on the project as others do. I am wondering what kind of coding should be applied? Just the basic website with the requested number of content pages they write in the quote (Strictly html/css)? or is a CMS expected for easy content editing.

Customers contact method
Do customers prefer to talk on the phone rather then emailing back and forth, if so what is the average duration of the phone call. What topics should we review, what he finds interesting? what coding he knows? etc, etc.

The price you quoted is within reason. You can get idea of prices by finding websites that provides similar services and display their prices on their website. here is an example. Certainly there are website that costs thousands of dollars -- especially if they are eCommerce, luxury style, Flash, or content manage sites that employs technologies like Joomla.

In the United States, a person can do freelancing without registering as a company. In that case, you are by default operating a business as a "sole proprietor" and business tax, profit, and losses are "passed through" onto your personal tax return. The disadvantage of this is that you are exposed to certain personal liabilities. But many people start out this way.

But in order to separate your business finances and liabilities from your own personal finances and liabilities, then you need to form a company. A popular choice in the United States is to form an LLC (Limited Liability Company). This can be done on your own and even online without the need of a lawyer. In many states (if not all), it is certainly possible for you to be an "single member LLC". That means that the company has only one person and that is you. Here are more information on freelancing business.

I don't know how it is with Canada.