Making better photographs?

I'm teaching myself photography and hope to actually take a college course for it soon. I would love to start my own business in family and pet photography one day.

I just can't seem to get that nice soft glow in my pictures. The colour in my pictures and on skin tones is drabby looking. I have a Nikon D5200 and only use manual. I know the jyst of ISO/shutter speed/aperature and I do everything outdoors. I pay attention to my light meter and I do change up the WB.

I know a lot of professionals take lights and reflectors and such but even without those they're pictures are spectacular. It can't be photoshop every time.

I have yet to purchase a good quality photo editing program so for now I use a free one on my computer for general brightness, warmth and sharpness. I usually transfer to my phone to upload on my social media (nobody else to share with) and they look even worse.

Any good tips or websites to get the white balance and colour right?

That's a nice camera. Here's a quick video clip that will explain what you're asking for. It WILL explain White Balance after it explains JPEG, which will answer questions.

Your camera has a good, accurate light meter, so you shouldn't have too many problems!
I don't know much about the D5200, but does it have customised functions, where you can change exposure and save it as a personal setting?
If so, maybe you have adjusted something unnecessarily. Check through the menu and handbook.

You might be shooting in bad light. Many photographers recommend shooting in the early morning and the early evening, and not shooting around noon. If you shoot with the sun dead above you, the light will be harsh, the colors bleached out, and no amount of post processing will change that. On the other hand, if you get good light and capture it, you can use post processing to make it look absolutely spectacular.

Next time you shoot, try something. Take ten pictures in early morning, ten at around 1 p.m. And ten in early evening. Look at the differences in the quality of light. You might notice that it is easier to make the morning and evening pictures look good than it is the picture taken around noon.

Post processing is an important part of modern photography, but it's not a crutch. Getting the photo right in camera makes post processing quicker and easier.

This video tutorial may help:

http://www.nikondigitutor.com/eng/d5200/index.html Who better than Nikon to produce a video about your Nikon D5200?

Read:
http://photographyknowhow.com/quality-of-light-in-photography/

http://photographyknowhow.com/direction-of-light-in-photography/

http://photographyknowhow.com/photography-lighting/

http://www.shutterbug.com/content/fall-portraits-outdoors-working-atumnal-light

http://www.shutterbug.com/content/natural-light-portraiture-why-one-photographer-loves-sun

http://digital-photography-school.com/natural-light-portraits-made-in-the-shade/

Posting a photo or two will be very helpful.
Other tips are: Shoot RAW! While shooting JPEGs you won't be able to make the necessary adjustments as well as the same capture done in a RAW format. Your camera has an amazing color depth of 14-bits. Which is to say that the sensor captures more than 16,000 tones from pure black to put white for each channel (Red, Green, Blue). When you shoot in JPEG mode, the bit depth drops to only 8 bits, which is 256 shades. That means you're throwing away about 98% of the information provided by your sensor.

The other thing has been mentioned and that it's the light that creates the look that you're after. Also providing a link to an image that you like would be helpful too.