Design your way

Were you thinking of offering website design services? You’re not the only one.

Website designing on your own is a great career for a number of reasons.

A web designer often gets to choose their own hours, their own clients, and their own tools. You even get to decide on how much work you want to do in any given week.

However, the website design business is not without limits and restraints. A one-man design studio doesn’t scale well. There are only so many hours in a day. No matter how hard you work or how much you plan, you will hit a wall eventually.

Naturally, you’ll want to grow your web design business. There’s a very limited number of ways to do this without working yourself to death, which is limited in its own way (your death, for one).

You can either increase the rates you charge for your website design services or you can start offering additional services beyond web design.

Increasing your rates is something you will absolutely have to do to grow. Many web designers, especially when they’ve only recently started out, have dealt with clients who undervalue their work.

How many times has someone asked for you to do something and they’ll pay you in “exposure”?

Exposure doesn’t pay the bills. These kinds of clients think your work is easy and you don’t need to be paid that much (or at all, sometimes). There’s far too few people who understand website design services.

Because of this, as well as several other factors, need you need to be cautious with your rates.

However, if you work for too little, that’s your first step towards to failure. Increasing your rates will increase your bottom line, as well as offer you several other benefits.

Offering additional services sounds more complicated than it is, though it’s by no means a simple thing to do. There are a number of things you can do that need to be done along with the website design. Offer something like a ‘service menu’.

Think about all that you do for website designing already as well as what you can do. Offer these services in addition to your “basic” website design services. You can package them together for a slightly larger charge, or offer them ala carte for additional pay per item.

With these two ideas for expanding your website design business in mind, let’s look at some approaches to helping you succeed.

Take a Unique Approach to the Web Design Market

Marketing is very important. Many web designers forget its importance. Website design services are highly competitive. The chances you offer something so unique that another couldn’t provide something similar is highly unlikely.

Look at who your target customers are. Then look at how you’re thinking about marketing, how you’re bundling your services, what your rates are, and anything else you do.

If you are offering something unique to a unique set of people, you’ll get more coverage. It will become easier to find good customers and avoid bad customers.

Think of yourself as someone who not only does website designing but also sell it. This can be very hard. Start looking into various marketing techniques and see what other successful small business in the IT niche do for their marketing.

The Challenge of Selling Web Design Services

There are many, many freelance web designers out there. It’s hard to stand out. When this industry first started, a number of people made a lot of money. Many peoples aw that, quit their jobs, and started freelancing. This doesn’t mean there isn’t a lot of opportunity, but it means that selling website design services is a formidable task.

Consider Hiring a Sales Rep

A sales rep is a person who is hired by small agencies and freelance web design services to work on the marketing aspect of your business. This delegates the marketing to someone who knows all about it, leaving you to create great websites.

The catch is that hiring a sales rep is not cheap. Hiring one will typically cost you $40,000 a year. That may be far outside your budget. If it isn’t, a sales rep is a great way to get good marketing, but hiring one is no joke.

Sell Your Website Design’s Utility

While you may view web designing as an art, your clients aren’t hiring you to make a work of art. It can be as lovely as you please, but it also has to be functional. It needs to get results for your client. It has to fulfill their needs or solve their problems. Looking good is just the cherry on top.

Don’t sell your design just based on how it looks. You need to demonstrate how your product helps them accomplish their goals. Show the client how the site can help them make money.

Much like you, they’ve got bill to pay and dreams to chase. Your portfolio should do most of the talking for your sense of aesthetics, so you should spend your energy telling them what else your web design services can do for them.

A few benefits that a well-made site gives to a business are trackable metrics, targeted advertising, a personalized image, and enhanced productivity. Don’t hesitate to point out these concrete benefits to a potential client.

Use numbers whenever you can. Some of the more common statistics include the number of site visitors and the number of people visiting a site on their phone. This kind of hard data is very reassuring to a business.

A website can be a major investment for a small company, something they hope to take their business to the next level and that they invest a lot of money in. You need to explain clearly what they’d be getting if they hire you. You need to offer a decent explanation of their costs.

Stay Authentic

Don’t use gimmicks to make your web design services stand out from the crowd. The best way to stand out is being authentic. You should remain honest that you’re an individual freelancer, not try to seem bigger than you are.

When you’re trying to sell yourself to a client, be human. Write in the first person. Be honest about yourself and what you do. You want the client to see you as a person as well as see your work.

Real relationships with people make it much easier to work on the project for all partied involved. Take the time to build one with your clients and you’ll find it much easier to sell yourself to them—and possibly their contacts in the future.

Ending thoughts on a website design services

Selling web design services can be quite a challenge if marketing is not in your skill set. With practice, it becomes easier. Stay calm and remember these ideas. You’ll get the hang of it!

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