Start-Over Success Business Under $500:
Website Designer

Do you like to work at your computer and love the idea of creating solutions that will help your clients achieve their business goals?
If yes, you may be a perfect fit as a Website Designer. 

You can work your business the way you want, work with clients you want, where you want, when you want; what’s not to love?

 

How Much Can You Make as a Web Designer?

Ask yourself, what do clients really need? A website? Or a website with traffic that leads to sales? The answer is obvious. 

As a beginning designer, income can be insecure, with lapses between website projects. Because of that, beginners often don’t charge enough, maybe just $300-$500 for a site. That business model just doesn’t work! 

The solution is to provide more services. You’ll learn about them coming up. With those services, you charge monthly fees that clients pay automatically. Not only that, they get more value, so they are happy to pay.

You can steadily grow from $1,000 to $2,000/mo to $10,000/month. 

EXAMPLES & HOW-TOs

What You Need to Start

WordPress Website ($0)

  • Website Hosting ($3/mo on BlueHost)
  • Theme & Site Builder ($0 – $25/mo)

    Tools for building sites

  • Canva ($13/mo) Text graphics
  • Keynote or PowerPoint ($0)
  • Storyblocks ($30/mo) Images & Video footage
  • Email ($15/mo) 
  • CRM ($15/mo) client relationship management
  • Knowledge about what results the client needs

Monthly Costs $83/mo X 2 = $166 

Regular for starting a business: entity, license per city ($40), DBA, ($18), business bank account, and (maybe) business cards ($18).

Payment acceptance: Venmo, PayPal, Stripe, Fee is % of the sale
Annual Costs 

You need to learn how to build websites. Choose your WordPress theme ($0- $70), then build your own site.
Practice, practice, practice.
Annual Costs $229
TOTAL COST TO START $395

A Website Designer Needs Marketing & Sales Know How

You must know (or learn) how to work with clients. You are in the business of understanding what they need from their marketing and building a plan for delivering a website to fulfill their vision. 

Interview prospective client:
What is the purpose of the site? 

  • Lead generation
  • Foundation for marketing & sales
  • Establishing credibility & inspiring confidence
  • Conveying information
  • Content display: 
    – Blog posts
    – Articles
    – Videos 
    – Lead Magnet product,
    – Invite to the email list
The client supplies themselves, or their team provides:
 
  • Marketing strategy
  • Color pallette
  • Content & copywriting
  • Graphic artist work
  • Images

A Website Has a Job to Do

What Type of Web Designer Do You Want To Be?

You can Design Websites, exclusively. You work on projects and do marketing to get new projects to work on. Income is a rollercoaster; you make money when you complete a project, then there’s no income until you complete another. 

You Design Websites and offer several other monthly services that ongoingly bring value in the form of traffic and sales. (The list of services is coming up.)

You may need to learn how to do the other services, but they are easy-enough to learn. Especially fo someone who’s already techy, like you. You can quickly learn on YouTube. Offer as a package (or packages), instead of “the entree and side dishes.”

The Choice is Up To You

Offer More and Make More

Clients want more business, happier customers, and more money.

  • In addition to their website, what additional services will bring value to your clients?
  • What additional services and value can you provide?
  • Sales Funnels
  • eMail Marketing – auto-responders & upsells
  • SEO – to get more site visits and results
  • eCommerce store setup
  • Content management
  • Social Media business pages
  • Videos
  • Site analytics  
  • Logo design

What More Can You Offer?

Payton Clark Smith, YouTube

Choose Your Niche For Websites and Digital Services

Choosing a niche to focus on 1) simplifies your work and 2) improves the quality of your work and the outcomes you can get for clients.

For your niche, you can choose businesses in an industry you love (from auto, to dental, or any other niche) and that needs your help.

I’ve already asked you to think of delivering services beyond websites, incorporating additional services for you to learn and profit from. Here I go again.
Consider these hot niches for today’s world, suggested by Vic Larange on YouTube.

1) Restaurants. Why? People are ordering online, so restaurant websites need to offer ordering options, to create sales and a great user experience. Otherwise, restaurants will lose income to online ordering services.

55% of restaurants do not yet have this service in-house; there’s an opportunity for you to provide a full solution with ongoing fees. 

2) Tik Tok eCommerce sales support. Why? With over a Billion users, Tik Tok presents a huge opportunity.

Also, eCommerce sellers haven’t all utilized Facebook yet. Now they’re missing out on Tik Tok sales to Gen Z clients. Shopify is offering a Tik Tok Integration.  You can offer organic and paid advertising services. 

3) Blockchain & Crypto Products. Why? This is an emerging niche, in the wild west of Web.3, including crypto, gaming, NFT products, and more.

These products and the companies behind them all need Web.2 services, including websites, SEO, email marketing, and all the rest listed above. 

How to Get Your 1st Clients for Your Online Business

First, ask yourself if you will work with local clients, or if you will offer your services to a broad, even national footprint. 

  • Develop your business and personal networks:
    1) in person (business conferences and chamber of commerce, also social, school, and church events) and
    2) virtually with LinkedIn. 
  • Post your business wins on your personal Facebook page. People you know may have referrals for you.
  • Build your email list. As an incentive offer a freebie, for example:
    – Marketing checklist
    – Consult with you
    – Other, depending on your product or service
  • Start a Facebook Group (or other online community. I like SuccessCenter.com
  • Follow up, follow up, and close (If they joined your list, they are interested.)
  • Give a free sample of your work. Outline what you would do for your clients, depending on your business.

2 Best Ways to Continue Getting Business

  • BEST #2!
    Join an online community. Build trust and credibility. Don’t sell or pitch! Connect, Listen, Engage, and Provide Valuable Info.
  • BEST #1! 
    Partner with a related, non-competing company.
    Examples:
    – If you make business videos – partner with a company that does SEO
    – If you do copywriting – partner with a website designer
    – If you sell homemade pet accessories – partner with a veterinarian or pet shop. 
    – If you are a wedding planner – partner with a shop that sells gowns

    You get the picture.

  • HONORABLE MENTION
    Offer your services to those who do similar work, for a fee. For example:
    – A website developer provides services for a website design agency. Note: The clients are probably still owned by the design agency, but you make extra income. It’s a win-win.

How to Get Bigger Clients

Once you can show examples of your work, case studies, and more, you’re ready.

You want to find bigger clients to sell and serve. How can you find them? 

Neil Patel started his business this way and says,
– Use Crunchbase.com to look for startups that received funding up to $20 million. (Over that amount are much tougher to close.)

– Email the Founder and the Investor. They are both interested in their business become profitable ASAP.

– If their emails are not listed, use Hunter.io to find their email addresses.

  • Offer to give them a free sample of your Website and Digital Marketing work. Tell them you will outline specifically what services you would use to help them reach their goals.
  • Deliver great service with great client support and interaction and you’ll have their business forever. 

What's Next For You?

Once you’ve become a $100k/year web designer, you have mad skills that others pay big money for. 

How about if you start another business. Use your marketing, sales, and website skills, along with what you’ve learned about why people buy (and more) – put all your skills to work on your own product and your services? 

Would that be fun for you? Probably. Would you make your $million? Probably, as long as you pick a product people need, want, and are willing to buy. Can you say, “Kaching?”