As time passes, more companies have understood the importance of having a website representing their brand. Consequently, we have also seen an increased demand for web designers and web design businesses. When an organization is building a company website, that company prefers to save time by designating design development to someone else. If business owners need to be more experienced, starting anything from scratch could be overwhelming. Hence, they give someone else the responsibility of designing a quality website.
Previously, they used to rely on experienced freelance web designers to do this job. But, gradually, entrepreneurs have started taking responsibility and opened web design businesses. If you are hesitant about your website design, you can easily outsource it to a professional web design company.
Nowadays, starting a web design business is easier than it was before. If you have web designing skills, a little experience in website development, and a passion for vector art, you tick all the boxes for starting a web design company.
How to Start a Web Design Business Today
1) Choose a Web Design Niche
Unless you have experience building websites across different industries, this could be an extremely difficult task. However, why should you limit yourself to one niche when you can design websites for everyone?
There are a lot of benefits to choosing a niche for your web design business. For example, you will only attract a few clients by calling yourself a web designer. Instead, it would help if you specify what kind of companies you have worked for and also mention their location.
Image taken from Strikingly User’s Website
By having a well-defined niche, you can quickly identify critical leads for your website designing business. Although it is a good approach to be open to every field, it will make your schedule easier to manage.
Hence, it would be best if you took some time to choose the perfect niche for your web design business. It may evolve with time, but you need a clear roadmap; niche is the first step.
When you choose the perfect niche for your business plans, ensure that it is something you are passionate about and can succeed in. It would help if you remembered what your strongest skills are. For example, you can be a front-end developer or a UX designer. Once you have identified the perfect niche for your business, ensure the following:
- There are opportunities in your specified niche
- They can pay you for the kind of websites you build
2) Decide Your Design Services
You can check out your targeted niche's existing web design solutions. While analyzing these solutions, you can ask yourself the following questions:
- What do these web design solutions consist of?
- Are these solutions only specified for building a website for free, or are there any other services involved?
- Are there any web design adjacent offerings, such as website maintenance, hosting, or consulting?
Image taken from Strikingly
Nowadays, bringing extra value to your client relationships is a good habit. On the Internet, you will find many website builders, such as Strikingly, who have made it easy for users to:
- Build their websites
- Get a subscription to attain the advanced website features
- Get an online presence for their brand in a matter of weeks or months
- Not worry about the technical issues related to their website development
This is a huge win for business owners. In addition, the technical team will handle all the minor tensions during website development.
3) Set Your Company’s Goals
Before starting a web design business, you must take a moment and look ahead to the future. If your business has a roadmap, it is easier to put it in the right direction. Therefore, when you define your company's goals, you must consider the following factors:
Company's mission: Summarize what you do and who is your target audience in a few lines. You can come back to the mission statement if you need a reminder.
Image taken from Strikingly User’s Website
- Client's perception: You must give yourself a name that strongly corresponds with your clients' roles. For example, your clients may consider you a freelancer, a marketing agency, or a digital specialist.
- Long-term objective: Your long-term objectives depend on the amount of money your business generates or the number of clients you can tackle. Your objectives should be about how you see yourself evolve in a specific period. For example, in five years, you can transform yourself from a solopreneurship to a full-time marketing agency.
4) Set Your Rates
Setting rates is not the easiest thing, especially if you are new to the web designing career. However, you can still start working as a volunteer. If you put competitive rates on your first working day, your clients will likely walk away from you. Similarly, you cannot put low rates or, at worst, work for free. If you need help adjusting your rates, it will be long before you get things right. To find the right rates for your services, you can go through the following steps:
- Identify what your competitors are charging for the same services
- Calculate the average competitor rate and figure out your monthly revenue based on the number of clients you can tackle
- Add all your business expenses, including marketing costs, insurance fees, taxes, employee salaries, and website maintenance costs.
- Subtract your supposed monthly expenses from your monthly revenue
To grow your business and succeed, you must make a profit. It doesn't matter if you are not getting the desired results initially. Your motivation will increase once you start making profits little by little.
5) Choose a Name for Your Website Designing Business
The biggest challenge you encounter when you start any business for the first time is your business name. Unfortunately, many freelancers and entrepreneurs tend to name their businesses after their names.
Let's assume that you are a solo web designer, and it will be fine to use your name as part of your brand because clients and the entire online community come to know you through this name. However, if you are working as a team, your name can be a problem. For example, clients may have trust issues when you need to design their websites.
When you think about a business name, remember how your target audience would perceive that name. For example, you can ask yourself the following questions while finalizing your business name:
- Is it difficult to remember or pronounce?
- Does the name relate to another organization?
- Does the name relate to another niche or industry?
- Will your customers be interested if your services are location-specific?
Once you have finalized your business name, you can get feedback from your friends and peers. In addition, you can get their perspective on your business name.
Start a Web Design Business on Strikingly
On the Internet today, you will find many well-established website builders that will help you to build a quality brand website. However, you can rely on Strikingly to start your website designing business. Strikingly is a professional website builder that enables entrepreneurs and other users to build a quality website design without breaking a sweat.
Image taken from Strikingly
You can use customized online logo makers to make a unique logo and integrate it into your brand website. The logo will play a role in building your brand personality.
Your brand website will serve as a platform to display your services and attract clients worldwide to your web design business. It would be best if you produced exquisite website content to catch the attention of your potential clients immediately. Since you are making a website for your web design company, the design of your platform should be attractive. If we go deeper, your website design should contain the following attributes:
- User-friendly
- Easy to navigate
- Responsive
- Variety of features
- Attractive and appealing
- Having a contrasting color theme
- Corresponding with your logo design and brand theme
Image taken from Strikingly
If you build a brand website on Strikingly, you will have a collection of mobile-friendly and responsive templates. Our website templates save time and costs in launching your respective website. Moreover, our templates are feature-rich and easily customized according to your business needs.
Furthermore, we provide our users with the drag-and-drop feature, which allows them to place the website elements easily. The biggest benefit of building a brand website on Strikingly is that you can hire an experienced web developer for the development phase. Strikingly doesn't require any coding or programming expertise from its users. All you need is a creative brain and let your creativity skills do the talking on our platform.
Conclusion
The field of website design is huge and has attracted a lot of entrepreneurs worldwide. However, once you understand how to start a web design business, you must cash in on the opportunity before seeing a decline in this field.
Although the world is still coping with the COVID-19 pandemic, businesses are trying to identify ways to carry out their services from home. There is nothing better for them to have a quality website design, which will help them run their business operations and make them money.
To save time while running a web design business, you must head to Strikingly. Please register on our platform for a free account, and build a basic business website with all the fundamental features. If you need help integrating our features or need help launching your website, contact our Happiness Officers immediately. We always ensure that businesses run smoothly, and we are there to deal with any technical issues faced during the website development process.
