How to Start a Web Design Business

If you are one of the many people who are trying to work from home designing web pages either part-time or full-time, then one of your primary concerns is how to start a web design business that will succeed.

Ideas for Designing a Web Page

Many web programmers will jump into a web design business head first without any planning or foresight. Web designers who are new to the industry believe that if they simply build an excellent web page template for a client, then that's all there is to the job. Most new designers learn quickly that there are multiple skills required in order to start and build a successful web design business.

The most exciting part of being a professional web designer is creating innovative and interesting web page templates and designs. However, that is only one aspect of the business. In fact, in many cases that may not even be the aspect of the work that generates the most revenue. And when you're in business, the name of the game is to do whatever it takes to increase revenue. Sometimes what it "takes" isn't always the part of the job that's the most fun. The following is a general list of the skills and work that's required as part of any web design business.

• Web design skills - Creatively coming up with interesting and clean graphical designs
• Basic HTML skills - Understanding the fundamentals of web page programming
• Scripting dynamic pages - Building interactivity into pages, such as shopping carts, chat rooms, and dropdown menus
• Marketing - You may have what it takes, but how will potential customers find out about you
• SEO knowledge - You'll need to understand how to draw traffic from search engines to your clients' web pages
• Graphic skills - Quality business web pages require innovative logos and fresh graphics
• Copywriting skills - At the heart of every web page is its content, and web designers need to know how to offer this service

Most people don't have every single skill on the list. In fact, most web designers who are very skilled in scripting and creating wonderfully dynamic web pages often have very little copywriting skills. Even many designers who may know a great deal about search engine traffic algorithms couldn't write a creative line of copy to save their lives. So what's the solution? If you intend on growing your web design business beyond just a hobby that you do in your spare time, you'll need to start with a small team of professionals who you can subcontract specific tasks to. At a minimum, many web design startups have a graphic designer, one or two web programmers, and a copywriter.

It is very easy to dive into bidding on projects and developing web pages for clients immediately. However, if you don't determine how to start a web design business effectively, you could risk underbidding and burning yourself out. However, if you start by using a business plan to focus your efforts, you'll find that it's much easier to earn more revenue. How is this possible? By knowing the minimum amount you need to do to "break even," you'll be able to plan your work, and bid on projects, far more effectively. A business plan should basically outline the biggest components of your business and the work that's required in order to make the business profitable. A basic business plan includes the following sections.

• A basic description of your business
• Who your potential customers are
• Niche industries you're interested in targeting (schools, churches or small businesses)
• A list of your local competition
• How you plan to compete, what competitive advantage can you bring to the market
• Business finances - list 'all expenses related to running your business

To determine your potential business income, you need to determine how many hours you realistically plan to work, and then divide the expenses by those hours. This value is you "break even" point, and it will give you an enlightening picture of how much work it will take in order for you to produce profit. It will also help you significantly with determining your pricing structure.

Many new designers will jump into online project bidding sites, like Scriptlance or Guru, and attempt to underbid everyone just to win a project. The problem with doing this is that you'll find yourself working countless hours for little pay, and quickly burning yourself out. While working for peanuts may allow you a way to get your foot in the door and generate completed projects that you can refer to in the future, it will also give people the impression that you are willing to work for nothing, and that you are an amateur. Employers and project managers know that price is typically equivalent to quality, so you must bid accordingly or risk getting pigeonholed as a "cheap alternative."

A better approach is to donate web design work to charities. While this work is free, and won't generate revenue, it will allow you to build up a significant reputation. In the web design industry, reputation is everything. Doing this work before you even start up your for-profit business endeavor will generate real completed projects that you can point to as evidence of the high quality of work that you're capable of. Also, on the upside, all work donated to charity is deductible on your taxes.

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