Anyone making a living from website design?

BaritoneUK

Hi all. A few years back I set up a web design company with my dad. The problem has been I've only been able to work at it part time because I wasn't able to afford to give up income. My skills over this time have greatly improved and now I feel we're really able to offer great websites. Just wandering if there are other website designers out there that are in a similar position? I go through so many ups and downs- I really believe in what I can do, but can web design businesses make any money these days? There seems to be so many designers out there- OK many of them aren't that good, and some companies say they can design you a site for £99, but they are basically templates. I love what I do, but it's been such a slow growth. We've been designing sites for individuals and small businesses, but for websites that cost under £1000 we're not exactly making big money and I don't think I'm getting much back for the time I put in. The other issue is because we're a very small business I have to do both design and development. Bigger companies can afford to employ designers and developers. I have to know everything. I've learnt XHTML, CSS, PHP, MYSQL and know quite a bit about search engine optimisation, but there is always some other technology that comes out that I need to know about.

Sorry- this has been a bit of a rant, and to an extent I've bared my soul a bit. I just wander whether there are others out there who have had similar experiences...

Thanks.

Kilty_2

I'm currently starting up in web design part time to earn a bit of money so anything said here will interest me as well. (Although I'm not "making a living" as such )

As for your comment about people who say they can design a website for £99, I can do that comfortably (well, around the £100 mark anyway) and do not, EVER use templates.

You might want to remove that signature, since it breaches forum rules.

BaritoneUK

Kilty wrote:

As for your comment about people who say they can design a website for £99, I can do that comfortably (well, around the £100 mark anyway) and do not, EVER use templates.

I could design a website and charge a customer £1, but I wouldn't make any money. We design websites bespoke, so if I were to charge £25 per hour for my services that would mean designing the whole thing in 4 hours if I were to charge £100. It never works out that way either, because the client wants changes and it takes ages to manipulate images that the client gives us. So people who charge £100 for a basic website can't really last long term, whilst they do charge low rates it undercuts other longer term companies which end up giving up.

Kilty_2

To be honest, you arent going to last long if you design like those you linked to in your signature either (and then have the balls to say "OK some designers arent that good" :rotfl:)

BaritoneUK

Kilty wrote:

To be honest, you arent going to last long if you design like those you linked to in your signature either (and then have the balls to say "OK some designers arent that good" :rotfl:)

Thanks, for your kind, constructive advice. Come on Kilty, be nice. I came on here and tried to be really honest, and is this what I get for that? I am surprised that a Money Saver can make a cruel comment like that. The websites I put on there were actually really old ones in which I was trying to boost their search engine rankings and I certainly didn't expect people to look at them. I've removed them after you told me that they were against forum rules- thanks for letting me know. I'm not quite sure why I am trying to defend myself.

On a more positive note, if there a web designers/developers out there that want to pool ideas and advice so that we can help each other that would be cool.

SamC_4

BaritoneUK wrote:

can web design businesses make any money these days?

My honest opinion is no. There are way too many cheap designers and advanced template site builders (e.g. mrsite) to compete with at the low end, and small businesses (quite rationally) don't see websites as something that they need to spend a lot of money on any more.

The money is IMHO where it always was, providing custom IT programming and support services for medium-large companies. The UK IT job market is more-or-less booming right now so I think you would be much better off building up your technical skills and getting a programming or consulting job, with an eye to making a more serious attempt at starting a company using techniques, technology, and identified market demand that you've picked up while working. See http://www.jobstats.co.uk for an indication of the jobs and rates available, then ask yourself if you can make that much profit all year long just building small websites. If you're looking for entrepeneurial inspiration read Guy Kawasaki's "The Art of the Start".

I've learnt XHTML, CSS, PHP, MYSQL and know quite a bit about search engine optimisation, but there is always some other technology that comes out that I need to know about.

Heh, welcome to the IT industry. It will get worse every year.

BaritoneUK

Thanks for that. I think if you run a website design business you need to have some specialisms and provide packages. You can't just rely on web design for business. I've thought of a few ideas since I first posted. I think to target local businesses is the main port of call. People still like to keep things local. Also, I agree to get into the support market. We don't just design websites but make most of our money from offering maintanence, updates and search engine optimisation as a support package. I was thinking of linking in with a friend of mine who runs a hardware/networking business and offering packages to businesses where we can offer website design/e-commerce/databases/hardware/networking and after support. I think this would be more beneficial. I think also getting more into the things we do best and also enjoy is best too- for me that's databases and all the backend stuff.

Anyone else out there got any thoughts? I'm genuinely interested in how other web designers/developers cope with their businesses!

Kilty_2

SamC wrote:

The money is IMHO where it always was, providing custom IT programming and support services for medium-large companies. The UK IT job market is more-or-less booming right now so I think you would be much better off building up your technical skills and getting a programming or consulting job,

That's good to know.

I'm aiming for a job in IT (Programming, probably)

Five years + to go though (Still at school, then 4 year degree at University)

ukbill69

Web design, hosting, domain names etc is dead market and not worth starting. Youll find you will be on a loss or break even.

Kilty_2

I'm treating web design as "a bit of extra money" whilst I'm still at school, trying to avoid the £3-4/hour hell that is working in a supermarket

[Deleted User]

I'm pretty sure i could.. if I didn't wanna make > 20k a year. I've made sites from £300 to £4000, hell, i've made a £500 site in a weekend. I love doing it, and I wish I had more time to do it, but i work 45hrs a week, commute 2 hours a day.. the last thing I want to do in the evenings/weekend is work on a website or network for more business.

On the plus side, my bro has to work 3 jobs to get through his masters course , i made one website in the comfort of my bedroom to pay for mine.

If I was really serious, i'd sit down and properly learn Ruby on Rails so I could whack sites together quickly with funky AJAX features. I already code the usual (PHP/Perl, Javascript, HTML, mySQL).

Personally, I now operate on the terms of 'if it's not at least a 500 quid job it's not worth the effort'.