Anyone making a living from website design?

Robboseven

I run a small company which does marketing and sales for other snall businesses who do not have the time or inclination to prospect and cold call. In my experience this market is flooded with companies both on and off line who will do standard websites for very small fees.. The secret (as is the case with almost every business) is finding and securing the right customers. Try going through some directories and getting names of companies who may not be internet savvy - usually the more traditional industries. These people will not know the going rate and certainly will not be aware of the very cheap end of the market.

Astaroth

I have to disagree with others on here and have to say that there is certainly still very good money to be made in web development and I know a number of owners of these types of companies (both personally and professionally) who are certainly making large profits given their spending (or the bills they send me for those in a professional capacity).

The problems are really getting the right clients. When I did my web development work I simply didnt want the 4hr jobs as 1 they didnt interest me, 2 were never great and so really dragged down my portfolio and 3 where highly unlikely to ever turn into large clients.

As with any business, the product is only a small part of why some are successful and others arent, the marketing/ sales is at least as important as well as deciding as a company what your unique selling point is going to be and ensure that you target a relevant customer base.

lday77

Hi

I am a Graphic Designer and the bulk of my work is print based, but some customers have asked me to design their website as well as printed materials. Which I have always considered a great added extra. Could you team up with someone like this?

In my arrangement I design the pages in photoshop or flash and then give them to a local programmer who build the site for a reasonable rate. We go 50/50 on the profit and the customer is non the wiser that I haven't handled the whole job.

Just ensure you build in one round of changes at approval stage and a further round within 12 months, and add a clause that states what these changes can be adhered to i.e. not navigation! Also something like, further changes can be made but will be charged at £.... per hour.

If you need help with your T&C's I can send you mine. Good Luck, and it is worth doing, if you are good it won't take long for the work to come to you.

[Deleted User]

SWD - firstly, your sites look like you bought the templates and secondly.. take that advertising link out of your message.

I'd certainly agree that web design is still a viable business if you can get a steady supply of clients - the idea of teaming up with a graphic designer is great, I have a similar arrangement with a webhost who is often asked for sites to be made.

BaritoneUK

ringo_24601 wrote:

SWD - firstly, your sites look like you bought the templates and secondly.. take that advertising link out of your message.

Yes he should take the link off- but maybe he didn't know it wasn't allowed. Also, as we all know design is a subjective thing, can we steer away from making comments on other peoples' design unless explicitly asked? I hate when we get personal! Thanks and keep the constructive comments coming!

justpaper

i do agree there is money out there still,. i edited a oscommerce template for a online shop i ran, the amount of ppl willing too pay me 25£ for a oscommerce install is enuff for me too say there is good money in web design gfx still,. now i couldnt keep up with all the php and AJAX features and all the other codeing langs/ (heck i dont know what that last one is) all i do is learn enuff too edit and add a bit here and there,. but i dont do it for a living like most of the ppl above and i can still get 200£ a month for a few hours work,.. i think if anyone going to go for it learn the coding and let some one else do the gfx,. that way u'll be knocking out the site quicker and u (the coder) has time to learn new methods of site building,.

Patr100

BaritoneUK wrote:

Yes he should take the link off- but maybe he didn't know it wasn't allowed. Also, as we all know design is a subjective thing, can we steer away from making comments on other peoples' design unless explicitly asked? I hate when we get personal! Thanks and keep the constructive comments coming!

Actually it's not personal though, it is business - assuming you are serious about what you do - and remember that we also represent the average visitor to your sites - if people are being put off or aren't impressed - they go elsewhere - you really need to know the reason why - even if the client has paid up seems happy and you might think that's Ok then.


though as mentioned such advertising links aren't allowed anyway.
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CrustyMcMuffin

There is still a lot of money to be made in web design, I've been doing it for the past year or so and I'm doing very well so far. We have a couple of medium sized contracts and the companies pay us a monthly retainer to keep the site running, provide support etc. I think getting regular business is the key, getting an ecommerce site is all very well but usually we provide a CMS with that and the customer very rarely needs us to provide support/upgrades etc.

observer_2

Web designing is a commodity now. There are so many out there that really to make a decent profit there have to be some added extras. The problem with most web companies is they have no idea how a website actually increases business and profits.

Designing a great website is not a way to bring in business. If the OP wants decent margin business then content is the way to go.