Is Designing Websites a Good Idea?

[TheAndySan]

I was released from my tech support job on Monday. Although I disliked that job, I needed the money from it because I was saving up to move out in July with my friend.

Although my parents want me to get another job, I feel that if I would happen to get another job, I might be released again through no fault of my own. It's really frustrating to go out and look for a job (although it might be a bit easier since it isn't winter anymore) and once you find a job to be released a month later.

In the meantime from now until July-August, I want to pursue creating websites for other people. I realize that people nowadays can build a website themselves with little technical know-how. However, people can be lazy and may not want to deal with creating a website.

What do you guys think? Could building websites be a reasonable source of income? How should I market myself? Should I put ads in the local paper or build a website in order to generate sales outside of my local area?

I'm pretty new at starting a new business so any suggestions would be appreciated.

[runningbird]

You could get some freelance jobs on sites like nerdlance.com. I think that eventually the best way to market yourself would be to create your own impressive site and then provide contact info on there. It would take a while to build up traffic though....pretty tough actually from my experience. But you could very well have better luck.

[runningbird]

Oh, I see you actually have a blog going. But you probably can't use that as an example of your expertise.

Can I ask you what plugin you used for the star rating? I tried like 2 or 3 different ones but none of them worked for me. Feedback is important. :/

[TheAndySan]

Originally Posted by runningbird

You could get some freelance jobs on sites like nerdlance.com. I think that eventually the best way to market yourself would be to create your own impressive site and then provide contact info on there. It would take a while to build up traffic though....pretty tough actually from my experience. But you could very well have better luck.

I was thinking of building a site specifically for building websites, but I didn't want to get too ahead of myself and reserve a domain along with actually building a presentable website. Also like you said, it might take awhile to build up traffic and thus business.

I wonder if tapping into the local area would be a good test of the marketability of website design? Although there might not be a lot of people around here that need a website, all I would need would be a few clients from now until July-August to supply me with the money needed to move out.

I browsed around other sites that offer website design and saw how high their prices were compared to what I was gonna offer! But then I thought about what Steve said in Living Paycheck To Paycheck about giving yourself permission to earn more. Once I relooked over the prices that everyone else was offering, they didn't seem so high.

So I'm thinking about starting off at $1,500 for the basic design of the site and setting up their domain, email, and hosting (domain and hosting are for a year unless they want to pay for longer than that).

I'm also thinking about utilizing affiliate programs that DreamHost and others have in order to get additional income at no cost to the customer.

Originally Posted by runningbird

Oh, I see you actually have a blog going. But you probably can't use that as an example of your expertise.

Can I ask you what plugin you used for the star rating? I tried like 2 or 3 different ones but none of them worked for me. Feedback is important. :/

Yeah, my blog isn't the most well-designed, hehe!

For my star rating, I use OutBrain. It also gives you the Recommended Posts feature as well. Although not too many people actually give me a star rating, it does give me an idea of which posts are connecting and which aren't.

[David Cain]

I think it would be hard to make money doing website design, simply because the web is full of experienced, established people already doing exactly that.

In fact, other than porn, there probably isn't a niche that is more saturated. Can you offer a personal angle or additional service that others don't? Like "Websites for working moms" or some other market?

One easy way to find out what is underserved is type in "How to _____" into google and see what the top results offer as an answer. If none of them answer that question very well, you've found an underserved market.

Just don't do what everyone else is already doing, or it will be an uphill battle all the way.

[TheAndySan]

Originally Posted by David Cain

I think it would be hard to make money doing website design, simply because the web is full of experienced, established people already doing exactly that.

In fact, other than porn, there probably isn't a niche that is more saturated. Can you offer a personal angle or additional service that others don't? Like "Websites for working moms" or some other market?

One easy way to find out what is underserved is type in "How to _____" into google and see what the top results offer as an answer. If none of them answer that question very well, you've found an underserved market.

Just don't do what everyone else is already doing, or it will be an uphill battle all the way.

I was thinking about doing it locally because I know that website design is an overly saturated market online. Also, if I do it locally, I'd be able to actually talk with the clients in person instead of over the phone or through IM and build the website right in front of them so that I can make changes on the fly.

I don't really want to limit myself as far as a niche goes. If I do that, yes my competition shrinks, but my cliental shrinks too.

I guess technically, my niche would be website design for technically intimidated people and small businesses.

As far as extra services go, I don't really see a lot of web designers actually putting up the websites (I'm sure there are some that do though). From what I've seen, it's "Here's the website and login info. Next!"

I would not only design the website, but set up their domain and hosting, put it up online as well as install mail accounts for them. There's other things that I'd do too.

I put up a more detailed explanation of what I'd offer on my blog.

[Rocksta]

Of course, I am a web/graphic designer and I make $3000 every 2 months and I'm not even 18 yet, but it's only because I don't treat it as a job, but more like satisfying my needs. If I need something, I make one a web site.
I'd have to start taking it more seriously due to my moving to NY pretty soon anyway.

You can really earn more and generally a lot. Remember that EVERYONE needs a website, it's the best form of advertisement, they just don't know it yet.
That's why I study marketing and persuasion.

Choosing your niche is a very good idea too.

Go ahead and PM me, if you have some questions.

[pianoperformer]

Perhaps if you partner with a programmer, it would be even better. I think the number of people who just want a design with no programming is quite limited.

I'd disagree that it is too saturated. I think if you are good enough, you could get into it quite easily.

I do think the pricing you posted is a little steep. It doesn't really matter if hosting and email is involved, because we both know that's very cheap to provide.

I think if you cut that in half, it'll be OK. You really can't easily charge that much anyway until you get a portfolio going. People won't hand that much over to someone who doesn't have previous work to show.

Or, you could charge hourly. See the article, 7 Reasons You Should Charge by the Hour.

Oh, I wanted to mention, too, charging yearly for hosting probably isn't the best idea. I would offer monthly primarily, telling them it is for site maintenance (since most people don't know what hosting is). Again, who wants to pay for an entire year of hosting before they can even see how their web site will turn out, or before you know if your company will last beyond a year?

[TheAndySan]

Originally Posted by pianoperformer

Perhaps if you partner with a programmer, it would be even better. I think the number of people who just want a design with no programming is quite limited.

I'd disagree that it is too saturated. I think if you are good enough, you could get into it quite easily.

I do think the pricing you posted is a little steep. It doesn't really matter if hosting and email is involved, because we both know that's very cheap to provide.

I think if you cut that in half, it'll be OK. You really can't easily charge that much anyway until you get a portfolio going. People won't hand that much over to someone who doesn't have previous work to show.

Or, you could charge hourly. See the article, 7 Reasons You Should Charge by the Hour.

Oh, I wanted to mention, too, charging yearly for hosting probably isn't the best idea. I would offer monthly primarily, telling them it is for site maintenance (since most people don't know what hosting is). Again, who wants to pay for an entire year of hosting before they can even see how their web site will turn out, or before you know if your company will last beyond a year?

I know how to program, but I'm no expert at it.

I guess without a portfolio to go by, I should lower my rates. I'll read the article when I get back home and see if I should charge hourly instead.

Good point about the hosting. I could do it monthly, but it's more expensive in the long run. I could also charge for updating as well.

[Cyllya]

I've recently been considering starting freelance web development to get some extra money while spending most of my time on my main business that will take a while to get up and running. But for the last year, I've been working as an employee in a small web development firm, so here's some info I learned from that job which might help you. For the record, the company offered an upfront price based on the estimated amount of time a project would take and charged by the hour for work beyond that project, based on $65 per hour in both cases.

--Make sure you come up with a contract that is very clear on the result you intend to create, or else you and the client may have different ideas about what they're paying for, and that's all kinds of trouble.

--Copywriting (writing the content for the website) is normally the client's job, although you can offer to do it for extra money. Either way, that's some kind of information that they have to send you, and almost every single client you ever have will find some reason to dilly-dally on this. (On rare occasions, one will even delay the project so that they can delay paying you.) You will have everything else on the website done within a week of starting and then it will be on hiatus for three months until you finally get this. For this reason, take partial payment in advance.

--It takes a while between the time you send a bill and the time you get the money. You may have to call and pester the client a few times. Make sure you're careful about keeping a record of who owes you money. Don't spend money until you actually have it.

--It's hard to predict how many hours of work a project will take because you don't know how much time a client will want you to spend making changes to the design, how many times they'll want you to create a whole new design because they don't like it at all, etc. Even if you want to offer an upfront pay-by-project rate to most clients, I highly recommend charging by the hour when you get the feeling a client is one of those "I don't know what I want, but I'll know it when I see it" types.

[Liveformx64]

I earn a living doing exactly this.

There is plenty of business out there.

1. Specialize or you will get lost in the sea.

2. Price means nothing, Value means everything. if your customer can produce a measurable R.O.I. from their site you can charge them exponentially more money than a simple brochure site.

3. Do you know E-commerce? Many internet clowns say they can setup an e-commerce store, and sure they can, but they usually suck, and they are terrible to use. Find a good shopping cart system and it will make your life 10 times easier.

4. The more you give, the more you get. Don't nickle and dime your customers for everything from turning on your computer to changing the e-mail address in the footer. Help them find good content for their site, explain to them why the site needs to be updated weekly to maintain high search engine rankings, and get them on a monthly maintenance plan etc...

You being a one man show is your biggest strength, not your biggest weakness. You can provide infinitely more value to small business than the Big corporate design sites. Your business is about relationships, not about websites.

Learn how to communicate well, and sell well. You can make the best websites in the world, but if you cant sell the idea to your ideal client, than all of that quality product is wasted.

[mustard76]

My 2 cents:

Consider learning SEO and offering sites that are truly optimized for search engines ranking. A lot of clowns claim to build "SEO websites" but few of them actually understand SEO.