Did someone ell you that there is no money to be made in web design? Let me assure you millions of web designers worldwide are indeed making a nice living developing websites for their clients. Many are providing this service from the comfort of their own homes and they work when they choose. Most people who spread these silly rumors are failed web designers or folks who know very little about effective web design. That’s okay though. Fortunately, you found this article and you are well on your way to making your web design business a success.
Making money in the field of web design is possible and has much more profit potential than ever before. Ten years ago it was difficult to find a business who wanted a website. There were many people who thought the WWW was nothing more than a toy to pass the time or they thought it was a short-term “fad”. These days businesses are actively seeking professional designers at a reasonable price and everyone (let’s hope!) now has a clue that the web is indeed a vast resource for potential money making profits.
The concept is really simple. With any business your gross earnings must be X amount greater than your expenses to make a profit. Right? Keep that in mind at all times. How much greater depends on how much profit you want to earn. If you are just starting out in the web design field, keep this X amount reasonably low so you can build your clientele portfolio but not too low as to jeopardize your business longevity.
IT’S TRUE! GET MORE INORMATION
Common Web Designer Mistakes and The Simple Resolutions:
1. One of the biggest errors made by web designers is adopting the mindset that their time is not an expense. Reboot your mindset now and re-install this program in your brain: “Your time is an expense.” If whatever you are doing takes your time, it is not free and it is not expense free. This is the #1 reason that web designers do not make it in this career field.
So how do you reduce your time? You can only work so fast, right? There are only so many hours in a day, right?
3. Web designers who are serious about their business need to find ways to cut their expenses and cut their time in the development process. They can do this by buying “quality” products and services developed by other designers and companies specifically for their use in making their design projects easier, ie. digital photography, web templates, interactive scripts, clipart, etc.
4. Don’t get caught up in the mouse trap! There are some designers who have the misinformed mindset that using third-party products and services such as premade web templates is a “bad-bad” thing. These are likely the same designers who told you there is no money in web design because they have not figured out how to make money using their old-fashion mindset techniques or they are a closet template user. 😉 Once they lose the ego, they’ll too find that they can make money in this career choice.
There is nothing wrong with using a quality, effective web template as a starting point (or the complete design) for your clients’ websites. Web templates that are designed correctly can shave HOURS off your development time, save you time, and save your clients money. You and your clients both win!
5. Now when I say “effective web templates” I mean designs that were developed for the web and are not loaded down with unnecessary graphics or features that you will likely never need. Effective web design has nothing to do with graphics and many of the templates you see being sold online today would be better described as “graphics templates”.
6. Another mistake made by web designers is confusing web design with graphic design. Although they go somewhat hand-in-hand when developing a website, they are not the same when developing a website in which you want to accomplish your objective to your targeted market. After all, the point of our a business web site is to make money, right? How many people do you know who visit Amazon and eBay go there because they want to check out their eye-candy graphics? 😉
7. Keep your expenses as low as possibly. This is especially important when you are starting up your web design business. Most web designers do not need a huge arsenal of resources. Find those that do well for you and which you can rely on again and again to output quality.
8. Look for good deals but watch out for free deals. Good deals can be defined as a quality design vs. the price. Just because a design is priced high does not mean it was designed by an experienced designer. And as I mentioned before … Free does not mean it doesn’t come without any expense. If it takes you three times as long to cleanup a web template you got free, you may as well have paid for it and saved yourself three times the work.
9. Some so-called “free” designs may also mean “illegally borrowed”. Be careful who you buy your designs from. If it is an illegally borrowed design and you use it on your website or your clients’ website you are legally responsible for any copyright infringements whether you paid for the design or not. Your client may also file legal action as well.
If for any reason you are still not convinced that cutting your costs and cutting your time is the key to a profitable web design business, let me ask you this:
Would you consider building your own computer, building your own Internet Service provider service, developing your own software as well as your own HTML editor, and designing your own clip art from scratch just so you can say, “I did it all myself”? No you likely would not. These are all tools you use every day that you purchased elsewhere specifically to make your job easier. If you did all of these things yourself, you would have millions of hours in your design projects. Or you may never get to the point of designing websites at all for clients.
This brings us to the #2 mistake made by web designers: “Ego”. Lose the ego and you will begin to make money in this career field. The most successful business owners will confirm that there is no room in business for emotions. And no matter how you want to slice or dice it, “ego” is certainly an emotion especially when it interferes with good business practices.
