Start your own web design business
September 05, 2007
I’m going to assume in this post that you have some experience coding XHTML/CSS and you can implement or hack up Javascript and you desperately want to start your own web marketing business. I’m also assuming that you plan on starting your web business on your own, for the most part.
Ideally, you should start an LLC or other limited liability company to front your web business. However, starting out as an independent contractor is perfectly acceptable (besides the pain in reporting your taxes.)
Essential Reading
Before you even consider starting your web design/marketing company, I suggest you read and comprehend the concepts in the following books.
- Don’t Make Me Think - by Steve Krug
- Designing with Web Standards - by Jeffery Zeldman
- Web Standards Solutions: The Markup and Style Handbook - by Dan Cederholm
- Bulletproof Web Design: Improving Flexibility and Protecting Against Worst-Case Scenarios with XHTML and CSS - by Dan Cederholm
- DOM Scripting: Web Design with Javascript and the Document Object Model - by Jeremy Keith
- Transcending CSS - by Andy Clarke
- Defensive Design for the Web: How to improve error messages, help, forms, and other crisis points - by 37signals
- Getting Real - by 37signals
There are numerous other books you could read as well. See what the pros list as their essential reading.
Find a Web Host
Unless you plan on acquiring and setting up your own redundant, load-balanced server farm, most small companies choose a web host to host their web servers. Depending on your needs, your monthly cost can be quite low.
- Dreamhost - I’ve used Dreamhost for years with a few long standing clients. Their support is great and they have great uptime. They’ve recently started supporting Ruby on Rails and offer a nice subversion repository as well as a permanent file storage and sharing solution. Like most hosts, they also offer a 1-click setup of major CMS/Blog and other open source software. No Cpanel and Fanastico for those who are used to it, however.
- Rails Playground - I do a lot of XHML/CSS for some Ruby on Rails applications and I’ve gotten familiar with the framework and I suggest anyone with an interest in programming web applications looks at Ruby on Rails. Rails Playground offers stable, reliable solutions to get your foot in the door using Rails and also offers Cpanel and Fantastico for your basic web hosting needs. I would start with a basic shared hosting plan and then when you need it, move to their VPS plans as they are affordable and lightning fast.
- Surpass Hosting - I’ve used Surpass for years and they are dirt cheap. I don’t mind telling you that I host this blog as well as several low-traffic sites through them for around $10/month. I haven’t even begun to touch bandwidth or disk usage limits and they have quick support, so if you want to start cheap, use Surpass.
Manage your projects better
Set up a Basecamp
The best way to keep your customers happy is if they are constantly in the loop. To achieve this goal, start a Basecamp site for your web business.
Basecamp is a web based project management software ideal for small teams. And since we are talking about a one man team, Basecamp makes sense.
Setting up your Basecamp for your company gives you the option to have a client login at http://yourcompanyname.clientsection.com to share messages, to-dos, milestones, writeboards and more. For me, Basecamp has helped shave off hours of miscommunication and phone tag.
Basecamp is a paid service, but the free plan offers you control over one active project. You can invite as many people to collaborate as you wish and can create up to two writeboards. I highly suggest using the Free plan until you need more projects. In which case, I use the Personal Plan for $12 a month and I can manage up to three projects. If I have more than three projects at a time, I know I’ve got to finish one of the others before I can take on another.
Budget, Budget, Budget
When working for yourself, its always a good idea to budget your time well. If you quote a client a certain number of hours you know you’ll likely go over the time budget anyway, but keeping track of tasks and hours logged will help you better gauge your time estimates for your next proposal. And, often times, clients will ask for a timesheet at least with your invoice and using an online time clock can certainly help.
- Tick is a fantastic timesheet application that you can connect to your Basecamp account to pull client and project information for your timesheets. There is also a dashboard widget available for Mac and PC which lets you run a timer and tell it what tasks you were working on and this info goes directly onto your Tickspot.com timesheets. The reporting option lets you save or print timesheets for given time cycles and can be attached to outgoing invoices to clients.
- If you need a simpler time-clock solution, I can also recommend Slimtimer. Slimtimer does not have the Basecamp integration but does have a web based timer and task management. The reporting tool is also useful. But if you have Basecamp, Tick is the way to go.
Invoice your clients
Let’s face it. Our main goal here is to make money, right? Well, we could just whip up some word documents to invoice our clients. I was doing that for years and it worked wonderfully. However, when we get into hosting below, I found that I needed an automated system to bill my hosting clients on a recurrent basis.
I use Blinksale. Sure, there are a few major invoicing applications out there that you could use, but I find the best value is at Blinksale. Blinksale lets me have my own transparent billing software. I have an address at http://mycompany.blinksale.com where I can add and settle invoices when I receive payment. The best feature are the recurring invoice templates that you can assign to certain clients. You charge your client $30/month every three months and Blinksale will send that invoice out for you on time each quarter.
Other great features include tax setup, invoice reminders and web-based invoices. You can even include links so that a client can pay directly through Paypal. Do you have some old fashioned clients that need hard copies in the mail? Great! Blinksale will let you buy stamps in bulk and they will mail your invoice for you.
Add White Label Services
How can you make your one person operation look like a boutique design shop? Offer some extra marketing services to your clients to entice them to jump on board with you. You design their website and maybe even their business cards, letterheads. Can you also offer some solutions like a content management system or E-mail campaign service without having to learn a complex programming language?
Let your clients send HTML E-mail campaigns
If you know HTML/CSS then that’s all you need to know to let your clients create, send and manage high-impact E-mail campaigns. Mailbuild is a nifty white label E-mail campaign solution perfect for a web designer. It allows you to create your own branded website (http://yourcompanyname.createsend.com) that your clients can log into and send E-mail campaigns. Sign up for a free account to get started and create an HTML template or use one provided for your clients. Mailbuild charges your client to send HTML E-mails to an E-mail list based on the number of recipients. Mailbuild also gives you the ability to markup and pocket the profit from using their service making it an ideal way to enhance your services and incur no out-of-pocket expenses.
Use a Content Management System
If your client needs the ability to update their own website and don’t want to be tied down to your company for minor site updates, your best bet is implementing a Content Management System. You can use Joomla, Drupal or any number of Open Source software that you install on your web server and customize to fit. However, sometimes these programs can take a ton of time to setup and usually do more than your client requires. If you use a hosted white label CMS like Light, you can brand your own CMS backend and design custom templates for your clients. Light is built for designers and has a very simple templating system. They are constantly releasing upgrades and if a basic no-frills CMS that you can brand as your own is what you are looking for, you should probably see the Light.
Google is Awesome
Google is here for you, so use them. Google provides many free services to help you enhance your client’s capabilities when trying to reach target markets or collaborate within a company.
Gmail
Google’s free web-based E-mail provides you with 2 gigs of space for your E-mails and links you to other popular Google products like Docs and Spreadsheets, Calendars, Personal Start pages, Video, Images, etc. Its always a good idea to open a GMail account using your company name because you don’t need to use your hosted E-mail solution and bog down your server with your extensive E-mail correspondance. Let Google handle it. But if a client also needs an E-mail address, have them use Gmail, too.
Google Analytics
There are numerous web analytics services out there to track visitors, referrers, time on site, most popular content, etc. but no one does a better job at it than Google Analytics.
All you’ll need (as with most Google Services) is a regular GMail account and you can automatically deliver enhanced web traffic reports in PDF format to your clients via E-mail.
Google’s Analytics application is loaded with reporting features and AdSense tracking for campaigns, and its simple to use; just add a line of javascript at the bottom of any page you’d like tracked and you’re done.
Google Apps For Your Domain
Google Apps for your domain offers a viable free solution for any of your small business clients. If they have a business in which they need to collaborate more effectively, you can have your very own GMail, Calendar, Start Page, Docs and Spreadsheets all living at http://yourcompanyname.com.
You’ll need to know a bit about DNS changes and be comfortable using your registrar’s administration to allow Google to accept your mail and serve start pages, docs and spreadsheets and calendars to your own subdomains (start.yourcompanyname.com, mail.yourcompanyname.com, or calendar.yourcompanyname.com for instance.)
The mail application gives you GMail with chat functionality and an easy-to-use interface so your client can add users, E-mail lists and forwarding accounts.
The ability to customize a start page for that company works as well because you can add any Google Dashboard Widgets and RSS feeds from trade news sites, and all are at a glance with your calendar and inbox.
Webmaster Central
Your client want to be listed in search engines? The place to start is with Google and Webmaster Central lets you see your site’s status in Google’s search index as well as use powerful tools like Sitemaps to ensure all of your pages are listed in Google’s index.
What You’re Worth
Take a little time before you start developing your own website or a client’s and actually figure out you’re hourly wage. Typically, you’ll be charging an hourly fee based on mockups or outlines supplied by a client and you’ll need to know what to charge.
The folks over at freelanceswitch.com have created a handy hourly rate calculator which does all the hardwork for you. Try to be accurate when using this tool and it’s quite helpful.
Be Passionate
As you can see, as a web designer you can start your own web business for only dollars a month. However, you can’t put a price on passion. You should only move forward if you plan on pursuing your goals with passion. You must be passionate about delivering a solid product and also about staying on top of the technology as it changes everyday. Because if you are passionate about your work it will show and that will keep your client base happy.
Get Started!
If you’ve read this whole article, its safe to say you want to get out there and start your business, so determine your business name, secure your domain name and hosting and start your Basecamp. Use the tools above to enhance your service offerings and you should be able to work independantly and build yourself a profitable and enjoyable business.
