Are you tired of spending long hours in the office? Or, maybe, you are no longer satisfied with your current job position and wish to explore a new niche? If so, then you might be interested in starting a web design business. To make it thriving, however, you’ll need to invest much effort, time and even money. There are so many nuances to consider here that you may feel somewhat confused or unsure about your skills. Don’t be – just take your time to look around, weigh all the pros of this challenging prospect and analyze your actual skills. A bit of diligence, patience and strong focus on your objective will help you go through this process with convenience to eventually reach the desired result. Let’s discuss the main aspects you should not forget about, if you wish to make your business a success.
It’s no secret that starting a web design business is quite a risky challenge, but if you are goal-driven, straightforward and not afraid to experiment, your chances to succeed are rather high. Today, we will get acquainted with Howard Steele, who will share the nuances of starting a web design business. Howard is a web designer with over 15 years of niche experience and the author of a popular blog https://superbwebsitebuilders.com/ about website development via the use of website builders. Multiple advantages of cloud web building tools have let Howard to become a professional web designer, who has completed dozens of client projects in the shortest time possible. His tips and recommendations will certainly come in handy to beginners, who are just thinking of starting their web design career as well as for those, who have decided to make this occupation their major specialization. Here they go!
Know Your Market
There are different web design niches you may specialize in and there are also diverse market segments to focus on. Define your priorities and develop the strategy that meets the needs of the audience you plan to target. What’s more, you should not forget about current industry trends. With so many web design tendencies that hit the market every year, it is a must to stay aware of them to be able to offer a quality product. It may take time to explore the web design trends and define the expectations of potential clients. As you manage to do that, however, it will be much easier for you to develop the right strategy and find the winning approach to your audience.
Make the Analysis of Competitors
Just like any other industry, web design market has lots of renowned representatives that enjoy popularity just because they know what their clients need and are ready to offer professional products/services. If this is your first web design experience, you should devote much time to the analysis of competitors in order to discover they keys to success. If you are not a newbie already, you will also benefit from exploring the offers of competitors to be able to withstand the competition afterwards.
Do Skills Matter?
To be able to offer unique and truly popular services, you should realize your actual web design skills and expertise level. It would be weird to assume that potential clients won’t wish to browse your portfolio, for example. Thus, you should be ready to answer their questions and live up to their expectations. Professionalism is what most customers value above all. So, don’t hesitate to provide the proofs of your professionalism and improve your skills, if necessary.
What About the Business Strategy?
If you still cannot decide on whether you need business strategy or not, the answer is obvious: you do! What’s more, proper and deliberately thought out strategy is a must if you have long-term goals and wish your business to be a success. Having explored the target audience and analyzed your competitors, you will be ready to prepare a decent business development plan that will encompass the list of your goals, methods of achieving them, products/services you are going to offer, pricing policy and other important nuances.
Decide of the Suitable Web Building Tool
Choosing the right web building tool is one of the most crucial steps on your way to success. There are lots of web design software solutions you may come across on the web, but not all of them are worth the attention. Website builders are the top choice for users, who value their time and effort above all. These systems differ in their complexity level, objectives, parameters, pricing and sphere of application. Here is the review of two popular website builders – IM Creator ad uKit – that may cover the needs of newbies and professionals.
White Label from IM Creator
https://www.imcreator.com/whitelabel
Overview
IM Creator – is a website builder, which has much to offer to web designers. The system stands out from the crowd due to the exceptional feature set, comparative ease of use, diverse degree of website customization, affordable rates and special offers for proficient web developers. The system is absolutely free for users, who choose it for non-commercial purposes as well as for students, artists and entrepreneurs. At the same time, IM Creator offers paid subscriptions that vary with regard to their parameters. Let’s have a closer look on the White Label plan the platform boasts.
White Label
IM Creator White Label is a great solution for web design agencies and professional website developers, who have an idea to start or develop their business, but don’t wish to fight with all the hassle the process implies. The website builder offers a unique opportunity to use its feature set under your brand name to offer exceptional web design services with a decent tool set. Having upgraded to the plan, you get a chance to develop your brand, using your own domain name, support and even website templates with no third-party interaction. What’s more, you will get the unlimited number of licenses to be able to build and connect as many projects as you intend. No extra charges, hidden fees or restrictions – all IM Creator features will be at your disposal with the White Label tool.
Setting up the tool does not take much effort and time. Due to the detailed and informative IM Creator step-by-step wizard, you will launch your White Label business in just a few steps. Websites built with the tool are fully responsive, customizable and great for further SEO optimization. They will be totally integrated with your brand style and identity (including color scheme, logo, fonts etc.) to make your business recognizable for new and returning clients. 24/7 customer assistance will help you resolve all your web-design related problems, while the secure SSL Certificate provided by default will ensure maximum protection of your client’s data.
Currently, IM Creator has three White Label Plans, each coming with its feature set, parameters and special offers. The most affordable pricing solution will cost you $350 per year, but the price may reach $25000 for the most advanced plan. The 14-day money back feature lets you cancel the subscription any time in case of necessity.
Features
Benefits of the White Label tool speak for themselves, but IM Creator also has many other distinct features that will appeal to users. The most crucial of them are listed below:
- Powerful Integrations. IM Creator offers lots of integration options that contribute to website performance. These include links to popular social media resources, numerous widgets, Google Analytics, Google Maps and more.
- eCommerce. The website builder comes with powerful eCommerce functionality that lets you build custom made small-to-mid web stores for your clients. Due to the system’s simplicity, your customers will be able to independently customize their online stores, upload products, integrate media files, adjust shipping, payment and tax parameters as well as add other required content. They won’t need coding knowledge or skills to do that.
- Blogging Platform. IM Creator allows adding a full-featured blog to a website. There are multiple blog templates, styles, news feeds and other parameters clients may choose from depending upon their needs.
- Responsive Templates. The system has a set of responsive templates to fit various niches. Additionally, clients may pick lots of functional customization tools to create their own unique website designs either under your supervision or without it.
- Multilingual Support. For those clients, who have an intention to target international market, there is an opportunity to launch several language variations of the same website. Just discuss this idea with your clients to pick the languages they prefer.
- SEO Advantages. IM Creator-based websites are truly functional, when it comes to SEO. It’s not quite difficult to bring them to the top search engine positions, but you have to know how to fill out meta tags properly, integrate statistics collection tools and make the required settings.
uKit
Overview
uKit – is a website builder, which was created with the needs, requirements and preferences of entrepreneurs in mind. You can use the system to create websites for small and medium businesses, but it is also a nice choice for the development of landing pages, portfolios and online stores. The platform works well for independent web designers, freelancers and design agencies that are on the start of their career. It’s high time to review the major features of the website builder right away.
Affiliate Program
uKit Affiliate Program is a nice choice to promote a web design business, making use of the entire feature set provided by the system. It will be a perfect bet for freelance web developers, bloggers, website owners and communities as well as for professional web masters. The program lets you generate profit in two ways – from your websites and your clients’ payments.
Among the benefits the Affiliate Program involves, it makes sense to mention the advanced analytics system, beneficial terms of cooperation, quick tech support, shared access to the affiliate control panel of the system, opportunity to take part in multiple loyalty programs, special offers and rewarding projects uKit offers on a regular basis etc. Then highlight of the Affiliate Program is a way to earn around 30% of the general amount of payments completed by those users you have attracted to the system. Joining the program is impressingly simple and time-saving.
Features
The website builder has much to offer to its users. Among the benefits of the system, it makes sense to mention the following:
- Template Gallery. uKit is great, when it comes to template choice. The website builder comes with a stunning collection of themes that are responsive right from the start and can be customized independently by a client. Due to the WYSIWYG website editor that ideally combines with the drag-and-drop feature, even a beginner can customize uKit themes. No coding, programming languages or previous web design experience are needed to do that. Template change option is enabled here as well to let users pick another template on any step of website customization process without loss of submitted content.
- Integration. The website builder provides extensive integration options by letting users get advantage of AMO CRM and SendPulse services. The first one offers an opportunity to analyze website performance, order and client statistics, while the second one makes it possible to collect clients’ contact data directly via the website.
- eCommerce. uKit works well for the development of online stores. Building a large-scale eCommerce website might be a challenge here, but it’s quite possible to start a small or a mid-sized online store. To enable the eCommerce feature, you can choose one of two options – by adding a corresponding eCommerce widget available in uKit or by integrating the Ecwid plugin to the published website. The latter will automatically convert a website into a web store.
- Analytics. The website builder allows collecting and analyzing your website statistics by integrating Google Analytics service. What you need to get started is to create your Google account – that’s it!
Conclusion
It goes without saying that starting a web design business is a time-taking and challenging process. However, it shouldn’t be too complicated to those users, who have the firsthand knowledge of the must-have steps to undertake to make it a success. There are lots of nuances you shouldn’t overlook, but if you choose the right strategy, your effort to launch a profitable web design business will be rewarded. The best way to reach the goal is to use credible web design software. IM Creator and uKit are among the best representatives of the web design market that work equally great for inexperienced users as well as for web design pros.
IM Creator is a service to consider for those companies and professional web developers, who have already won reputation in the web design industry and need a trusted brand promoting tool for customer generation.
uKit is a great bet for individual web designers, web agencies and freelancers, whose web design expertise is not that rich. It’s a decent tool for those, whose career is just about to start.
Considering the diverse complexity, implications, audience focus, pricing policy and goal-orientation of these website builders, it’s possible to conclude that the final choice should be based upon the individual needs and long-term goals of a user.
