9 Secret Points to Getting a Lot of Web Design Customers

Ever wondered why other web designers are busy doing great business while you are stuck there waiting for customers to come your way? Days passed and you still have no customers. Do you feel being left out in the design realm? Oh well, it is not a good feeling for you to linger. But instead of sulking there, why do you not patch things up and make a difference. There are a lot of things to do and to improve. Just find the ways and give it your best shot.

Web design business is very competitive and individuals and firms have to adopt creative ways to get more clients. If you are a good web designer or design firm, some of the things you can do to increase the number of clients you get are listed below.

1. Word of Mouth

Yes, it is true that internet marketing will help you get more clients. However, studies have shown that word of mouth is one of the most powerful marketing tools. People trust recommendations from friends and family members and will use your service if you served one of the people they know well. This is the magic of viral marketing. Before you know it, you are already a big hit in the industry. In addition, you can offer your clients an incentive to refer others to you!

2. Service Excellence

Your customers will love you if you provide excellent service. One of the best ways of doing this is to over deliver on your promises. Instead of simply creating a mundane website, use compelling colors and good web copy that will wow your clients!

3. Customer Support Excellence

Customer service begins from the time a client contacts you to the final completion of his or her project. Be quick to respond to their queries, provide regular feedback on the progress of their projects and reduce the number of questions they may have by sending out an FAQ at the initial contact.

4. Use Social Networking

Social networking sites can help you get more web design customers. Keep an active presence on social media sites like Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn and engage your followers, fans and connects respectively. Avoid direct selling. Instead, provide web design solutions to what people are asking and you will gain their respect. In turn, new projects will come your way.

5. Approach Local Organizations

If you are a member of local organizations or clubs in your area, let the members know what you do. Most small organizations do not have a budget to employ a fulltime web designer and opt to have their websites designed by outside firms.

6. Networking

Go out and meet people. While advertising can be effective, most people prefer to work with designers they have met and trust. You will also be surprised at the number of referrals that can come your way through networking.

7. Use Classifieds, Forums and Message Boards

Local classifieds sites are a great way to get people looking for web design services. Sign up at popular message boards and forums and post your services in the classifieds section. However, be careful not to spend too much time in these forums.

8. Offer Complimentary Services

You can offer other services that compliment your web design work. You can have a different department to work on graphics and copywriting, search engine optimization, provide web hosting packages like cheap dedicated hosting and others. This will make you a one stop shop web design firm and clients will not have to look for other companies to offer these complementary services.

9. Your Portfolio Should Speak for You

As you do more web design projects, your portfolio will diversify and this will help you get more clients. Upload the portfolio on your website or burn it on a CD that you can send to clients on your first contact. Your past work will act as proof on the quality of your work.

Conclusion

Getting more web design customers will depend on the marketing efforts, both online and offline, that you will implements. If you do a good job, you are bound to get more clients from referrals. You can also market yourself online using search engine optimization, social media marketing, pay per click and email marketing and others.

You can start with free domain hosting. Be sure that your provider is reliable so that customers can easily access your website any time of the day. From there, work up to achieve exponential growth in terms of web design work.

Do not sulk there. Do something. Some good things are meant to happen if you will work your way up. People who needs functional and creative web design are just out there…Try to reach out and be the best in what you do.

2 Responses to “ 9 Secret Points to Getting a Lot of Web Design Customers ”

1. Jeremy says:

   January 15, 2011 at 05:20

   Great advice. Now, in my experience, if you do all these things well, you’ll have people beating down the door. So how do you gracefully turn away the ones that wouldn’t be appropriate clients?

   For example, I’m an SEO consultant, but I only work on fairly complex, dynamic websites with at least 1k pages of content. Yet I’m constantly approached by smaller, local businesses for SEO help (realtors, retailers, restaurants, etc.). For the most part, these are not ideal clients, yet they are still part of the fabric of my social network.

   Generally I just say that I’m booked for 6 mos, but that still doesn’t perfectly solve it if they say, “ok, I’ll wait,” or sometimes I say “my expertise is sites with 1k pages, so I probably wouldn’t be a good fit,” which I fear sends a negative vibe.

   Anyone have any tricks to turn away work without making the prospect feel like you’re diminishing their project or that you’re “too good” to work on their project?

   Reply
2. rean sey says:

   May 17, 2011 at 13:46

   Thank for your article. it really have me. I am new in that. And I have no customer for long time

   Reply