Interested in starting a company? That’s great news – entrepreneurship is at the heart of the American dream, after all. Today, more people than ever before are starting e-commerce and web development small businesses. Check llc pricing here.
Indeed, web development businesses are booming, and web developers as professionals are becoming more common – even at a rate of 8% per year according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. This is partly because practically every business (even those with retail stores) needs a website to facilitate e-commerce transactions and advertise to their target consumers.
If you have any interest or skill in web development, you can sell that service and start your own business this year. Not sure where to begin? You’ve come to the right place.
Below, we’ll break down how you can start a web development business in 2021 in detail. Let’s get started!
Early Decisions for Your Web Design Business
Before you get started drawing up a business plan or creating a website to advertise your portfolio, you need to settle a few early questions and make some big business decisions.
What kind of company will you make – an LLC, a corporation, or something else? Who will form your company – an expensive Lawyer, or maybe a one of the best online incorporation services? How much money do you need? In a recent guide posted by FinancePond, Benjamin Aronson goes over the costs involved in forming an LLC whether you do it yourself or hire an LLC formation service. Aronson notes that the cost ranges from $40-$500.
It is important to take the time and do your research, these choices will set the tone for your future business and may determine whether it is ultimately successful.
Why Web Design?
First and foremost, you need to know why you chose web design/development as a business idea in the first place. While there are plenty of guides out there claiming that web development is super easy and that anyone can make a six-figure business doing it, here’s the truth: web development can be difficult, especially when you’re starting a business from scratch.
Because of this, it’s important that you know what you’re getting into as a web designer and you fully understand what it will take to run a successful web design business.
That being said, web development can be very successful. E-commerce is more important than ever before, and those who have the tools and skills necessary to build web pages for big clients can make tons of money.
More importantly, web development is a business you can run out of your own home, especially if you keep it relatively small or primarily pursue freelance work. You don’t have to expand your business to include an office and employees if you don’t want to.
Bottom line: be sure to understand what web design involves (coding language, sometimes long hours, tons of time in front of the computer) and why you’re getting into it before starting your business. That way, you’ll actually be comfortable in your new business and make the most of your upcoming opportunities.
Choosing a Web Design Language and Niche
If you think about web design as a broader field and decide that you definitely want to make a web development business, you have another pair of decisions to make. You’ll need to choose both which web design language or platform you use and what niche you’ll focus on.
Let’s start with the first question. There are two broad coding languages you should learn or use, especially at first: HTML and CSS. Both of these programming languages can be used to design professional-looking websites and, even better, aren’t the most complex languages to learn.
There are tons of free resources available, like online classes or tutorials, that can show you the ropes of HTML or CSS programming in a matter of days or weeks.
Alternatively, you can use website builders or CMS (content management systems) like WordPress. These options are a little less flexible and customizable, as you have to work within existing website builder frameworks. But they can be a great way to jumpstart your business if you want to start designing web pages while building your coding expertise simultaneously.
Naturally, you’ll want to learn how to use several of the best web design tools and apps. If you don’t know how to use them, get learning – you can only craft good sites if you know how to use these!
What is Web Design Niche?
In a nutshell, your web development niche is the type of web pages or websites you’ll focus on to the exclusion of others. No web development business succeeds by doing everything perfectly. In fact, trying to spread yourself too thin could lead you to squander your resources and eventually lose clients.
Instead, it’s smarter both personally and professionally to pick a niche or focus for your efforts. By this, we mean you should focus on specific businesses or webpage types to create and sell to clients.
For example, you could decide to focus on e-commerce shops exclusively. Then you’ll be able to learn the skills and programming tricks needed to create top-tier e-commerce shopping sites, carts, and more.
Or you can go even further. For instance, you might decide to focus on creating websites for small businesses such as law firms or dentists. In this way, you’ll be able to specialize your skills over time and gradually demand higher prices for your services.
There’s an advantage to choosing a web design niche; the more you stick with a given specialty, the more you’ll be able to prove to future clients that you know your stuff. It’s oftentimes easier to advertise your skills to a smaller group of clients who need specific work than it is to advertise your web development skills to the general population.
But which niche should you choose? That depends on your interests and your skills. If you are just starting out with web development, you may eventually decide on a niche or focus after your first few jobs and as you build up your coding knowledge.
Determining a Business Plan and Ongoing Costs
Lastly, you’ll need to figure out a business plan and estimate your ongoing costs so you know how much money you need to raise. The basic costs for starting your own web development company are understandably minimal; you’ll probably only need to pay a few thousand dollars upfront.
You’ll want to buy:
- A good laptop and/or desktop for your small business exclusively
- A desk with plenty of screen space, especially if you plan to use multiple monitors (recommended)
- An excellent text editor and software, including business administration or project management software
- Web development tools
- Design reference books if you are just starting out
Additionally, remember you have to market to your customers when you are first beginning your web design business. Marketing costs can run you anywhere from as little as a few hundred dollars up to $10,000 in the first year.
Because of all these costs, you need to draw up a business plan. A business plan will be important not only for your own planning but also in case you ever need to take out a loan to expand your business. A good business plan for your web development company will include:
- A general strategy for your company
- A description of your goals and business focus
- The types of services you offer and general prices
- And more
Think of a business plan as a blueprint for your future company decisions. No business is successful without one.
Once you’ve answered all these questions and have drawn up a solid business plan, you can finally get to the meat of the web design business startup process.
How to Start a Web Design Business Step-by-Step
You’re fully prepared to start your own web development business. So let’s break down how you can do that step-by-step.
Step 1 – Come Up with a Name and Form a Legal Entity
Firstly, you’ll need a name for your new company whether you plan to eventually employ people or just run a freelance business. There are a few things to keep in mind as you choose your name, including:
- Whether it’s available. Your business name needs to not be taken by anyone else, plus be memorable and related to your business services.
- If the business name can be used as a domain name for your website. It’s usually advantageous to create a business website with a web address that’s almost identical to your main business name. This way, people can find your website easily once they learn of your company.
Depending on your state, you may find government resources including lists of currently available business names.
After deciding on a name, you should form a legal entity of some kind. The most common business structures for small businesses include sole proprietorships, partnerships, corporations and LLCs or limited liability companies.
Sole proprietorships are best for single individuals like freelancers. Partnerships, as their name implies, are good business structures if you are working with at least one other person. You can also start an LLC even if you are working by yourself, but this business type is best after you grow your business and eventually gain a few employees.
Each type of business may come with different tax breaks or benefits. But note that you must form at least a sole proprietorship if you plan to start a web development business in any capacity.
Additionally, each business type will incur certain fees to file key paperwork with your state government.
Step 2 – Create Proposals and a Portfolio
After forming your business, you’ll need to create proposals for your future clients, as well as a portfolio demonstrating your skills.
Don’t have a portfolio yet? That’s okay! It’ll give you a chance to try out your web development skills before you start offering services to real people.
For your portfolio, put together several mock websites or pages and take screenshots of the final products. You can then post those pictures on your website for future clients to check out.
A portfolio gives clients an opportunity to see the kind of work you do and decide whether your web development style is appropriate for their business goals, aesthetics, or themes.
Your proposals are essentially your business pitches. It’s a good idea to have a few business proposal templates ready to go since, in the early days, you’ll need to send out tons of them just to get a few jobs. Business proposals should include:
- A clear summary of terms and “deliverables” (i.e. what you’ll actually provide to your clients in terms of completed pages, website functionality, etc.)
- A place for you to specify price or cost
- A place for you to specify a deliverable time or deadline
- A place where you and your client can sign, either physically or digitally
The business proposal will work as a legal contract in case you ever need to pursue payments from a client that gets stingy. It’s rare, but it does happen.
Step 3 – Make a Website
Next, you’ll need to make a website. As a web developer, you’ll prove that you know what you’re doing by having a great website available for your clients to see before they sign on the dotted line.
Your business website should be perfect from start to finish and include things like:
- Good links (i.e. no broken links that lead to defunct pages)
- A good layout with logical composition
- An “about me” page so clients can learn more about you
- A page for your portfolio
- A “contact” page so clients can request your business services
Expect to spend at least several weeks working on your business website. Your business site is the first impression your business will have with your clients. Make sure it’s airtight and as attractive as possible or you may fail to draw new business to your web development company.
Additionally, be sure to find web hosting your web development company on stable servers and that its web address is as close to your real business name as possible.
Step 4 – Start Looking for Clients
Once your portfolio and website are ready to go, can begin searching for clients. There are tons of ways in which you can advertise your services, such as through using Google ads, Facebook or social media advertising. Or you can directly seek out clients on job boards like Upwork, Fiverr, and so on.
You might also be able to find clients in the real world by posting physical posters in coffee shops, on telephone poles, and more. Speak to friends and family and ask if anyone needs some web development done in the near future.
Getting your first jobs will be tough, there’s no way around it. But it will become easier as you build up your clientele and slowly complete jobs. Your best jobs or pages can be added to your portfolio.
Step 5 – Build Your Brand and Advertise
As your business grows, you’ll need to build your brand by advertising and improving your website and portfolio. As you make money, spend some of it to advertise more aggressively and draw in potential clients. You’ll also want to research your target audience (i.e. new clients who will benefit from your website design company and its style/specialty).
You’ll eventually be able to leverage Google ads or banner ads that show up on other websites. You should also look into using search engine optimization or SEO for your website and any content you put out.
Having an excellent website and SEO-friendly content and copy will help your website and business rank more highly on Google. Then, when people search for keywords like “web development company”, your website will be more likely to show up at the top of the list.
Starting a Web Development Company FAQs
While the above five-step process is a great breakdown for how to start a web design company of your very own, you might have a few lingering questions. Let’s answer those now.
What Prices Should You Set?
Pricing is necessarily a big concern for first-time website development business owners. After all, the money you charge for your services will determine how much business you get in the first months or years of your company’s life.
Our advice? It’s a good idea to price your services in the middle of the range relative to your competition rather than rock-bottom. Everyone knows the saying “you get what you pay for”. This speaks to a crucial part of human psychology: if something is priced too cheaply, it’s tough to see it as worthwhile.
The same holds true with your clients and your web development business. If you price your services too cheaply, you probably won’t get a lot of business because people will think that your services are cheap as well.
Instead, it’s a better idea to research what competing web development freelancers or small businesses are charging for their services. Then try to either undercut them by a little bit or even price yourself higher than they do.
Higher prices imply proficiency and quality. It sounds counterintuitive, but charging a higher price for your web development services could very well help you get more clients than you would otherwise.
But What Numbers Should I Target?
In terms of raw numbers, professional freelance web designers typically charge on a per hour basis, with rates ranging between $50-$100 per hour. A full business website, in context, could cost anywhere between $5000 to $10,000.
It’s up to you to decide whether you will charge your clients on a per-hour or per-project basis.
Do You Need to Take Classes?
Yes. Web development isn’t a business anyone can jump into. If you don’t know what compound paths in Adobe Illustrator are, you need to take at least a few classes before starting a web design company. Classes will give you the skills you need to succeed with your projects, plus stand out from competitors.
And make no mistake, web design is a competitive field!
How to Scale Your Web Design Business
As your business grows, you’ll have to determine how and if you want to scale it for future expansion. As you first start out, you’ll work alone and effectively be a freelancer and/or the owner of an LLC.
As you earn more profits, you may eventually have the opportunity to rent a small amount of office space and hire other employees to work on web design with you.
Is this something you want in the future? If so, include it in your business plan. If not, that’s okay! But keep in mind that you’ll effectively remain a freelancer for your career. (Note that this may result in greater profits overall – some freelance web designers make tons of money since they don’t have a lot of costs associated with expanding their business.)
What Are the Best Platforms for Web Development?
This is a big question you’ll have to answer early on in the business process. If you decide not to write your own pages from scratch, you’ll have to use a platform or website builder to develop pages and websites for your customers.
Fortunately, you have lots of great choices. WordPress is an obvious answer, and it’s a good one if you don’t have a lot of coding experience already. That’s because WordPress is extremely customizable. This popular CMS is behind roughly half of all pages (39.5%, in fact) on the Internet and is one of the most popular choices around the globe.
With WordPress, you’ll gain access to themes, widgets, and advanced controls to create websites perfectly tailored to your clients’ needs or requests. Plus, as your coding experience becomes better, you can tweak WordPress’ code to better suit your needs.
Alternatively, you can use more basic website builders that allow you to drag-and-drop website elements or art into place. However, you won’t be able to grow your web development business very far with these builders as they are inherently limited. Plus, if you use a website builder, you aren’t doing anything your clients can’t do for themselves.
Some of the best website builders include Wix, Drupal, Squarespace, and so on. We recommend moving on from website builders at your earliest opportunity.
Do You Need a Business Bank Account/Credit Card?
Yes, absolutely. No matter the size of your web design business, you need to set up a business bank account and potentially request a credit card depending on your expenses. A business bank account keeps your personal and business finances separate.
This is important for several key reasons:
- It makes tax season easier for you
- It prevents you from getting into trouble if the IRS audits you
- It makes it easier to see how much money you make every year, and how much you grow as you develop your business
Plus, having a separate bank account removes some of the temptation of using your recently earned profits for fun or frivolous spending.
As a bonus, many business bank accounts come with incentives or cashback programs that give you free credit or other advantages for using them. Once you start a web development business, you’re a business owner – take advantage of the perks that come with that title.
Conclusion
Ultimately, starting a web development business is a big decision. The above tutorial is just the start and serves as a basic overview of how to start a web design company. There are lots of key factors you need to keep in mind as you draw up your business plan, consider the kinds of services you’ll offer, and decide on your pricing ranges.
But just by reading this tutorial and thinking about these questions ahead of time, you’ve done yourself a great service. Business is tough, but preparation is key to success. Follow the tips in the outline above and your web development business is sure to grow with time.