[oojamacallit]

Hi Everybody,

I am looking for ideas to help my other half get a web design business off the ground. He is a pretty experienced programmer, and has designed quite a few sites for people, as well as writing his own point and click website maker. It has always been more of a hobby, but he would now like to start a business, as he has had to slow down due to health reasons, and wants to work from home.

We have no idea how or where to advertise, or how to actually launch this....any ideas would be very gratefully received.

thank you : )

[DaveJ]

My advice, get him to design himself a decent website/portfolio of his own to showcase his work. Put some time into SEO, maybe focus on your local area so as to reduce online competition (though this depends where you live!). Get him to post his own website on here (website feedback section) so as to get other designers thoughts on it. This is the site that potential customers will be looking at first so it has to show off his skills.

I'd also recommend designing a flyer and droping it round all the businesses in the local area. I got a surprising amount of work through this. I also gave a bunch of business cards to my friends and family and asked them to hand one to anyone they talk to who might be interested in a website/website re-design. E-shots can work well too, but take the time to make the emails personal and specific to their business.

This all will hopefully then lead to more work through word-of-mouth recommendation.

Hope this help.

Dave

[Wignall]

oojamacallit, on 12 August 2011 - 11:19 AM, said:

Hi Everybody,

I am looking for ideas to help my other half get a web design business off the ground. He is a pretty experienced programmer, and has designed quite a few sites for people, as well as writing his own point and click website maker. It has always been more of a hobby, but he would now like to start a business, as he has had to slow down due to health reasons, and wants to work from home.

We have no idea how or where to advertise, or how to actually launch this....any ideas would be very gratefully received.

thank you : )

A great start would be to build up your portfolio, you could go to local businesses and offer to do them discounted websites just to build up your portfolio. You should get a website online advertising your services you offer.

Another great method would be to go on forums like this one and continue posting, most forums have a signature feature which will allow you to link to your web design business. This would be great because if it is a popular website then they will pop up onto Google searches.

You could try and make leaflets and post them through all the doors in your area and if anyone needs a website they can contact you through that way.

I hope I have helped you.

[icecube_media]

Marketing is really important especially for new business. Approach as many prospects as you can via cold calling, emailing and build relationships with people.

[BlueDreamer]

Specialisation is another avenue to consider.

If your other half has lots of experience in any particular field of work he could focus on those types of customer, the big plus there is being able to speak the language of the trade, and that often goes a long way with clients. For instance, I met someone a while back who had a long career in the dental profession so he specialised in doing dentists sites and didn't do too badly out of it. That wouldn't mean you only do one theme of site of course!

[gay design]

Let your better half focus on what he is expert doing at which is the heart of your designing biz. Suggest you to help him drive traffic and leads to your website/biz by promoting/suggesting to targeted groups/industries. While on this process learn to market the products/services you biz offers.

[pandadoodle]

Depending on his level of programming and what language drop me an email via the site in my sig, more than happy to help as I need a programmer! Apart from that if he is unable to network then my advice to you is to read up on the industry and network on his behalf, see if your local business banking manager takes part in any networking events and where they are.

Keep at it even when times are hard, push through it, doing this full time is a full time commitment no easy paths to take!