January 22, 201115 yr Sorry to be asking another broad question. I spent a considerable amount of time yesterday looking at web designers sites in my local area and was amazed at how many their actually are. It makes me wonder if any of them get enough work to be able to make it a full time job. How many web designers are in your area (roughly)? Do you find you have to compete hard to get work? What sort of tips would you give to people with a lot of web designers in their area?
January 22, 201115 yr It seems to me that more and more people see themselves as web designers, in a half mile radius of me there are 6 web designers that I know of (could be more). At times I do find I'm competing with people that own a copy of dreamweaver and have a vague ability to change information on a template. This can be a pain in the current economic climate as some small businesses struggle putting their hands their pockets. They seem to believe as long as they have something on the net it'll be OK. Once I discovered we where competing against someone selling a free website, Yes that's correct selling a FREE website. The rogues in question where using the wix.com service and pushing websites out for £120 a time. Only tips I can give you - Is really know what you are talking about and listen to the potential client. Whatever you do, do not hound someone to use your services.
March 4, 201115 yr Near our office, there are about 10 other web design offices that I know. I don't know about the others but it seems every building has web designers so it's really hard to know. The competition is tough and tricky, you'll never know whether the person behind you gets the project you've been rooting for. Just be competitive and show off your most impressive portfolio, surely many clients will root for you before they go to others.
March 4, 201115 yr I actually live next door to a web design office who specialise in wordpress websites, god noes how many more are in my area!! I can see this becoming a full time job for me in the next couple of years untill then ill work for companys :/ !
March 7, 201115 yr I did live in the East end of London so god only knows how many there were there, i mean a 15 minute car drive would land you on the doorstep of Liverpool Street and the 'Silicone roundabout' of Shoreditch. I'm now in East Anglia for a few months and the only thing i can see out the window is a cow and i'm not sure they're any good at Web Design, making tasty burgers yes but not internet related shenanigans.
March 7, 201115 yr I'm now in East Anglia for a few months and the only thing i can see out the window is a cow and i'm not sure they're any good at Web Design, making tasty burgers yes but not internet related shenanigans. LMAO
March 7, 201115 yr Im not sure how many are in my area but I do hear a lot more people saying there web designers, actually pisses me off a lil.
March 7, 201115 yr LMAO Ah thank you ah thank you... i'm here all day (probably) Im not sure how many are in my area but I do hear a lot more people saying there web designers, actually pisses me off a lil. Get used to it man. I once worked at a pub and one of our locals was a manager of an office but his business cards said 'Web Designer'. I chatted with him a few times and then Googled him to see what i could find. What i did find was an horrific example of web design. Imagine if the general public had the internet in 70's and you can only half imagine how bad it was. The thing was this guy had no intention of progressing with web design it was just something he assumed he'd conquered and used the business cards to show off.
March 7, 201115 yr Ah thank you ah thank you... i'm here all day (probably) Get used to it man. I once worked at a pub and one of our locals was a manager of an office but his business cards said 'Web Designer'. I chatted with him a few times and then Googled him to see what i could find. What i did find was an horrific example of web design. Imagine if the general public had the internet in 70's and you can only half imagine how bad it was. The thing was this guy had no intention of progressing with web design it was just something he assumed he'd conquered and used the business cards to show off. I even have some friends saying there going to do web design like its so easy that anyone can do it lol
March 7, 201115 yr I'm now in East Anglia for a few months and the only thing i can see out the window is a cow and i'm not sure they're any good at Web Design, making tasty burgers yes but not internet related shenanigans. What part of east anglia are you in dude, cos my dad lives in woodbridge, and i go down there every other weekend.
March 7, 201115 yr I even have some friends saying there going to do web design like its so easy that anyone can do it lol Let them find out the hard way eh? What part of east anglia are you in dude, cos my dad lives in woodbridge, and i go down there every other weekend. I'm a little way from you at present. I'm nearer Swaffham in Norfolk.
March 7, 201115 yr Every other Dave thinks he is a web designer these days; the majority of them can't even spell HTML. It is a little frustrating, but what can you do. (edit - typo) Edited March 7, 201115 yr by Dan Gaskin WD
March 7, 201115 yr Let them find out the hard way eh? I'm a little way from you at present. I'm nearer Swaffham in Norfolk. lol yeah, little is understatement
March 7, 201115 yr Every other Dave thinks he is a web designer these days; the majority of them can't even spell HTML. It is a little frustrating, but what can you do. (edit - typo) Laugh
March 9, 201115 yr I live in a very rural area in a small town so there aren't very many here. There is a computer sales & repair shop and a photographer that offer web design on the side. The repair shop isn't very good at it, and the photographer charges outside of most small business budgets, which is my niche. You can't find either when Googling for web design in our town. So no, I'm not really worried about competition.
March 9, 201115 yr It reminds me of the DJ thing - everyone's a "DJ" because they have some decks and a few records. Go into most bars etc. and it's always someone's "Brother in law", "Mate", "Brother in law's mate's cousin" raking in the cash for playing the same old tired ****e. Same thing with the web stuff. The thing is the overheads are so cheap that anyone can get going with it. You can only hope that the clients have enough sense to extract the wheat from the chaff.
March 9, 201115 yr In Mansfield, there must be at least 20 or so 'web designers'. Some of them are incredible, and do some fantastic work. Although i've seen people mascaraed themselves as web designers just because they have a cracked version of photoshop, use frontpage and 'do cutting-edge SEO' by using the keyword META tag. Terrible stuff. How they sleep at night, I do not know. Slightly unrelated, but I thought this was a laugh: How Web Designs Go To Hell Sucky Web Designs
March 10, 201115 yr In my town there are 3 'proper' companies, don't know if there are any freelancers. In the whole county there are about 52 companies and a maybe 30odd freelancers, which is quite shocking considering there are only 170,000 people living here. I've looked at near enough every companies website, most of them are ghastly. Theres probably only 10 or so decent designers here and I don't know any decent freelance developers, so I have a bit of a monopoly
March 10, 201115 yr I did live in the East end of London so god only knows how many there were there, i mean a 15 minute car drive would land you on the doorstep of Liverpool Street and the 'Silicone roundabout' of Shoreditch. I'm now in East Anglia for a few months and the only thing i can see out the window is a cow and i'm not sure they're any good at Web Design, making tasty burgers yes but not internet related shenanigans. Ha, I used to live in East Anglia and now live in East London!
March 10, 201115 yr Looking on google maps, my place is loaded with webdesigners. Some SEO guys, and even "premium domain"-sellers. Looking at some of the websites of those "webdesigners" they seem to provide table-based websites w/o any knowledge of recent coding styles, browsers, or design, usually also offering 2nd hand computers and virus removal.
March 10, 201115 yr Best thing you can do is get a listing on Google Places. I'm at #3 for "Web Design in Bridgend", because "in [location]" gives precedence to Places listings. Lose the "in" and I've dropped to page 2 (although I've recently redesigned so can expect a bit of a dip). Of the two results above me, one is called Bridgend Web Design (bridgendwebdesign . co . uk) so quite difficult to challenge in the SERPs. Site's clearly done by Fireworks > Dreamweaver export. The next is an IT and web design one-stop-shop. I'm not going to publicly slate a competitor's site, but it has animated GIFs on the front page.
March 10, 201115 yr so, is there any web devs in the medway area?? i have seen a few but just wondering if anyone on here is from medway? Ash
March 10, 201115 yr Essex anyone? 'Vajazzle' - Web Design & development Ltd. Edited March 10, 201115 yr by Gibson
March 11, 201115 yr Ha, I used to live in East Anglia and now live in East London! Haha we swapped did we? Where and where? Essex anyone? All this people are making me home sick. Which bit of Essex. I used to be Waltham Forest (east London) and Redbridge/Epping Forest (Essex). Up until a month or so ago (and had been for 31 years!). Now i'm in a place called Downham Market in Norfolk (well for a few months anyway), then off to Argyll in Scotland.
March 11, 201115 yr Essex anyone? Harwich, Essex. Very rural and i only know one company that does web design here and they are crap and very much dated. The nearest town to me is Colchester and it's teeming with designers and development companies and of course....that's where i work(full time) Edited March 11, 201115 yr by neilp
March 31, 201115 yr There are 10 web designers in my area alone and there of what i know off so im guessing there would be a few more. its crazy as in london there must be thousands alone and i am one of them so a very tough market to get in and succeed. But hey its all part of the fun i guess. Just try and keep your prices reasonable and offer some extra help and im sure you will be fine. Also try and phone companies and see if they want there site re designed at a discount rate.
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