First of all hi, I'm Trio, new on this forum.

So I finally achieved a level where I can say I can make decent websites on Wordpress.  Sadly I found myself stuck when it comes to finding clients. My goal is to be able to sell a couple of 500$ websites to small business owners per month. I don't want more, cause I don't need that much money, I'm just a student. Sadly every single attempt of advertising my services on facebook groups (small business, advertisement etc. groups) ended up with 0 response (as if no one saw the posts I made). Furthermore, cold emailing/messaging ended up with me either getting refused or ignored.

So my question to you is as follows: If making 500$-800$ websites for small business owners was your goal, how would you approach looking for clients?

Is your website #1 on Google for local services? Are you joining in with discussions on FB groups, twitter, local forums and so on. Are you in the three pack on Google maps?

What can you offer that a thousand other wordpress developers can't do?

Why do you think people will be looking on FB for a new website?

If people are ignoring your emails and calls then you are doing it wrong. You need to learn how to do marketing - it's something you will spend most of your time doing with the remaining tiny percentage actually writing code.

On 7/4/2022 at 4:36 PM, fisicx said:

Is your website #1 on Google for local services? Are you joining in with discussions on FB groups, twitter, local forums and so on. Are you in the three pack on Google maps?

What can you offer that a thousand other wordpress developers can't do?

Why do you think people will be looking on FB for a new website?

If people are ignoring your emails and calls then you are doing it wrong. You need to learn how to do marketing - it's something you will spend most of your time doing with the remaining tiny percentage actually writing code.

So in brief: You're telling me to learn SEO?

9 minutes ago, TrioWorks said:

So in brief: You're telling me to learn SEO?

Yes. Or better still learn marketing as that what you will be doing most of.

Getting new business as a web developer is hard. Getting clients to then do their bit and deliver content for inclusion is even harder. Expect to spend hours on the phone, email, zoom etc with clients. They don’t know what they want, can’t agree to anything and want things that just don’t work.

12 minutes ago, fisicx said:

Yes. Or better still learn marketing as that what you will be doing most of.

Getting new business as a web developer is hard. Getting clients to then do their bit and deliver content for inclusion is even harder. Expect to spend hours on the phone, email, zoom etc with clients. They don’t know what they want, can’t agree to anything and want things that just don’t work.

That's great advice, thanks. By the way, how would you answer the topic's question?

1 hour ago, TrioWorks said:

That's great advice, thanks. By the way, how would you answer the topic's question?

I'd learn marketing. People don't want websites, they want more business. That's what you need to sell. Show them how a website upgrade will increase the number of leads. Show them how the website you build for X doubled their income. Stay local and be prepared to knock on doors. I've got some great leads by talking to people. Tomorrow I'm off to see a client to discuss a new project. I expect to spend a couple of hours finding out about their business so I can make suggestions about the type of site they need. Once I've got all the information I can build the site - that normally takes a couple of hours.

3 hours ago, fisicx said:

I'd learn marketing. People don't want websites, they want more business. That's what you need to sell. Show them how a website upgrade will increase the number of leads. Show them how the website you build for X doubled their income. Stay local and be prepared to knock on doors. I've got some great leads by talking to people. Tomorrow I'm off to see a client to discuss a new project. I expect to spend a couple of hours finding out about their business so I can make suggestions about the type of site they need. Once I've got all the information I can build the site - that normally takes a couple of hours.

This is the kind of mindset needed for bigger projects, not the below 1000$ ones that I'm aiming for. I wanna make simple projects for simple people with small businesses for now. 

No, that’s the mindset for any sort of project. You have to engage with prospective clients if you want their business. You are just one of many website developers so you have to put in a lot of effort to get noticed.

One other thing. Simple people with small businesses are not going to pay your $500 - $800 for a website. They are going to use a site builder like godaddy or shopify or squarespace for their site.

19 hours ago, fisicx said:

One other thing. Simple people with small businesses are not going to pay your $500 - $800 for a website. They are going to use a site builder like godaddy or shopify or squarespace for their site.

I don't think most people would want to put their time and effort to learn how to build sites, even if it's a builder. Not to mention that there's a lot of ignorants in this field, that aren't even gonna know that an option such as a site builder even exists.

Millions have done just this. Just look at the popularity of shopify.

and the likes of godaddy spend millions on marketing telling people how easy it is to build your own site.

And maybe there are ignorants but they don’t know you exist either. Which means you need to market your services. Which means spending money and knocking on doors.

Edited July 8, 20224 yr by fisicx

Using digital marketing and search engine optimization strategies is one of the most productive ways to attract new customers for web development. You can use phrases like "website development for small businesses" and "how to create a website for small business owners" as keyword targets in your content. Then you can use different SEO and social media strategies to get in front of your target audience.