Peachhunter12
New Member
What should the targeted audience be for my first web design website? I am only 20 years old and I live in a average size town (Syracuse, NY). How should I advertise my business?
Question for my first web design website
- Thread starter Peachhunter12
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Peachhunter12
New Member
I wrote that I am starting a web design business... Question is who should I target my audience towards? Should I try to be a large web design firm that designs websites for anyone in the US or should I limit my services to people in my city. Who should I advertise my services for specifically?
Last edited:
notarypublic
New Member
Phreadee, you're platinum now? I have some catching up to do!
Peach, start locally. I can give you several reasons why:
* Practice working with clients. When you're just starting out, building client relationship skills is essential. You can meet face to face, you don't have to travel far, you have experience with the market that they're trying to reach. Local businesses will usually prefer to hand money to someone they know, than someone they don't.
* Start small. To do the work of a large firm, you have to have the manpower of a large firm. Bigger websites mean more hours, and to meet expected deadlines it takes several people working together on a project to turn out a quality product on time. Do you want to have to do the work of a secretary, a salesperson, a designer, a developer, accountant, and a server admin by yourself?
* Less competition. Small to Average size cities are the best size for a starting out developer. A town has to be big enough to have businesses that would benefit from having a website, but small enough that you're not competing with 3 dozen different design firms and freelancers. This goes back to local businesses wanting to hire locally, if you have an office or can go directly to businesses and hand them a business card, you'll have a lot more luck than competing with the thousands of design firms you'd be competing with nationally. Not to mention the developers in countries with weak currency that can work for 1/5th the budget that you can.
* Build credibility. Not saying you have to stay small forever. 2 dozen clients that are local small businesses may pay the same as 4 or 5 big projects from large companies, but the more projects you do, the more web presence you have. Back links from 2 dozen businesses will help generate a lot more web traffic back to your businesses, as well as referrals. Once you've established a proven record of success, branch out - bigger companies will be more likely to take you seriously, and you'll have a continuing influx of business from small businesses in the meantime.
* Hone your style. Few things are worse than the feeling that comes with banging your head against the wall because you don't feel like your design ideas are "good" enough for the projects you're doing. Something I've been taught as a designer is that each person has a "gap" phase they go through, where all their work just seems mediocre. I believe every designer goes through this. The only remedy is to push through it - you have to find your personal style, and reinforce the techniques you're learning, before you can become a truly great designer.
Wish you the best of luck! Of course it goes without saying that you've got a community here that will support you as you start getting projects.
Peachhunter12
New Member
Ok thanks. I think starting small is the way to go.
a1digitalmedia
New Member
Start small and grow big!
If your providing a good service and great end product then word of mouth will help you expand naturally.
This is especially important for web design freelancers as recommendations and portfolios are the two main ways of generating clients and interest in your service.
If your providing a good service and great end product then word of mouth will help you expand naturally.
This is especially important for web design freelancers as recommendations and portfolios are the two main ways of generating clients and interest in your service.