Being in a digital age, especially now, the internet has turned into our saviour and it’s become a great source of income to a lot of people now. Creating a successful business is not easy but what’s even harder is starting an online business for creating websites. You are basically creating an online business to help others build their company websites or a blog or maybe even a hosting website.

Setting up this business is not easy and it requires a lot of hard work, attention and some actual skills to create a website. Here at ThunderQuote, we’re expecting that you know the skills you need to start up a business like this as well to ensure that you will be delivering the best service to your future customers. When we were planning this post, we wanted to ensure that you get the best advice possible to ensure that you start your website designing business on the right foot!

Step 1 : Getting Your Bearings Right

The first step should definitely include you figuring out the costs needed to start your company. It might seem that a web design business might not need money because all you need is a stable internet connection and a computer right? Well, this is not the case because you to actually start running a business and hopefully a company in the future, there’s a lot of things that require money. You would need to buy a domain name, incorporate your business and purchase the softwares you will need. You need to also think about getting some business cards printed just to put yourself out there. These things may not be as expensive as starting a physical store but please make sure you set some money aside.

Step 2 : Identifying Your Market

When you feel that you have figured out the logistics to starting your company when it comes to funds, the next item that needs your attention would be figuring out who you are planning to market your services to. You would need to identify who your potential clients are and how you want to rope them in into using your services. You are allowed to dream big and as far as you want. Your dream might be to design for huge companies that are willing to pay top dollar. But you need to sit down and ask yourself if you can actually handle the workload. Are you willing to spend hours working on a proposal only to be turned down at the end? Or are you willing to spend so many hours working on one project only to have it changed so many times to the point where it doesn’t look like your original work anymore? These are things you need to take into account before starting your business.

Ensuring you know who to market your product to is extremely important as it can make or break your business. Properly identifying your market will help you in the long run when you decide to market your product later. You can find help from marketing consultants on ThunderQuote.com if you need more help.

Step 3 : Tools for Web Authoring

For obvious reasons, you can’t go into a website design business without knowing HTML or at least one more programming language. Every web designer must be able to come up with a simple website by hand coding with HTML. You can beef up your portfolio by adding a few more programming languages and it will definitely help you more in the long run when you’re able to branch out and do more things.

Step 4 : Establish Your Brand

Once you’ve gotten all those logistics out of the way, the next thing you should do is to establish your brand. Most people who are starting out as entrepreneurs often think that this can wait until they get more customers, but usually the customers you first get will stick with you later on in life. Those are contacts you should be making.

You can always use your own name to start building your brand. A personalised name front and centre of a brand would make it seem easier to be approached by customers. They would feel more inclined to come to you instead of a full-fledged huge company.

However, if you feel like your business can go to huge places in the future and you are expecting tonnes of business, maybe choose a more professional name. It all comes down to where you feel your company is going to go. Or rather, where you want it to go. It all depends on how you want your potential customers to perceive your company.

Step 5 : Set Up Shop

You would now need to set up your ‘company’. We’re not talking about the nitty gritty with the authorities. But rather building your portfolio. We would like to advise you to create a website that will showcase your work and put you on the map. However, the best thing to do is hire someone to create a professional website for you. It seems ridiculous to that since you’re planning to start your own website design business. But a professional who has been in the game for much longer will know how to create a website that will help you get on the map as a professional website designer.

Step 6 : Create A System For Clients

Once you’ve done everything to get started with your business, the next thing you should do is plan how to treat your potential customers and how to charge them for your services. You would need to figure out a sales cycle. Besides being a website designer, you would also become a salesperson. You need to start promoting yourself and your brand. Figuring out how to create a network of customers is crucial to ensure you start climbing the ranks faster.

In addition to that, if you would like to be much more professional, you could also create a legal contract in which your future customers can sign to make sure the agreement is fulfilled to everyone’s expectations. Once you have a contract, you will have an agreed price so that you won’t need to worry about it when it comes to actual payment time. A contract will ensure you know exactly what terms you agreed on with your client. This protects both you and your client to ensure that everything runs smoothly.

Step 7 : The Final Step

The last step just consists of the fact that you have your business ready now and you should be able to start looking for clients. Follow groups that have relevance to your new business on places like LinkedIn. You can also try out ThunderQuote Singapore and sign up to be a vendor. By doing this, you can easily gain leads and find new clients in no time.

A website design business is a hard business atmosphere to get into but if done right, you can earn a lot of money because everyone is online now. Everyone will require a website and if you can prove to clients that they can count on you, you will do great.

ThunderQuote is the most comprehensive business services portal in Singapore, Australia and ASEAN , where hundreds of thousands of dollars of procurement contracts are sourced every month by major companies like Singapore Press Holdings, National Trade Union Congress and more.