Where to begin as a new designer

or you are brand new to the web design and web development industry as well. Because we all start somewhere and it is never too late to get started. Yes, at the market does feel saturated, but so is every, uh, market.

It’s just knowing how to cut through the noise and get the work for you. So, hi, I am Holly Christie and welcome back to the Websites Made Simple podcast. It is so great to have you guys here. I am a website designer. I’m the founder of this demanding life and websites Made Simple, which is a resource for web designers and developers to have an absolutely banging website business.

And I’m the host of this podcast. So it’s lovely to meet you and let’s get stuck in here. So, when we first decide that we are gonna set out as website designers, it is always a bit of an interesting one because most web, web designers are self-taught. There’s nothing that says right here is the A to Z of a web design business.

And trust me, over the years, I have thought, should I create the A to Z of the web design business? And. I decided in the end not to because. Everyone’s journey is a little bit different, and that’s what this podcast is all about. I am not gonna tell you, you should use this setup, or you should use that setup, or this is the right software because you’ll know what the right software for you is, and the clients that you work with will trust that you are working on the right setup for them as well.

And we could all say to our clients, well, you need to use WordPress because you need to use Squarespace because you need to use Shopify because. But the reality is what people are looking for other than their really good websites is they’re having looking to have a really good relationship with their website designer.

And as someone who enjoys really good relationships with their web design clients, I am here to teach you how you can do that and how you can nail that right from the beginning. Because having a good relationship builds trust. And when you build trust with your clients, you build goodwill and good feeling because ultimately things do go wrong, particularly with websites, particularly when you have, you know, clients tinkering with them themselves.

And if you have that good relationship, then it’s not going to matter so much if something falls down a little bit along the way. So the first thing that I want to talk about today is what your website offering actually is, because as a website designer, it can be really a tempting to, uh, try and keep up with the people who are further along in the journey than us, but b, intimidating as well to try and keep up in the, with the web designers who are further along than us, and you’ll know that I’m really big on saying about.

Stay in your lane. Don’t get swayed by other people because as long as you focus on what you are going to do, you will get there and you will get to where you want to be. It’s great to be aspirational and this podcast and the resources I create for web designers is all about people who are aspiring to be going to the next level.

And we are gonna get you there. And today we are talking about starting right at the very beginning. So my first piece of advice to you lovely lot is to not offer everything at once. It is so tempting to say, I know how to build websites. I can learn it on the job. Yes, we do all learn on the job, um, but it can be really tempting to say, yep, I will offer to do shops.

I will offer to build memberships. I will offer to do this. I will offer to do that. That’s great. In time. In time, you can offer all that. But to begin with, you really want to pick a lane and stay in it, and I’m going to suggest that the lane that you stick in. It is going to be brochure led websites for service businesses, really, because they’re the easiest to do.

You are not trying to do complexities of setting up shops or setting up memberships. These are the websites where you can cut your teeth on them. You can really learn the. Fundamental UX design in there, the user journeys, and it’s where it is the user journey on brochure sites tend to be quite formulaic.

You know, you have your, um, heading container where you have your hero image or video or whatever you’re putting there. You have your heading one title followed by your heading to by your call to action. Then you come into your introduction, then the section I call introduction two. Then you have your call to action.

You drop into your services. You have a little bit more persuasive text, you have some testimonials, you’ll have a final call to action. Should I leave the space? So you can write that down? ’cause everyone does it slightly differently. But that’s, uh, that’s the formula of, um, certainly the homepage of those, uh, service led websites.

And what it allows you to do is to do this. Formula and get really, really good at it because you are not just going to get really good at the formula of that particular style of website. You’re going to get really good at building the relationship with the client as you do this, because you will be able to advise them whether they’ve used a copywriter or they’re doing writing their own website copy.

You’ll be able to advise them. As to what’s going to work and they can start to see it in the flesh. If you are following my processes as well, which is available in the web designers contract pack, it gives you like the timeline, the flow, and the processes of working together with clients. So if you have that, you have the process and that also sets you up on this trust building.

Mission with your clients. So if you haven’t seen the website designers contract pack yet, just go to websites made simple.co.uk and you will find it there. It’s 49 pounds. It was the best 49 pounds you will spend in your business because. All of the contracts there are UK law compliant. Say they have the processes, they have the, uh, client contract for website builds, but they also have hosting and maintenance.

They have data deletion policies they have working with white labelers and freelancers. Uh, they go into liability. Stuff like that is really handy resource there. But the most important thing we want to look at in that resource right now is we want to look at how it works with building the process of trust.

And the relationship with the client. And that is by getting them involved in the design stages as well, without them feeling like they’re responsible for the design, but that they do have influence over it as well. So it also really helps because it means that, um, where you kind of to and fro with the clients.

Um, in a very kind of structured way. Like you’ll hear from me every Friday. I’d like feedback from you by every Tuesday. Um, it helps them to really feel like a part of it and that you’re not being tapped out with them all of the time. So the other reason that I say about doing it this way about having the um, starting out on one type of website is ’cause every time you think you’ve got it nailed, you’ll learn something else that you’re going to layer onto this experience of the build.

And this could be that you’re starting to layer in functionality on the website that clients. Start to want something that you haven’t initially be putting in the websites. For me, because I build so many websites for, um, coaches and people like that, my first kind of layering things, were adding calendars into websites.

And yeah, back in the day when I was doing it, it wasn’t kind of as simple as it is now. Now you think, oh gosh, Charlie, really, you’re gonna teach me how to put a button or embed a code or something like that. But it wasn’t quite as straightforward as it was there. And there’s also a lot of. Times where we’re actually trying to teach the client that software, even if it’s software that they’re coming up with themselves, like Calendly or Acuity or whatever it is that they’re using, often they, they haven’t set up, and again, they just think, oh, I’d really like to have a.

Um, I’d really like to have a calendar on there. And they think that you are going to be the resource and the font of all knowledge, even though, you know, their kind of online calendar with calendarly and the website are two separate things. Um, it, you know, it pays to be helpful and it pays to know this stuff.

So get really good at your styling and then start to layer in those functionalities. And sometimes you’re going to get someone who asks. You to do something that you dunno how to do. And I, I think that’s great ’cause that’s how we learn and we should all be stretching ourselves on the job. And as one of my lovely clients, Niraj always says, you don’t know what you don’t know.

And so you. Don’t know that you need to go and learn it until someone’s asked you for it. So as a web designer, there are some brilliant ways that you can find this stuff out. I mean, obviously there’s Google, there’s YouTube, you have mentoring with other website designers. I have mentor website designers and uh, where I have mentoring packages where.

If you’re very new to the industry, it’s worth making that investment where we work together week by week and we work on the setup and running of your business. We work on the, uh, marketing of your business as well. ’cause that’s where web designers can really struggle. Um, and we also look at. What services you’re offering and how you’re offering them, and if there’s any gaps in your knowledge that need to be filled at that time.

So, um, get mental is really worth it. And when people say to me about, you know, what would you tell someone starting out in the web design career? I always say, well, I tell them two things. One is. Invest as much as you can in your business and your learning, even if that’s a paid for membership or a paid for plugin, or a paid for theme.

Most people start up web design businesses and they don’t put a lot of investment into it, and it can be really hard. It can be really hard to get ahead when you’re trying to do it on such a budget, and we don’t expect our clients. To set up these businesses on these budgets because we want these clients to work with us and pay, pay fairly and pay well to work with us as well.

So we must treat our businesses in the same way. And the second bit of information advice I give people is get a mentor because. There are so many things within the industry that will shock, shock you at times, or, you know, kind of really, uh, just make you feel really wobbly and you just need that get back on track.

And there are times in my web design career where I have wanted to go away and hide, or I have gone away and hidden because I’ve just felt really floored by something, or imposter syndrome has kicked in or I’ve had, you know. Personal life get in the way. And the great thing about working with mentors, and I work with mentors as well, is they leave you nowhere to hide.

They’re like, come on, get back in the arena. You need to do it. And so those are my two pieces of advice there. So coming back to web design is something that we, designers are always interested in, and that’s is pricing structure. I do have another episode on how to have prices on your website and how to work out your prices as web designer as well, but.

Even if you are brand new to the industry, you should not be cutting your prices. And I think the, the web design industry is something, is somewhere where we can really get that comparisonitis, like we compare ourselves to everyone else. We look at what their prices are. We think, oh gosh, I can’t do, um, mine at that price.

And you know, they’re charging this, so I must undercut that because I’m nowhere near as advanced as they are with their journey on it. And I’m just gonna put it here and say, that is bullshit. It’s absolute bullshit. Now. Yeah, I wouldn’t expect a new designer to be charging thousands of pounds for a website project, but I would expect a new designer to be charging a thousand pounds for a project because, hey.

We’ve all got expenses, we’ve all gotta eat. And you know, we’ve all got clients who need to invest in their web presence, and the people who are not looking to invest in their web presence are the people that you don’t want to work with. Those are the people who say about, oh, it’s just a shop front. It’s only WordPress people who really don’t value it.

They know that they need a website, but you know, they just. They don’t wanna pay for it, and you don’t wanna work with people like that. They are like the equivalent of pulling teeth. No one’s ever happy because they don’t wanna be paying for it in the first place. And you feel like you’ve absolutely, you know, kind of overdelivering and undercharging because also those people are the ones who don’t have the copy written for the website.

Site. You know, they might give you photos that are just thrown up from their Android phone or their iPhone or you know, whatever else, and they don’t have that commitment to the process that you want. So I would definitely say charging a minimum of a thousand pounds for your projects is a really good starting point.

And when I say for your project, I’m talking here minimum of. Uh, like minimum payment for a five page website and that we would be looking at the homepage, um, about services, resources, contact. I mean, you’ll know the drill if you’ve trained in web design. You’ll know how this works. So. Have a think about, are you currently charging these kind of prices?

Are you undercutting your prices if your prices are low? It is really a reflection of the confidence that you have in yourself. And the other thing I would say is don’t kind of slash the prices on your website. Don’t do the, oh, this was a thousand pounds, but it’s 800 for now. Or, you know, this is this price.

Until then. Um, that sort of a thing. I mean, I would say really, if you are going to offer anything, a discount, set up a newsletter. I’ve had newsletter running for about five years now, and for the last three and a half years, something like that, I’ve really, really paid attention to it. I have, I. Posted newsletters every single week and you, I’ve got quite good formula for it.

We can cover this in our mentoring sessions and that, and offer that discount to the people on your newsletter because people on your newsletter are at a different stage to people who are jumping onto your website when they find your website. And bear in mind as well, when you are quite new to the industry.

You are not gonna have a large portfolio on your website or your website’s not necessarily gonna get found for a while either. So all that, you know, uh, offer a thou a thousand pounds, but I’m doing it for 800 isn’t getting seen anyway. And what you want to do on your website is really convey. Confidence and having undercut prices on there doesn’t, it doesn’t inspire confidence in people.

And it’s not like, you know, you’re trying to sell, you know, a physical product like, you know, here’s 20% off this item of clothing or this journal, or whatever it is. Yeah. This is a proper bonafide service. People should be paying for it. Um, and if you feel. Like you are struggling around pricing, you should have an idea of how much your prices are.

So when I say that a five page website should be a minimum of a thousand pounds, that’s working on the basis of 200 pounds per page. But bear in mind, you also have set up fees. You also have what I call pack down fees, you know, which is where you’re preparing the website to go live. And that, and you’ll also have things like the cost of the premium license as well.

So for example, when I, um, do websites, my custom builds are 450 pounds per page. Plus you, they’re also paying the fee for the setup, the licenses, the pack down, you know, everything that goes around that. The zoom calls everything else in that as well. So do bear in mind, it is great to have an idea of the price per page, but there’s a lot more to it.

Than that. And packages can really help with this. You know, where people have their, you know, bronze, silver, gold, silver, gold, platinum, um, you know, package one, package two, package three. However you price it up, um, is really up to you. And you can see with my own websites@thisdemandinglife.com, you’ll see that my custom build websites.

They are priced individually because obviously being a more experienced designer than you if you’re listening to this than you potentially are, um, I offer more complexities within the services, so I don’t really package it and I don’t want to say, well, um, you know, a brochure sites 5,000 pounds and membership site is seven and a half thousand and a shop’s 9,000 because, you know, I might have a client who’s actually only selling one or two products as a shop and the main.

Purpose of the site is a brochure site, or I might have a client who is offering a course on their website, but it’s an older course. They don’t have an intention of creating any new courses. I. Or anything like that. And we might actually use like a free plugin or just kind of code a paywall in there or something like that.

And then it doesn’t fall into the membership site categories. So there you, there are reasons and ways to do both, but do have a package, even if it’s just one package for your, um, services. And I suppose the way I package mine is as my simply sites where you, and they’re on this demanding life.com, where you say, you can buy this website for this price or this website for this price, and this is what you get within it as well.

But I think we can all find it hard to talk about money and we can all undercut ourselves a little bit. You know, how many times have you done that thing where someone says the price and you say, well, usually I’d charge 3000, but actually for your dip two and a half. And. It’s, yeah, okay. It makes the client kind of feel good ’cause it makes them feel like they’re getting a deal, but you’re not being true to yourself and you’re not being true to your prices.

And how much do you then kick yourself thinking, oh, I wish I would’ve actually just kept it at 3000. And it’s a lack of confidence and there are two ways. Well, the only way through it is through it. You have to practice it, but two ways that you can handle this as well. One is looking at the web designer’s contract pack that you can just write the um, amount in there with the proposal.

Send the proposal, it’s all in there. And that’s how I started out. So I would be like, here are my fees. Here’s the proposal, here’s terms of service, let me know. Sort of thing. So that is one way of handling it. And another way is having that pricing structure that says here is, um, here’s the, you are looking at this package and here’s the price of this package.

And people don’t really quibble with that as well. Um, be really clear on what’s included and what’s not. And again, the web designer’s contract pack will really help you with this, um, because. Clients will push the scope of the project. There are so many websites available online that people are accessing every day.

You know, social media sites, shopping sites, all that sort of thing. They’ll be checking out their competitors. They will have ideas of what it is that they want to achieve, and as they go along the way, they’ll say things like, oh, I just saw this on a website. It’s brilliant. Can I have it for mine? Now, I do have an episode on scope Creep, and I would really recommend.

If you are well, any stage in your web design degree, uh, correct, but particularly when you’re new to it, do go and have a listen to that website of how to handle scope creep and it will really, really help. So I said earlier about people needing, um, sometimes wanting something that’s going to stretch you a little bit more.

And again, you’ll find this in the scope creep episode, so it’s whether you find it in the initial call or whether they bring it up later on, I am a big advocate of saying yes to pretty much anything because I think it’s, I. Stretches, well, not just anything or any client, but, um, if there’s something that really stretches me, I know that I, I want to work with it.

I want to learn that next task, and I might need to collaborate with another developer to get the skills to do it or to work with them to bring the project in. And don’t be afraid to do that and really kind of get to know your network and, um, you know, to get on LinkedIn. There’s amazing web designers and developers on there, and they’re only too happy to help as well.

So do consider using that as an opportunity to stretch those skills a bit. And if you do have a mentor, um, your mentor should be able to help you with this as well. And remember, when we are marketing our websites as well, our website design services, remember that you are always solving a client’s problem.

So it’s not so much, you know, get your five page brochure website here. It’s more, have a tool that brings you in leads that generates sales. You know, have your website working for you. You are always looking to solve that pain point in your marketing as well. So that’s me to for today. I would love to hear your stories of.

Starting out whether you’ve been, uh, in the game for a long time and you have some great stories to share or whether you are just starting out, you’re feeling a bit starry-eyed and a bit intimidated at the same time, do get in touch with me. You can get me through the websites website made simple.co.uk and I look forward to hearing from you.