The Business of Web Design

There's a lot more to being a successful web designer than designing good web sites. The key to running a profitable business is to know that your job is actually to satisfy your client.

This section provides guidelines from our experience of running web agencies, which we hope will help you be more successful and more fulfilled.

Read it offline

Buy the entire Business of Web Design section as a PDF e-book on our Downloads page

About Web Design Business

Setting up in Web Design: My 10-step guide to starting out as a professional web designer/developer
Outsourcing: How to use freelance talent effectively: Learning to outsource effectively is a key skill for a professional web design outfit
Pricing and selling web design: Advice on how much to charge for your services - offering value without selling yourself short

Recommended Business Tools for Web Designers

10 Free Ways to Promote your Business Online

A quick round-up of 10 essential sites that'll let you promote your (or your client's) local business on the web - for free.

I love Basecamp for 2 reasons. It's not only a great example of making a complex process simple through good web application design, plus it's a very useful service for web designers & developers to boot.

Basecamp lets me quickly and easily manage projects with clients and developers in different parts of the world, by helping me easily:

Set up and track lists of tasks (which you can optionally associate with project milestones)
Discuss work, ideas and anything else using messages and collaborative documents
Get automatic notifications when things need doing, when comments have been made, and when things get done
... and lots of other stuff you can find out for yourself!

Basecamp is free to try out, and I thoroughly recommend checking it out if you have client projects that are even moderately complex.