How to Get Website Design Clients in 2024 (5+ Marketing Ideas)
5 ways to market yourself as a website designer and attract more of your dream clients this year.
In a recent website design industry report, Squarespace found that nearly 80% of website designers they surveyed rely on word-of-mouth referrals to promote their business.
And yes, word-of-mouth referrals can be incredible sources of client work, but they are notoriously unpredictable, and impossible to rely on when you’re just starting out and have very few clients and contacts.
So what can we do instead to market our website design businesses?
Table of Contents
Whether you’ve been running your website design business for a while, or you’re just starting out, you’ll want to make sure you have these 3 things BEFORE you start focusing on marketing and promoting yourself…
A clear understanding of your ideal clients
Knowing exactly the types of people you want to be working with and designing websites for is key before you get started because this will guide you on:
WHERE to find these clients and which activities & platforms to focus on
HOW to speak to those clients’ needs, pain-points, wants and desires in your messaging
WHAT information and guidance they need from you in your content and process
For example, CEO of a large, national non-profit is going to be using different platforms, and hanging out in different spaces online and offline, and resonating with different content and messaging, than a solo jewellery maker.
Further reading: Get clarity on who your ideal customer avatars are
A curated, polished website design portfolio
One of the key things your clients will want to see when you’re promoting your services is your portfolio and previous examples of projects you’ve worked on.
For growing / established website designers:
Is your portfolio easy to find on your website?
Is it up to date with your latest / most relevant work?
Have you carefully ‘curated’ this rather than displaying EVERYTHING you’ve ever worked?
In your online portfolio, you only want to be sharing the BEST and MOST RELEVANT projects that are going to attract your ideal clients. I’d suggest you probably don’t need to display more than 12 projects at once - just make sure these are ‘the cream of the crop’!
Not only is this important for your clients to see that you have the skills and style that they want, it’s also important for YOU to make sure you’re attracting clients that are the right fit.
Remember - you will attract more of the types of projects you show here.
For new / beginner website designers:
But what if you haven’t had many (or any) paying clients yet?
Create your own projects by making up an imaginary brand and getting creative. THIS is how you build your skills AND create projects that you can use in your portfolio.
It is absolutely more than fine to use your own imagined projects in your portfolio - people in ALL industries do this all the time, and it’s great for your clients to be able to see your skills and style!
Confidence in the value you offer (communicated on your website!)
I understand you can’t just magic ‘confidence’ out of thin air - it comes with time and experience. But if you’re building your own creative projects (as mentioned above) and honing your skills, you already have experience that is valuable to someone.
On your website, be sure to communicate this by explaining not only the ‘tangible’ things your clients will get from working with you (eg. 5 pages, a blog, launch guide etc), but also the ‘intangible’ and emotional benefits they’ll get from their beautiful new website (eg. excitement to share their products, more client enquiries, relief and peace of mind).
Once you have these things in place, it’s going to be a MILLION times easier to promote yourself and make the most of marketing your website design business!
Below are 5 different promotion ideas that I would prioritise in 2024…
1. Prioritise local SEO
SEO is a huge topic in and of itself, but if I could give you ONE piece of advice if you’re starting out it would be to focus on ‘local SEO’, because this is SUCH a great place to start in getting clients.
We know website design is an online service which means you can technically work with anyone across the globe, BUT when clients are searching for website designers, they will very often search for businesses that are local to them or in a nearby area, because it helps them narrow down their hunt!
Obviously this will depend on exactly who your ideal client is (see above), but especially for small businesses, this is typically what you might expect them to type into Google:
‘Website designer [insert your county or city]’
‘Website designer near me’
‘Squarespace website design [insert your county or city’
SO even though you do offer services to people all over, targeting a specific county or city is a great way for you to stand out against the million other website designers out there!
You can do this by incorporating local search terms (eg. your county or city name) into your website and content, and by setting up a Google My Business page with your location as well (you can select a ‘service area’, although of course you can still offer further afield!).
2. Offline networking (IF that’s your *thing*)
I have to admit, this is not my thing (hi any fellow introverts!), BUT if you love people and love building connections, getting involved in local business groups and going to business events could be a great way for you to get your name out there and become the ‘go to’ in your community.
Join a business group or event
You can find these groups and events on websites like Eventbrite, Meetup.com, Facebook events, or by searching on Google (or even Instagram)!
Hot desk or join a shared office space
Or why not try hot desking at a local shared office space or studio? If you’re a people-person this is a great way to get you out of the house, but also to open doors with business owners too.
Host your own event or workshop
Again this totally isn’t for everyone but SUCH a great way to build authority in your area and demonstrate your expertise. You could offer these for free or as an additional income steam, but with the overall goal to promote your website design services at the same time.
3. Participate in online communities
If you’d rather not network in person, there are still tonnes of ways you can build connections from the comfort of your desk at home!
There are SO many business Facebook groups and online communities for all different types of client and target markets. Some of them encourage networking and making connections, while some have stricter rules, so be careful of promoting yourself overtly.
Or even just chatting with people on social media - for example on Instagram or Threads - can be a great way to kick off relationships in your industry and with potential clients.
It’s much better to approach this with the goal to make friends & build relationships than specifically to promote yourself. It’s a ‘long game’ and something that may not pay off straight away, but will hopefully bring your name into more peoples’ worlds.
4. Referral partnerships & collaborations
If you’re already establishing relationships with businesses in your industry, this is a great way to take it to the next level!
With people that offer complementary services to website design you could consider collaborating in promoting each other, bundling your services, or agreeing to refer clients to each other.
Further reading: Learn how to partner with other businesses to grow your brand
5. Content marketing!
I truly believe that this is where the magic happens, and it’s something that many website designers are missing an opportunity with because they don’t have a proper strategy in place.
Posting your portfolio examples and a few ‘behind the scenes’ stories on Instagram is not going to grow your business.
You need a funnel…
Design a marketing ‘funnel’ that attracts your dream clients
If you’ve been dabbling with content marketing but not seeing results, it’s because you’re not using platforms that work together in a ‘funnel’ that considers the 3 different types of buyers in your audience and how they behave!
Want to learn how?
Position yourself as an authority & expert
In your content, don’t be afraid of sharing tips and tutorials for website design and the services you offer. So many people are scared to do this too much because they think their clients won’t bother hiring them if they do!
But you’ll know this isn’t true if you’re truly confident in the value you provide.
Sharing tips & tutorials can help potential clients who are either:
Trying to DIY their first website (but who are likely to either give up, or need help refining it once it gets to a certain stage)
Have an existing website that they’re trying to update (but who may be considering a NEW website in the near future)
And guess who they’re going to think of first when they do get to that stage of needing help!
Your ideal clients are the people that value your expertise, your technical knowledge and the time you’re going to save them. So you need to be showing your expertise and technical knowledge in your content!
Utilise traffic generating content like blogging and Pinterest
If you’re finding (like most of the world!) that your Instagram content isn’t getting seen by many people and your reach is low, it’s time to focus on another platform for bringing you the traffic and reach that you need.
Learn how I use blogging and Pinterest together to attract ideal clients to my website in this YouTube video.
Nurture your audience with email marketing
Email marketing typically gets over double the conversions (ie. clients getting in touch with you!) than Instagram marketing, so why aren’t more website designers utilising this!
Email is great because it can be more tailored, feel more personal, and is easier for potential clients to ‘take action’ than from an Instagram post as well.
Further reading: Here are my 4 steps for email marketing success.
I also have online courses on Pinterest marketing, blogging and email marketing, with a content marketing course bundle that saves you £ when you purchase together.
What about online job boards (eg. Upwork, PeoplePerHour etc)?
People tend to ‘hate’ on websites like Upwork and PeoplePerHours (ie. freelancer job boards) a lot, but I think they can be AMAZING sources of work for beginner website designers.
When I first went freelance, I got most of my work from PeoplePerHour initially, which was great because it allowed me to leave my 9-5 job.
Yes, you’ll constantly be compared to 100s of other freelancers on there who are all competing on price, and many of the job/project postings on there are ONLY prioritising low budget and nothing else.
You have to expect to be undercut on there. And you have to expect that it’s not going to provide you the most profitable work with the best quality and best paying projects.
BUT occasionally you will get clients on there who ARE great quality and who DO have a decent budget - they are just using the platform because they didn’t know where else to look!
What about cold email pitching?
For me personally, this has never been a strategy that works for website design services. The two main reasons for this are:
Established businesses are likely to have their own website already so probably won’t invest in a re-design unless they are actively searching for this.
Small businesses that don’t have their own website yet are difficult to find email addresses for, so online networking is going to be a better way to find them (and it’s much better to build trust by connecting naturally on social media as mentioned above!)
What about paid advertising?
I’ve been running my website design business over 8 years and never needed to pay for advertising to find clients - whether physical advertising or online advertising like Facebook ads, Google or on industry websites.
I’m not saying this isn’t an avenue that you could explore, but when you have a great organic content marketing funnel set up, it’s not something that’s necessary!
So hopefully that’s a helpful insight into the marketing and promotion tactics that can help you to get more website design clients in 2024!
