Web Design Niche Myth #1 – The Market is Saturated
Maybe you’ve heard (or even thought) things like, “The market is saturated and web designers are a dime a dozen.”
Conventional business wisdom tells you to niche down, right?
Instead of doing web design for EVERYONE, you niche down into business owners. And then down further to women entrepreneurs, and then one more step down to mompreneurs.
And you start thinking… “I see tons of web designers in Facebook Groups for mompreneurs, so I’m gonna niche down even further so I’m not fishing in the same pond, so how about mompreneurs who are health coaches…”
Now you’re in all these Facebook groups talking about how you’re a web designer for mompreneurs who are health coaches…
You start to see other people going, “So am I! Me too! Yep, I build websites for health coaches who are busy moms too!”
And now you’re all finishing in the same pond, offering the same thing and it’s a race to the bottom because you all start competing on price.
Here's where you have a choice…
You either decide the market is saturated and you give up…
…or you change niches and run into the same problem all over again…
…or you change the conversation.
I prefer option three 🙂
Instead of marketing web design to moms who are health coaches, you figure out their biggest business problems and how those problems are negatively impacting Mom’s life, and you talk about how your website is the solution to her problems.
So if I’m a busy mompreneur health coach and Web Designer A’s marketing says “I do web design for busy mompreneurs who are health coaches” and Web Designer B’s marketing says something like, “Imagine a life where new client consults magically get booked only when you’re actually working and the money shows up in your PayPal account while you’re driving the kids to school – all without you having to open up your inbox.”
Who are you going to pay more attention to?
Web Design Niche Myth #2 – Speak to Your Ideal Client Avatar
Just choosing who you want to work with and then saying it isn’t enough.
It doesn't set you apart from everybody else who is speaking to that same avatar.
You gotta change the conversation.
What does work is understanding exactly how what you do solves a problem for your ideal client – and then talking about what you do as a solution to a problem, and not a THING.
When it comes to web design, we solve a ton of problems for our clients.
Recently I was talking to one of our brand new Web Designer Academy students and I asked her to tell me some of the things she’d done in the past that she’s really proud of.
And she goes “Well, I don’t want to toot my own horn, but, I helped one of my clients go from idea all the way to a multi-million dollar business.”
(You don't want to toot your own horn?! Why not?!)
She was able to take their idea and translate it into a website that solved their business problems. She set up all the systems that client needed to be able to scale to the point where they could sell millions of dollars worth of stuff.
What a website does for a client is it breaks the ‘time for money' barrier.
And I think that as web designers, you often do not realize how valuable what you do is, and how powerful what you do is, and how transformational it is for your clients.
I am on a MISSION to help web designers stop undercharging, stop overdelivering, start seeing their value, start charging their value, and start working with clients who appreciate their value.
And the way you land clients is not by niching in the way that people traditionally tell you to niche based on demographics, but based on current pain points and future goals, opportunities and possibilities.
Start talking about that to anyone who will listen, and it will lead you to your best clients – and you’ll be able to charge way more than people who are just selling “web design” or selling web design to a specific niche.
🎧 Profitable Web Designer Podcast Episodes About Choosing a Web Design Niche
I dive deeper about the topic of choosing a web design niche (or not) in these episodes the Profitable Web Designer Podcast:
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EP 47: Why You Don't Need a Niche to Get Web Design Clients
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EP 80: How to Niche Down the Right Way with Kady Sandel of Aventive Academy
Free Web Design Business Strategy Course for Women Web Designers
If any of this resonates with you, sign up for my Free Web Design Business Strategy Course for Women Web Designers!
After taking it, you'll:
- Know exactly how much you need to charge to make a full-time living with your web designing business.
- Understand how to apply the Rule of 10 to figure out the true value of a website to your clients.
- Have a fresh perspective on common pricing myths, like “I need more experience” or “my clients can't afford higher prices.”
- Be aware of the 3 most common places web design businesses break down and leak time and money (and what to do to fix them).
Sign up for our Free Web Design Business Strategy Course, and after watching, you’ll know how to set prices, understand the Rule of 10 for profitable web design pricing, and prevent the most common breakdowns in web design businesses!
