Website Designer

Web design refers to the process of creating the visual interface of a website or app using a mixture of software and code.

One of the goals of web design is to make the interface look aesthetically pleasing. Web designers must be adept at using elements like layouts, motion, colors, fonts, and imagery to bring the content of a website to life.

Another goal is to ensure that the digital interface is easy to use, provides an enjoyable and friction-free experience, and is accessible to all users. Because of this, web designers need to be well-versed in the mechanics and best practices of good design.

To make money building websites, there are a few things you’ll need. Thankfully, you can get yourself fully set up without having a degree, certification, or formal training.

Web design skills

The main thing you need for a web design side hustle is web design skills. The good news is that you don’t need a college education in order to acquire web design skills. You can easily gain these skills through self-education and hands-on training.

Required Skills for a Web Design Side Hustle

One of the best things you can do is follow trusted resources in the web design community. Here are some to start off with:

• A List Apart
• Creative Bloq
• Envato Tuts+
• Hongkiat
• Nielsen Norman Group
• Smashing Magazine

Subscribe to both their blogs and YouTube channels (if they have them). You’ll find a wealth of instructional and inspirational content there.

Another step you can take is sign up for some online web design courses. They don’t need to be certificate courses. However, they should be comprehensive and teach you about everything from web standards to color theory. Platforms like Codecademy, Coursera, and Udemy are good places to find high-quality courses.

Hands-on experience

Hands-on experience is also a must for any freelance web designer. If you don’t have the capacity to work as an intro web designer or assistant at an agency, then start doing some small jobs for friends, family, local charities, and so on.

A specialty

There are tens of millions of people who work in the web design industry all around the world. In order to compete with all the web designers, developers, UX designers, agencies, and others in this field, you need to set yourself apart.

To choose a niche, consider the following points:

• Business experience: Are there any industries you have direct employment experience in? Or any business types that you’ve built lots of websites for in the past?
• Client segment: Are you passionate about helping a certain segment of business owners or clients? For instance: female entrepreneurs, charities, or minority-owned businesses?
• Content management system: Is there a particular type of website builder software (like WordPress or Webflow) you prefer to use?
• Website type: Do you have experience or interest in building specific kinds of sites, like enterprise sites, e-commerce sites, directories, or blogs?
• Designer type: Do you have special training or certifications that qualify you to work as a UX designer, interaction designer, or other specialist?

Your own website

It may go without saying, but you should have a stellar website to show potential clients before you go out looking for work. Your web design website should blow people away with its design and functionality.

But not just that—your website should also tell visitors everything they need to know about your web design services and what you have to offer. Think of it as an interactive and comprehensive resume.

For example, here are some questions your website should answer:

• Do you have any relevant degrees or certifications?
• What is your professional work summary?
• How long have you been designing websites?
• What kinds of websites or projects do you specialize in?
• How does your process generally work?
• Do you offer other services besides website design?
• How much do your services cost?
• What other clients have you worked for?

By anticipating what your visitors are wondering, you won’t have to spend so much time trying to sell yourself or your services once you get them on a call.

Portfolio

At some point, your prospective clients are going to want to know who you’ve built websites or apps for so they can see them. This is what your web design portfolio is for.

In addition to name-dropping clients, you can also use your portfolio to achieve the following goals:

• Explain your process
• Show off the final results of what you’ve built
• Present real client testimonials
• Demonstrate how your designs improved business for the client (e.g., getting them more leads or sales)

Your portfolio should have its own dedicated space on your website. Additionally, consider sharing your work on other platforms as well. Dribbble and Behance are two platforms built for this specific purpose.

Other places where you can feature your portfolio include freelancing platforms like Upwork and Fiverr. That way, potential clients can peruse your work directly from the hiring platform instead of leaving to visit your website.

Pricing sheet

If you want to build websites for money, you need to know what they’re worth before you start pitching services to clients.

Start by looking on Upwork and Fiverr. On these sites, you’ll get a good sense of what freelance web designers charge for different services. According to Fiverr, web designers charge anywhere from $30 to $200 per hour.

That said, there are many factors that impact how much you can charge, including how much experience you have, your skills and specialties, as well as the types, sizes, and complexity of websites you build.

Spend some time thinking about what your services are worth and come up with a pricing sheet. You can set rates for different website types, rush vs. standard timelines, extra services (like SEO), and so on.

Liability insurance

This kind of insurance isn’t legally required, but it’s a huge asset if you’re building websites for larger and more prominent businesses. Professional liability insurance will protect you against claims of wrongdoing.

Web designer insurance should cover the following incidents:

• Copyright infringement
• Negligence
• Creative differences
• Security breaches
• Website bugs or glitches

Some companies with high-powered legal teams have no problem going after web designers who they feel have wronged them or compromised their reputation. While you can make much more money working on projects like these, the risks are high. So having liability insurance in place is a must before you go after gigs or clients like these.

You can make good money with a web design side hustle. Here are some tips to help you maximize your earning potential.

1. Carve out time every day for your web design side hustle

To position yourself in a highly competitive market, you need to make time for your web design side hustle every day. It doesn’t need to be much. However, you should spend at least an hour doing things like applying to jobs, answering prospective emails, or talking to clients if you’re not busy doing design work.

This will allow you to not only reach better clientele but also stay more in tune with your work as a web designer. By touching base with it daily, you won’t have to worry about falling out of practice or losing track of what you’re working on.

2. Be cheap

Even if you have a full-time job that pays well, it’s good practice to spend only what you need to on your side hustle. Because overhead is generally low for creative professions like web design, you can greatly maximize your profits by keeping your costs down.

When you’re starting out, only spend money on what you need. This will include things like a web host and domain name along with a computer or laptop (if you don’t already have a suitable tech setup).

Depending on what kinds of software you plan to use for your web design projects, you’ll also probably have to purchase subscriptions for tools like Adobe Photoshop or Figma.

Another area where it makes sense to spend money on is business management software. While you can get task management software for free (like Trello and Asana), it’s wise to invest in good bookkeeping and invoicing software. QuickBooks Solopreneur and Wave are both good choices for this.

3. Add a website intake form to your site

Your website isn’t just good for allowing prospective clients to vet you as a web designer. It can also allow you to do the same with them. Adding an intake form to your website can help you better understand your potential clients and what they’re looking for.

A website intake questionnaire may ask prospects for the following key information:

• Summary of their business
• Website URL (if it exists)
• Their industry
• Target niche
• Goals for the website
• Number of pages needed
• Special features to include
• Timeline
• Budget

Jason Hunter Design and Strategies 360 have good examples of what these forms should look like.

It might seem too early to ask these sorts of questions. However, any business owner who’s not ready to discuss these points or doesn’t have a clear vision of what they need likely isn’t ready to hire you. In this sense, the form serves a couple of purposes.

First, it’s a good way for prospects to self-vet. If they see all your questions and feel like it’s overwhelming or they’re not ready, then they won’t waste your time or their own by filling it out.

Second, it’s helpful to have all this information ahead of time so you can focus on more important discussion points when you get them on a consultation call.

4. Templatize your process

One of the drawbacks to being a self-employed designer is that there’s a lot of administrative work to manage.

You need to look for and apply to gigs. You need to issue invoices and follow up on late payments. You need to onboard new clients. You could easily end up spending at least a quarter to half of your time on administrative tasks.

To reduce the time you spend on unpaid work, develop shortcuts. Templates help a ton with this. Here are some things you can templatize:

• Client proposals and contracts
• Invoices
• Intake questionnaires
• Your overall web design process
• Basic email/messaging functions (like cover letters when applying to gigs or welcome messages for new clients)

There are lots of free and cheap templates you can find online to help you do this.

In addition to creating reusable documents, try to digitize them. For example, rather than turn your web design process into a checklist in Google Docs, add it to your task management software as a template. Then all you need to do is customize the details whenever you kick off a new project.

5. Offer related services

There are a couple of reasons to sell other services besides website design and development. The first is that additional services increase the value of your web design offering.

For instance, bundling extra web design services into a service package would allow you to charge more for each website you build. Alternatively, you can offer these extra services as individual add-ons.

Here are examples of extras you can offer:

• Logo design
• Style guide creation
• User research
• Search engine optimization (SEO)
• Copywriting
• Website maintenance
• A/B testing

Even if clients don’t jump at these extra services in the beginning, they may do so later on once they realize how much value they’ve gotten from the website you built for them.

Another reason to offer other services is income stability. Your ideal situation may be building websites for money. However, web design work can be feast or famine, especially when you’re new to the industry.

Some of the services above—like SEO and website maintenance—require steady work and often don’t take a ton of time. They’re much easier to squeeze into a busy schedule than an entire website project.

To sum up, selling related services can help you close more business, make more money on each job, and stay afloat when website work is light.

One of the main draws of web design as a side hustle or career is its flexibility. However, it isn’t a quick side hustle that can start earning you money today, and it takes time to learn the ropes if you haven’t got any prior experience. You need to acquire the necessary skills (and establish proof that you have those skills) before you can start seriously working.

It’s also important to note that while you can do web design in your spare time, it’s not a sustainable business model. If you want to land high-paying gigs, you have to be prepared to meet the high expectations of clients, such as fast turnaround times, real-time communication and collaboration, and measurable profits within a few months of website launch.

Pros and cons of a web design side hustle

While there’s high demand for web designers, it’s important to be realistic about how competitive you’ll be. On top of having the same skills and experience as side hustlers, full-time freelancers have the availability and capacity to meet the rising demand of clients. The bottom line is that a web design side hustle should be a jumping-off point into a career.