Launching A Web Design Firm...ideas Please! need a bit of help

[elna 0]

hello guys,I'm starting a web design agency and I was just wondering what kind of services i should include as addon services. I'm in the process of writing the plan to be presented to potential investors next week so I need a few pointers. Right now i've found the following services:-Web design and development-Web Hosting-Web Support and Maintenance-Graphics Logo design-Newsletter online marketing*I was thinking of including website design training to students, still in high school. I'm not sure what the requirements are exactly which is why i'm posting. Do I need some sort of certification to offer and which companies/international schools can I work with so that for example, after a student finishes the course we offer them a relevant, worthy certificate? Does it sound like a good idea?Please feel free to suggest anything, any idea that may come to mind.Thanks.

[web_designer 7]

first, i wish you luck with your project. about what services you should offer, i think"Web design and development" and "Web Hosting" should be the main services to offer your clients a full services. about "Web Support and Maintenance" should be an extra services i think, as well as "Graphics Logo design" because not much want these services. about "Newsletter online marketing" i am not quiet sure if it will be useful or not, i don't have enough information about that.about the web design training for high school students. i think it needs a lot of work and a new plan. since you want to give them certifications then it should be a popular one and well known in the web design field. and since there is a certification then it should be an exam online, which means more effort and more work and more planning. i think the easiest way is to get the permission of those big companies that offer courses and certifications for those who want to pass their exams. like MICROSOFT EXAM (MCTS or MCPD...ect) or CCNA or CISCO. these are big companies that offer a worthy certifications, maybe some of what i mentioned are not for wen design but i give you an example. if you think it is a huge project to start with, try to create your own blog and post tutorials to high school student and this only needs an experienced writer who knows how to design, and of course it won't be any certification.

[zanzibarjones 1]

There are a lot of services I would offer to help your perspective clients. teach them things like, money making tips (google adsense, etc) maybe offer streaming content hosting, remote support (one click support, you could use VNC and Hamachi for secure connections). marketing tips, social networking integration and or teaching (showing them how to set up fan pages etc)

[Little Asterisk 1]

I believe it's a nice idea you have going here, but you sorted it out wrongly (in my mind, at least, it seems so). Web design and logo design should probably go together either as "Web and logo design" or "Branding services" (I don't know, sounds logical to me that way). Web development should be a separate point (I would also point out "*Some CMS* Integration", if you do offer that), maybe together with "Support and maintenance" -- "Web development, support and maintainance, Wordpress CMS integration", for instance. Web hosting definitely needs to be a separate point.As for training students, I would rather go with something in lines of "additional training" (like; help with design assignments).You should also provide "Elevator pitches" for all of these points (something your site visitors can read in less than sixty seconds).Hope this helps, and post your site here once you finish it!

Edited August 26, 2010 by Little Asterisk (see edit history)

[mahesh2k 0]

For web hosting related questions opaque is the person on this forum who can guide you. Other than that there are some good web designers in this forum who can help you. Sites like smashing magazine, css-tricks and some other market place where you can advertise for the work and can get work. Sitepoint was once good place for the work and the connection but not anymore. If you want to find work then vworker, freelancer and odesk, elance is the place to go. Logo design may or may not be the good idea because there are many good competition already. If you manage to lower your price then surely you can get many logo design jobs. I must suggest you fiverr.com which allows you to get small easy jobs in web design arena for 5$. Try them.

[k_nitin_r 8]

Hi Elna!Starting a web design agency is definitely hard work. You've got to form a portfolio of your past work and have to showcase it to attract clients.The service you have listed as bullet points (i.e. Web design and development, web hosting, web support and maintenance, graphics logo design, and newsletter online marketing) are perfect for you to focus on. However, offering training is not part of the core offerings and is not something you should offer during the initial stages. Competing with other web design agencies is hard enough. With your focus on training too, you may not be able to manage your offerings as efficiently as you can when focusing on the same target group of customers.Perhaps you could offer content writing services, such as for posting updates to the websites and for writing newsletter content.If you do need to collaborate on web development, drop me a message and we'll work something out

[Ash-Bash 0]

I was thinking of offering this service with my web hosting business and giving people a discount or free hosting for the first 3-6 months something like that to get more people buying Web Design. There is a lot more money involved when it comes to Web Design than web hosting so I am going to try and focus on that in the upcoming future good luck to yours .

[Little Asterisk 1]

I was thinking of offering this service with my web hosting business and giving people a discount or free hosting for the first 3-6 months something like that to get more people buying Web Design. There is a lot more money involved when it comes to Web Design than web hosting so I am going to try and focus on that in the upcoming future good luck to yours .

Hmmm, I didn't quite get it if you're still offering free hosting for 3-6 months, but be very well aware of the fact that the FreshBooks ( https://www.freshbooks.com/ ) guys offered around 50 free invoices as a trial for their invoicing product, which proved to be a big mistake because most of their users did not have 50 clients to start with! Now they offer (I believe) only four or so. Much better revenue that way!

I'm just saying... Be careful with what you give away (well, you and anyone else reading this ).