Why I Started a Freelance Business

I started a business to sell web design services, with a primary focus on WordPress for now – you can check it out at webdevelopersetc.com. In this post, I’m going to quickly explain why I decided to do this in addition to my e-commerce and Adsense sites as well as some of the advantages of starting a service based business.

Diversification

Despite being in business for nearly 10 years, one of the things that has made me really uncomfortable is my heavy reliance on SEO traffic from Google. Although I intend to use SEO on this business eventually, I decided to pursue other marketing channels first.

Strong Demand

There will always be good demand for website design, even when the economy is bad. People will still need websites for various reasons, including blogging, starting their own business, and personal websites.

Utilizing Resources

Outsourcing is a skill that takes time to develop, just like any other skill. Over the past 3-4 years, I’ve gotten better at it and I’ve also found and developed relationships with some good web designers and developers. I wanted to utilize those connections and hook those people up with more work.

To Challenge Myself

I wanted to challenge myself to try to get work using methods other than SEO, which I’ve relied on heavily for the past 8 years. I’ve learned a lot about other types of marketing and business models, but haven’t put much of it into effect.

How I Add Value to All Parties

The value I add is being able to access client and customers that they cannot. My knowledge of internet marketing, usability, conversion, and other things is helpful when it comes to choosing the right design and set up for a website. And it does make a big difference on the amount of traffic, conversion, and ultimately money that you get.

Other Reasons

Most of my friends that are self employed are freelancers that offer professional services to other people. They mostly rely on word of mouth and have the typical problems that freelancers have, including boom and bust cycles and being overworked.

I wanted to show them that there are other ways to market and grow your business. Interestingly enough, it’s been harder than I thought it would be initially to not get caught up in day to day things.

Also, as I learn more things, it will give me plenty of material to blog about here.

Although I officially started this business last year, I didn’t really focus on it until last June. I got my first clients through referrals and Craigslist and I’ve developed a decent sized portfolio and found some good clients on Elance. Hopefully, this will be just the beginning and I expect there is a lot of room for growth.