Web Designer Statistics and Trends
I figured this month to pass on some statistics and trends about Web Designers and if you’re reading this I am hoping you will be one of our clients in which case you can see a bit more about where NCompass fits into the industry and the grand scheme of things.
So here goes, these are the rough results from a Survey of 500 website designers taken earlier in 2021.
- Only 51% of web designers have their own website for lead generation
- Half of all web designers work alone
- Nearly half of web designers don’t feel confident when pitching their fees
- Only 12% of web designers feel they consistently charge enough for their services
- Web designers are typically paid less than the national salary average for full-time workers
- Over two thirds of web designers agree or strongly agree that WordPress is their preferred platform
- 70% of web designers are as excited about being a web designer as they were a year ago
Breaking this down
NCompass fits into these Statistics roughly as follows:
We have our own website, but I am not at all surprised that most web designers just have a holding page or no website at all. Websites take real time to develop manage and maintain and also to promote and if truth be told it’s not how most website designers get their clients. We’re not selling widgets and our services are often very bespoke.
While we have a website – we’re also aware it’s not that good, but quality in this business is another bugbear, we can strive and strive, but is it worth it. We don’t get sales through our website – but people hopefully do look at it and realise that we’re an active and sound company.
We’re in the other half of companies, I tell people we’re a team of 11, but really we’re 2 and a half full-timers, we take on interns and have people doing various aspects of our needs, i.e. Chris on Adwords, Charles on SEO, Diego on super complicated database stuff. We hold the fort and are constantly looking for a new person that we can have fully in-house, it’s time we expanded a bit more and were able to offer a more solid approach to our clients.
Fees and money, frankly, who isn’t going to say they are underpaid. Money in this business is tricky because you might have a full corporate structure and project teams of developers when the guy working alone in his room after his regular job can do exactly the same quality of work for 10% of the price.
Corporates have to compete against freelancers and that keeps prices low. But Web designers also have a notoriously low set of overheads. All we need is a computer and an Internet connection and these days less of a computer. So we may be paid less than our national average salary but that does not account for our lower expenses, we’re often not paying for that commute into work, the constant meetings, the expenses of a full office. Result, I’d say we provide some real value to our services and we remain as an industry quite environmentally efficient.
In our own case, we have to battle the idea of expanding and increasing overheads against remaining small and being able to charge lower fees. Are we underpaid? Of course, we are.
WordPress
WordPress is definitely not our platform of choice here at NCompass, we actually feel far more it should be ‘Right Tool – Right Job’ and we really take pains to make sure and advise clients to pick the right tool. We still built a lot of HTML websites for example and the reason is that it is far more economic for the client. We can charge £500 for a website and then anytime the client wants to make alterations it’s another £15 or £20 to adjust something… Compared that to our starting price of £1800 for a WordPress website. That’s a lot of chops and changes before WordPress becomes economical.
I can understand why Website Designers might like to settle on WordPress, but it upsets me. Too many in this industry want to make a website, add a bunch of whistles and bells and then when it’s finished walk away. With WordPress, the client is supposed to be able to take over and do all the admin themselves. But life’s not like that, it’s a false economy, you don’t buy a new car and then take over the servicing of it. Same with a Website, you will continue to need support.
And that is one thing we pride ourselves on, we’ll continue to help all our clients no matter the size or status, old clients as well as new clients with whatever issues they encounter. We’re here to help. Far too frequently we get calls saying, ‘our website designers have gone awol’. Not a happen situation at all and one that in over 20 years we hope will not happen with us soon.
Website Designers and the Future
I think I can understand why only 70% of website designers are excited about the future, this is an industry that will and is changing all the time. Websites in our view will not be around forever, they will change and possibly even disappear altogether. Instead, other ways of doing business online will increasingly exist.
And that’s the part we are excited about more than anything else. We hate Facebook and resent the dominance of Google, but we should be looking at what we can gain from it. Whether you have a website for a personal non-money making project or a full-on business does not matter. The question is always – how can I utilise the Internet so the people I want to benefit will. Too often people look at their websites and want to know how to make money out of it. It costs money – so how can I get that money back.
But the winners are people that want to improve other people’s lives. How can I make other people’s lives easier or better? What can I put on my website that will help people?
I get this time and time again, clients create a website and they wonder why people don’t sign up for what they are offering. If instead, the logic ran, I’ve created a website, I can see most people are looking at Service B, therefore I should write more about that service.
All my clients should take the view that adding more content to your website is the absolute best way forward and worry less about what their website looks like. Our motto is ‘Putting Business on the Internet’, it does not mention websites and if more people looked to enhance more ways to facilitate towards their target audience – we’d all be winners.
And for that, I am very excited.