Freelance web design can be lucrative.
- The average annual salary for freelance web designers is around $56,000, but some successful freelancers have climbed into the $100,000 range.
- These three high-earning web designers hit their stride when they diversified their client base and talents.
- They recommended forming strategic partnerships, boosting organic search engine optimization, and finding alternative revenue streams.
- One of the most important offerings is your time, so don't sell yourself short, they said.
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Freelance web designers in the US make, on average, $4,650 per month, according to 2020 data from job marketplace ZipRecruiter. That works out to an annual salary of around $56,000: Not bad, but only about halfway to $100,000.
But the same scale shows that the highest-paid freelance web designers rake in more than double that.
Business Insider/Andy Kiersz, data from job marketplace ZipRecruiter
The monthly salary distribution for freelance web designers.
Business Insider talked with three six-figure freelance web designers to learn their tricks of the trade when it comes to building their client base and increasing their earnings beyond the average rate.
Focus on referrals
Sam Schnitzler, a website consultant and owner of the website design firm Universal NYC, has been a successful web designer for over 17 years. As a freelancer, Schnitzler now makes six figures on a yearly basis - he made over $200,000 in 2019. The web designer explained that a key strategy he used to effectively build his client base was to focus on referrals.
Sam Schnitzler
Sam Schnitzler.
He realized his repeat and ongoing referrals mostly came from other businesses - graphic designers, marketers, consultants, programmers, and copywriters - rather than clientele word-of-mouth, so he decided to create packages especially for those strategic partners.
"I did get some of these people reaching out to me naturally without asking for it, and since I saw it as a good source for repeat business, I decided to proactively target and reach out to these companies and offer discounted rates and other services for them to make it worthwhile to start offering my services to their clients," Schnitzler explained. "They can sign up to become a strategic partner and choose if they want to offer my services to their clients as a white-label service, or just send them directly to me and get a finder's fee or other valuable services."
Schnitzler has strategic partner clients promote his web design services by providing these special customers with marketing templates that feature their own branding. He also provides training and support, free of charge.
"This makes it very easy for my strategic partners to sell web design services without learning a new skill, and it gets me an ongoing flow of repeat business on a monthly basis," he explained.
Kyle Theil added that finding clients to beef up your base is a matter of building relationships. Theil launched his web design business, Visual Realm, just days after he graduated with a multimedia degree from the University of North Florida in 2005. As owner and CEO, Theil had his first six-figure year in 2007. In 2018, his agency (which consists of Theil and his wife) grossed over $577,000.
Kyle Theil
Kyle Theil.
Like Schnitzler, Theil also gets most of his new business from word-of-mouth referrals - so he focuses on putting himself in places where he can meet and get to know potential clients.
"I've found [clients] through local business groups on Facebook, the local Board of Trade, and by using LinkedIn," Theil said. "I offer free guides and templates of designs as a lead magnet, and I also offer my existing clients kickbacks for referrals."
Value your time
Theil explained that one of the other pillars that has helped guide him to success throughout his 14 years in business has been to place a premium on his time, a concept he notes as one of the most important lessons he learned in college. Time directly correlates with your income, he said, and offering too many discounts will hurt in the long run.
"A customer is going to ask for a discount," Theil explained. "Heck, I ask for discounts ... it's human nature. At that point, you have to ask yourself if it's worth it."
The first step in setting the price is to understand how clients operate so that you can be prepared to make a smart business decision rather than just jumping at a lowball offer, and remembering that as a freelancer, you have a finite amount of time. He also recommended sticking to your guns with your preferred pricing, even if it feels uncomfortable initially.
"I can't tell you how many times a customer has said they are going elsewhere because my price is too high just to come back and pay in full," Theil said, adding that freelancers still need to be cautious not to price themselves out of the market.
Another way that Theil preserves his work time is by delegating some of it.
"Fulfilling the work means doing some of it myself, but I also have an intern and outsource some tasks, like graphic design and copywriting, on Upwork.com," he said. "I want to continue to scale my business beyond $10,000 a month, and I think I've found the formula that works for me."
Invest in organic SEO
Chris Love has been the sole proprietor of web design and development business Love2Dev since 2000. While his company's revenue varies based on the types of projects that he takes on, he makes anywhere from $75,000 to $150,000 in any given year.
As an independent contractor with over 25 years of experience in his field, Love noted that freelance designers face many challenges that a 9-to-5 corporate web designer need not consider - one of which is "realizing you are running a business and not just an employee or technician."
Love stressed the importance of understanding accounting, law, and marketing. Because marketing is king on this list, Love said that the best thing he ever did was invest in organic search engine optimization (SEO) a few years ago.
Chris Love
Chris Love.
Love added that driving search engine traffic to a website with your own articles, blog posts, and other valuable content for clients and potential clients not only serves as a way to draw attention, but also acts as a running resume.
"You can establish your expertise while at the same time bringing leads to your inbox," he said. "This means when they contact you, they are a warm lead and more likely to convert. This is far better than relying on word of mouth to trickle in - or worse, making cold calls."
Prioritizing his SEO attracted more than three million unique visitors to his website last year, which led to so much work the last quarter that he could only publish one new article on his own site - "a good problem to have," he noted.
Avoid single-client dependency
"A few years ago I had a great client," Love recalled. "I could focus on them 100% of the time and not worry about acquiring new clients and projects along the way."
Unfortunately, one day his sole client lost about a quarter of their business and had to cut Love without notice.
"This forced me to rethink that sort of model," he admitted.
Since then, Love has invested in multiple channels to draw customers, including online training, smaller projects, and having multiple monthly retainer clients so if he loses one outlet, he's not short on work. He is additionally preparing to launch his first venture into a software-as-a-service offering to add another revenue stream.
"Do not limit yourself to a single client or revenue channel," he said. "Try to set up as many reliable monthly revenue streams as possible to manage. Finally, share what you know as much as possible to attract customers and establish your expertise."