My first business started out as a web development company. We built websites for our customers, focusing on building database driven sites, be that an e-commerce solution, or content management system. We chose to go down that route as I’m a techie, not a graphic designer.

Nearly six years on and the Internet is still growing at a phenomenal rate, with more and more businesses opening up online, so I thought I would share my thoughts on how to start and run a successful web development business.

If you feel that becoming a web developer is the business opportunity for you then you’ll need to ensure you have the right skill set. You’ll need to understand a wide range of technologies including HTML, CSS, Linux, Apache, MySQL and PHP (LAMP). It really helps if you have a basic understanding of HTTP and CGI too. Once you understand the basic technical building blocks you should also learn about Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) and Internet marketing.

To find customers you then need to get out there and tell people you exist, you can do this by networking (BNI, BRE, 4Network, local Chambers of Commerce etc), direct mail, email marketing (be careful you don’t end up spamming), advertising and telemarketing. We found must of our work using a mixture of networking and advertising.

To establish your credibility you really need a portfolio of work you can demonstrate – note many companies only show a small part of their full portfolio on their website. It really helps to have nicely presented printouts of your full portfolio to show customers in meetings (few will look at your website). These days I would highly recommend having a blog too, it’ll help with SEO but more importantly it allows you to demonstrate your expertise.

Unfortunately over the last few years it seems everyone has jumped on the web design bandwagon so you’ll need a way to stand out, for example we chose to take a very different approach to our presentation, we were very formal turning up in suits etc and our brand aimed at offering “business solutions” rather than pretty websites. This did allow us to, once established, set our pricing at the high end of the market.

Useful Links:

• SEO Checklist.

As it happens we decided that we would make more money and have more fun building Internet businesses for ourselves than for customers, so the business now runs a series of travel related Internet businesses.

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