Setting up a web design office

You have dabbled in web design and designed and developed a few sites for some local businesses. Now you fancy doing web design for a living. Maybe you are a web design who has recently found them self out of work and are considering setting up on your own.

Setting up your own web design business can be exciting and daunting at the same time, the potential is great, but so are the pit falls. You could set the hours and projects you work on, but you could also not be able to pay your bills. There are also lots of things to consider, like tax, do you lease an office? where will the work come from?

A couple of tips for success

Build up your business contacts while still in full time employment - this way you will get a steady stream of work.

Don't work on your own! If you work with somebody else or in a shared office space, that way you won't suffer from the dreaded cabin fever and lose motivation when clients are thin on the ground.

Beg steal and borrow. You will have to use you initiative to get a business up and running successfully so think creatively. If you can reduce bills by designing a web site for your land lord then do it, you'd be surprised how many people actually agree.

Share your experiences with us by leaving a comment on this post.

What are website cookies?

A web site cookie is a small text file that is placed onto your computer when you visit some websites. The text file stores information about you as a visitor, for example if you login into Hotmail to pick up your email and select to remember you a cookie (text file) is stored on your computer. Next time you go to hotmail your email address is already there, which saves you time.

As soon as you mention information is stored about you some people freak out, but in the above example it is useful to you and saves you time. Cookies can store all types of information and are generally useful.

If you are worried about your security on the web you can block them, but you won't be able to use some website if you have them blocked.

To disable in Internet Explorer go to Tools then Internet Options and select the Privacy tab. Move the slider upto High which will block all cookies, which is not recommended.

More information on Cookies and how to add them to your web site

Where to buy a complete website or online business

You don't have to setup a website or online business from scratch. Like in the really world of bricks and mortar you can buy websites that have already been build and are currently running and making money.

Buy existing website or online businesses

This is a great way to get a website if you have no web design experience as all the hard work has been done for you. Just make sure you check out all the facts they are claiming before parting with your cash.

What is a black hat SEO?

If you are new to web design you have probably already worked out that if you make a web site its doesn't guarantee people will visit it, you have therefore looked into Internet marketing, and discovered one of the best ways is Search engine optimisation [Define].

However you maybe not aware that search engine optimisation is open to cheating/abuse, this is using dodgy techniques that the search engines don't like. An example is keyword stuffing, which is making a web page with the same word repeated 100's of times in an attempt to trick the search engines to show that page when somebody searches for the word used for stuffing. People who do this are are known as Black Hat Search engine optimisers, or Black Hat SEO's.

Black hat SEO techniques

Black hat SEO techniques are anything search engine don't like, which is basically anything against Googles guidelines, if you do practice Black hat techniques you run the risk of getting your site banned from the search engines, which is likely to mean a massive drop in visitors to your website.

BMW recently got banned from Google for using Keyword stuffing, which shows search engines are really cracking down on it. In short don't do it, you may get some short success - if your lucky! More likely it will reduce your rankings, which nobody wants.

What's the alternative?

The opposite of Black hat is White hat SEO, using search engine approved techniques to promote your site. Using White hat techniques will ensure long term promotional success for your site and is highly recommended.

Learning Search engine optimisation is very useful and anybody who runs a website should be aware of the basics. If you are interested start by reading How to get to the top of Google, all white hat stuff of course!

If you want somebody else to do your search engine optimisation we recommend using White hat media seo services, as the name suggests, they only use white hat techniques, which will ensure you get long term success.