Marketing My Small Business

Apologies, I should have been more specific. I'm looking to sell outside of the local area.

Outside of working the search engines to rank high on a popular keyword...I suppose I was just looking for any tricks that other successful business owners have come across.

"My rates are well below the competitive average"

That's no real advantage.

In having low prices or advertising prices at all is usually a huge mistake.

You should really be charging by the project and the fee should be different for every project since every project is different.


Go to business networking events, ask everyone you know and everyone you've worked with for referrals (you can offer to give the people they know a gift consultation of some kind).

Talk to the business owners you know and the owners of businesses where you're spending money.

Ask your friends who they know.

Also consider using snail mail, email, the telephone and talking to business owners in person to get new clients.

In this niche getting clients is fairly simple...you just need to talk to as many business owners as possible, learn to ask questions and listen then suggest customized solutions based around the information you gather and run with the suggestion that gets a business owner excited.

Also be sure to charge a substantial upfront fee before you start any work (50% upfront is common.)

Kindest regards,
Andrew Cavanagh

I agree with the other knowledgeable posters here. Low pricing is not a strategy, but a short term tactic... and it usually fails. Unless, of course, you can somehow become the Walmart of web design. Since web design is pretty broad, I'd suggest making a list of those elements you are great at, why your product justifies a higher priced and the added financial value this creates for your customers. At minimum, this will help you define which customers you should be targeting.