Can you please give me advice on the route to self employed web design?

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Hi

I would like to go into self employed web design where I offer my services as a sole trader. I have a current job and would be studying part time etc. I have no web design experience , can you please help with the questions below?

1. Is a self employed web design business a decent path to follow? (I dont think I can go into an employed route etc due to various circumstances I have).

2.What would be a good course to do? I have heard about the CIW course, how much does this cost and what other course would be helpful?

Many thanks

 

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dont know much about web design but i would suggest you try and do it all yourself, if you do it yourself the cost would be minimul as all you would need is the books to get you certified.

If you have problems i am sure the amzing people on CF would be happy to help

 

Thanks.

Yes I was thinking of doing self study, I dont want to pay thousands to companies like computeach etc.

My main concern is that is there any scope to make a living out of this by working for yourself? i.e. offering clients your services from home?

 

In all honestly, i believe that unless you are really good at this and can get a decent client base, then you wont make much money from web design.
Why? There are plenty of places where you can get a domain name, hosting, and can have your site designed for very little £.
Go to google and search for web hosting and look at what other companies offer for the price! Its very cheap now.

Considering you have no web design experience at all, im guessing the sites that you could design may be minimal, prob designed with CSS, JS RSS Feeds etc.
im guessing that to design an advanced website, you may need to know the above, plus VB, W3 standards, .NET, SSL? for secure sites, and loads more!

I'm not trying to put you off or anything, but all im saying is, i believe, that we obviously know the internet is massive! its easy to use, and there are now more and more ways to get different types of content on the web, regardless, whether its for home users or businesses (and this one is gonna be even more harder, considering companies can now have their application on the net)!

Hope this helps, and remember im not trying to put you or anyone off, just giving my opionon.

 

Thanks for the advice.

I was seriously considering training in web design and then to set up on my own but I guess that it is not really feasible etc so I wont go through with this.

 

I heartily disagree with Cheeks here. Professional web designers will always be in demand, and there is good money to be had in it - if you are good!

Sure, every man and his dog can make their own website, but businesses wont generally do that, they will pay a professional to do it for them. And even were that the case, webapplications are becoming more prominent these days.

That said, I dont think its something you can just start self-employed from. You can self-study, sure, but I doubt you will be able to sustain a business from day one. You need to build a reputation, work as part of a team (or several), and get several years experience under your belt, before you can run a proper professional webdesign company.