Creating a website in today’s digital age is straightforward. Getting paid for it isn’t particularly challenging either. But do you know how to start a web design project properly, using the right tools? I’ll share my typical steps and workflows, and the tools that help a client project run smoothly.
How to Start a Web Design Project and Not Fail
Making extra money, or even full-time income as a Web Designer is not difficult. I share my methods and workflows in different areas in my beginner Web Design courses.
My training is for freelancers and nomads seeking new methods of income.
It’s not really about using WordPress, the beginner-friendly Divi page-builder, or professional tools like Bricks Builder. I find that course members learn this quite quickly.
It’s a bigger struggle not knowing the workflow, not having a plan, and failing to have a process that makes a paid client job run smoothly—with as little time spent as possible.
That’s how your Web Design projects get well paid for the time you spend. Because you’re not fiddling around with no plan, losing control of tasks, and missing important steps.
Instead of creating chaos and lowering your standards, follow a system.
A step-by-step workflow makes your clients see you as confident and professional. They will respect you, feel more secure, and feel good when paying you for your work.
So let’s look at how to start a Web Design project from the beginning. And start with getting an overview.
1. Get an overview of what the client already has
The first thing I do is to have a down-to-earth conversation about their business. Be interested in what they do. Clients love to see you excited to work with them. For me, as they talk, I’m getting pictures and solutions coming to my mind.
When talking about their business and website (if they already have one), you start getting an overview. You’ll learn what they have, are missing, should have, or don’t need to have.
Here are some of the typical questions I ask:
- What is your business about and how are things going?
- Do you have a domain and existing website?
- Where is your domain hosted and how much do you pay?
- What is your website built on (WordPress, or other, if they have any)?
- Are you happy with what you have today? Does it work as expected?
- Do you have any regular fees for the maintenance of your website now?
Then we move on to figure out what they actually need. Some clients have no damn clue what they want. So you need to hold their hand and take care of the process. I have even worked with clients who are intimidated and a little scared to put up a website and be “out there” on the web. Make them feel comfortable. And don’t be sneaky, trying to upsell on stuff they don’t need.
It’s your job as a consultant (in this moment) to simplify, make them see how easy this can be, and to make them feel safe in the process.
Since you have already talked about their business, you know a little more about what type of website this will be and what technical setup they would need.
2. Get an overview of what they need
Then I ask the following questions to know more about what they want with their website. What do they picture in their mind? What is actually the primary goal of the website?
I may be asking some of these questions in that regard:
- Do you have any specific design in mind for your website?
- What websites have you seen that you really like?
- What are the technical functions that you think you need? (Like photo galleries, video content, registration forms, shopping cart, membership registration and logins, and so on)
- What pages of content do you plan to have?
- Could you send me some links to 3–4 websites you like?
The last question can, for some clients, be confusing because often they don’t even know what they need. They just know they need a website and that it’s going to serve a purpose. You need to guide them along the way.
Again, don’t oversell or complicate things here. It will hit you in the face later.
Clients have friends too. Sooner or later, someone with a little insight into getting a website will report back to your client if they paid you way too much, and you’ll never hear from them again. They will also speak foul language and curse you and your dirty business.
Bad practice.
A client that is a blogger doesn’t need much fancy stuff. It’s more about making sure the website looks good, that you create easy-to-read blog post templates, suggest email sign-up solutions, and so on.
A blogger would also only need a contact form, email opt-in forms which you advise on by recommending ConvertKit or MailerLite to them. It’s easy to create forms in both of those email services.
For my part, I use ConvertBox to build beautiful email opt-in forms and modals. They integrate with both ConvertKit, MailerLite, and many others. You can even do actions based on Webhooks.
A more advanced web design client would maybe require a shopping cart, photo galleries, booking forms, setup of Custom Post Types in WordPress. Or maybe would need a membership site using Wishlist Member or a WordPress course website using TutorLMS. (Which is what I use for my courses)
3. Now talk about pricing and how you will charge them
So far you have been talking to the client about two important parts:
- What they already have now, if any (website, email accounts, general business tools)
- What they will need you to create for them
So you should now have an overview of the work to be done on this Web Design project. It’s time to move into talking about pricing.
If you’re unsure about any of these segments, or especially pricing, sign up for the Web Design Blueprint to download my free guide.
When I start talking to clients about pricing, I first like to measure their expectations of cost. I don’t ask them how much they can afford. I also don’t stand there with hat in hand, asking nicely and begging for them to accept what I’m about to offer.
Be confident and clear about your price after they have given you a hint of the expected cost. To do that, I may ask the following questions:
- Are you simply looking for a cheap solution here? Or do you want things to look good, have good functionality, or become something you and your business can grow on?
- How much are you okay with investing in looking good online, and how important is this to you?
- How much did you pay for what you have today? (If they have an old website)
With these questions, I’m trying to figure out what landscape their minds are in when it comes to the cost of the project.
Be aware of the all-too-common beginner client question:
“So, how much does a website cost?”
Then you ask them a question in return:
“Well, how much does a car cost?”
That return question will activate their brain for logical thinking and help them realize that it depends on the car. Now, fishing for a client’s cost expectations is not to trick the price up. It’s to be better prepared in presenting the actual cost.
But it is also good practice for beginners to NOT sell themselves too cheap, which is very common. You could easily end up in a situation where you tell the client:
“Okay, so I think that I maybe would need to have $800 for this job if that’s okay.”
And in the next moment, your client will happily say something like:
“Well, that’s great! I was expecting something like $3000 for this job.”
How smart would you feel then?
Of course, estimating a Web Design project quote as a beginner Freelancer is not always easy at first. Getting comfortable with this comes with practice. But there are some guidelines to follow, of course. Because when building a website, there are typical tasks and to-do’s that will take a certain amount of time and have a certain skill-level value.
If clients start to ask you about pricing, I may hand over the following comments:
- To give you a price, I need to know the full picture of your goals for the website. Let’s look at this first.
- Pricing depends on what you need, how specific you are on any custom design for your website, and how technical your setup will be.
- The price will depend on how simple or premium you want your website to be.
- Pricing depends on how much work you want me to do for you (domain registration, installing WordPress, creating/re-creating all pages and adding content to them).
Sure, you’re not giving the client a hint with these comments. It’s more about owning the conversation and the price you are about to give them. Web Design clients need to be made aware there are many details going into building a website.
The price you can set for a website project also depends on your confidence and skill level so far. And it’s totally fine to start low and build your way up. Clients should pay for your value and skill level.
At least, when a price has been quoted, tell the client that you will be invoicing them for at least 50% in advance, before the project starts (I use 70%).
4. Establish the project details and invoice the client
By now you have had a detailed conversation and planning session with the client and the price has been established.
The next thing I will share with the client now is:
- I will write up what we have gone through and planned for in an email outline to you
- You will receive a 70% invoice from me. For any changes to the project, we can add other new costs to the last invoice.
- In the meantime, I will start setting up the project work in my system
You may notice here that I dont use the word “contract”. I don’t like them. And it’s the same for many clients. I have almost lost two clients before when just mentioning contracts. Instead we work with a simple email outline. Any work outside of that will have an added price to it. Simple.
I know many other freelancers and web agencies do several pages long contracts. But I don’t.
But of course, if you’re from the U.S, dealing with clients in the U.S, it can get freakish. United States loves contracts, terms, policies, regulations, acts, and paranoid protection agreements.
If I sensed a client moving into any of those terms, they’ll lose me in 2 minutes and can find someone else.
One time a client in Germany told me on his e-mail response: “If you’re going to complicate this with a long-form contract, I’m not going to work with you.”
So, I sent him a short sum-up email with a cute bullet list. He was happy and paid right away.
I recommend you do that same. Keep it simple, but clear, and not on a paranoid level. After step two and three, simply outline the tasks to be done and what technical solutions you will do for the client.
This outline becomes your primary job process. Which also should make it easier for you to establish the price quote for the job.
5. Working on your Web Design project to-dos
Tools are important. They help you establish the system we talked about in the introduction. There are thousands of apps, services, and tools to use. In my work, I’m very picky about what I use so it makes sense in my head. And so I can enjoy my work.
I need apps that look good and feel right to use. They need to make sense visually and bring a clear overview of segments of work and the single tasks within each segment.
Tools for client meetings and project planning
Usually, I do my client meetings and calls online. Because most of my clients are remote somewhere around the world. Here are the tools I use in the order of usage.
- Tidycal – to schedule calls. (Get a lifetime deal with AppSumo)
- Zoom for the video meeting (record the calls to get all details)
- Craft – Slick writing and note-taking app
- Basecamp – for project setup and tasks
These are my primary tools to work online and keep my projects organized. You can also check out my resources page for more tools and services I use.
Typical Web Design process and workflow
Before I end this article, I will give you an insight into my typical workflow for a client project. This should give you a better insight into the work you will be doing if you are a beginner.
At this point, make sure your customer has provided the content they want on the site. Like website copy (text), images, video, and other stuff. If the content is not ready, or the client starts asking you to help them with this, make sure you notify them that extra time will be added if this is also something they want you to do for them.
After that, we begin.
- Register a domain. Or get existing domain details from the client.
- Back up the old website before you change it. Or start installing WordPress if it’s a new one
- Install Bricks Builder (for pros) or Divi Theme (if you’re a beginner starting simple)
- Build the header and footer reflecting the client’s design wishes
- Start building templates for blog archive, article view, and other templates
- Install plugins according to what technical features the client wanted
- Make sure SSL is working on the website
- Set up any custom email accounts if it’s part of the project
- Add the client as a user to the website so they can log in themselves
So that would be a typical workflow and list of tasks. Of course, there will be more little details around this when you start working on the little details around content and functionality. Learn as you go. Especially as a beginner. Decide to figure things out.
Of course, for my part, we have more details to work on as I run my own premium WordPress hosting service over at WPAlchemy.io. We have a lot of custom stuff we manage for client setups and websites.
Anyway, I hope this article could give you SOME clarity and help. I can’t cover it all, of course. But you can learn more from my courses. Knowing how to start a web design project will make it easier for you to earn an income faster. Using less time.
Learn, get well paid, and build up a freedom lifestyle for yourself.