I’ve sold a lot of websites to local businesses and this is by far the easiest way to sell a website to local SME business owner for a web designer and get clients. So today, I’m going to share with you my five proven strategies to find these local clients. And then I’m going to share with you how much you should charge for a website.
And then at the end, I’m going to share with you my golden question that I ask every single prospect to get them interested in hiring me for their project. So let’s get into it.
I love focusing on a local geographical area to sell a website. Because there’s just less competition. I don’t have to compete with all the other web designers in the entire world. And usually, if you look at just your own city, there’s just a handful of other designers and so it makes it a lot easier for you to compete and stand out.
Now, one of the best parts about local businesses is they rarely need some type of custom website or custom solution. Typically, they just need a standard brochure website with a few pages. So, while these are going to be lower ticket projects, they’re going to be way faster turnaround, way easier to manage and find, and for most of these, you can use templates to build the website. Because the clients don’t really care.
And then the best part of working locally is the insane referral potential, which means if you do a good job for a company, they’re much more likely to recommend you to some other local business. Because in tight-knit communities, people talk, especially business owners.
All right, so now let’s talk about the five methods that you can use to find these local clients.
Cold Outreach Method.
So the first method to sell a website is cold outreach. And cold outreach oftentimes gets a bad reputation. Because it is one of the less effective ways. But what I found is on a local scale, it actually works really well because it never is purely cold outreach. A lot of times, you can make it feel like warm outreach because you live in the same community.
You have common interests, you have common connections, and it’s really easy to bring something up that’s relevant and personal to them. And so it’s not going to feel like cold outreach, and they’re much more likely to respond to you.
Now, cold outreach can be done through a phone call, through email, and through social media. And I found the most success doing cold outreach through Facebook because it seems that Facebook is a lot better at keeping things grouped into communities whether that’s a Facebook group or just common connections that you have through your friends.
Local SEO
The next method is my bread and butter, and that is local SEO. It doesn’t take a whole lot for you to rank toward the top in the organic search results and on the maps. And so really, all you need to do is create a Google business profile, which is completely free.
You need to verify your location which you can just use your home location if you don’t have an office and then you can hide that location on your listing. Then you’re going to want to start collecting Google reviews.
Now if you don’t have any past clients to ask for a review, you can ask friends and family, people who know you, know your work, and know your character. Because the more reviews you get, the more your business listing is going to stand out. And then the only other thing you need to do is optimize your website for local keywords. And I can assure you this will give you a very good result on selling your website or getting local clients.
Interact with people socially
The third method is called OYM or Open Your Mouth or Interact with people socially. Now this is exactly what it sounds like. You just need to be willing and confident and brave enough to open your mouth and talk to everyone you can about what you do.
I’ve sold websites to my dentist, my gym, to people who go to church. And also to people who live in my neighborhood. And it doesn’t take a whole lot and you don’t have to come across a sale. Just be quick to open your mouth and share with people what it is that you do.
Local Connections
The fourth method is to sell a website through local Connections. Now, there are several different ways for you to connect with local business owners. You can join your local Chamber of Commerce. You can look to give a presentation at some sort of local speaking event. And I was actually surprised at how many of those there are and they need speakers. So all you have to do is sign up. So you can be a sponsor for local sports teams or events. My favorite way to get local Connections is by finding complementary partnerships.
So if I sell websites I might want to reach out to other marketing agencies, that don’t offer websites and make some sort of agreement with them. Where they pass Me clients and I pass them clients and it’s a mutually beneficial agreement. I actually made a partnership like this with somebody who buys and sells dental offices. And they’ve referred me to a ton of different offices to build their websites.
So if you find those great connections, it’s just going to be a constant stream of referrals
Local Branding
And the fifth method is what I would just call branding your work locally. So this is doing physical outward visual things that will get people to notice you. So this can be passing around flyers, which is actually a pretty cheap way to connect with tons of businesses. You can get a huge decal on the side of your car or on your rear windshield. That just says I build websites and then your phone number or your URL.
Then one of my favorites is just wearing a t-shirt that says I build websites Ask me about it. And wear this T-shirt every time you go to the mall or restaurant. Anything you can do to start up conversations with people about web design.
How Much Should Charge for a Website?
Now, one thing have to keep in mind about selling websites is, that these most likely are not going to be 10 or 20 thousand dollars’ websites. Mostly, these companies have smaller budgets so you should shoot to charge between $3,000 to $6,000 for a website. But of course, this will depend on the client’s budget and their needs.
And if you are new then I have a suggestion for you. That is don’t charge or ask for 3 or 4 thousand for your first few clients. Because when you are new you have to gain trust and popularity than money. So in this case you can charge 1 to 2 thousand dollars based on the client’s requirements. And if you think that the client’s requirements are too high and it should be more then go ahead.
My Golden Question to sell a website.
All right, so we’ve talked about all these methods to sell a website. Now I want to share with you my golden question that I ask every single prospect. Now, what you’re going to find is that this question isn’t some crazy Jedi mind trick. It’s actually very simple.
But the reason this works so well is it’s non-confrontational and it’s just a really smooth opener to get into a discussion about web design. So every time I do a cold call to somebody, if I’m speaking with the owner, I simply ask, when was the last time you guys updated your website?
For whatever reason, people are really willing to answer this question. And usually, the answer is going to be, uh, it’s been a while.
We’ve been meaning to do it, but we just haven’t gotten around to it. And so that really opens the door for you to share what it is that you do, even offer some sort of free website audit, or just to take a look at their website and see if you have any recommendations for them. Once you get your foot in the door like this, it’s going to be a lot easier to upsell them on a full website to help their business.
So thanks so much. I hope you guys liked it. And I hope you land your next web design client. We’ll catch you in the next article.