With so much online competition for being a web designer or developer, being a generalist won't get you very far.
When there is no distinguishable factor between you and another designer, it only makes sense for clients to go for the cheapest option they can find.
This is exactly what gets freelancers caught up in the race to the bottom to charge as little as possible. But when there is something that sets you above the rest, something specific that makes you more valuable than other freelancers, you're a lot more likely to get work, and that specific something is nicheing.
There are a couple of different ways you can niche as a web designer and become more sought out by clients.
Here's an overview of all the different ways you might niche:
- To a platform, like Webflow or Shopify
- To an industry, like restaurants or clothing stores
- To an integration, like Hubspot or Airtable
- To a location, like the city wherever you live
- To a style or look, like tech inspired or soft and delicate
Let's properly do a dive into each of these.
Niche to a platform
So these days there are a lot of website building platforms that you can choose to build on; Wordpress, Webflow, Shopify, Wix, SquareSpace, Duda, Weebly, Zyro, Simvoly, Rocketspark, Teachable, Webnode, Jimdo, Web.com, Unbounce, Leadpages and Instapage to name just a few.
Though it feels crazy that all of these platforms are being used to build websites, they all are.
A big reason why is that a lot of these offer slightly different features suited to different kinds of uses. For example, Teachable is for building course based websites, and so by learning how Teachable works, you can become a go-to designer for building Teachable websites.
Combining your knowledge of different builders makes you even more valuable, so if you know Webflow, and you know Teachable, you can build Teachable websites and add custom elements and sections that are built in Webflow.
By nicheing to a platform, you can change your freelancer title to be the platform expert, like John Smith, Teachable Expert, and in that way show clients that if they know that they need to use that platform, they can come to you to get help with it.
Niche to an industry
Specialising to an industry is probably the most common thing people think of when they think of niching.
The reason it makes sense to niche this way is that businesses in a certain industry will often have similar requirements and goals. Restaurants want more customers, so an emphasis on booking reservations and opening times will be important. Where-as SaaS companies want more sign-ups, so everything is directed at getting people to a sign-up page.
To niche to a certain industry is to more intimately know the issues and problems that industry typically faces, and have the knowledge on the best ways to solve that problem.
The more you work with one specific industry, the more you can see what tactics do and don't work for a certain problem or transformation a client is wanting to make.
Over time you also build up a portfolio suited for that industry, so all your previous projects reflect businesses in that industry and you can also start to use language that the industry uses.
Instead of saying "we help you get more customers", you might say get more users for software clients, or get more patients for healthcare clients, or get more students for education clients, either way your shaping your language to use the wording that is used in that industry to show clients that you know what they need.
Niche to an integration
Similar to nicheing to a platform, you can niche to know how specific apps integrate in with websites. So you could be the go-to person for connecting websites with Zapier, Hubspot, Salesforce, Integromat, Airtable, Memberstack, and so on.
With smaller clients, they likely won't want to reach out to an expert, and would much rather try it themselves and screw up a couple of times, but for bigger organisations, it's not worth it for them for the potential of the system or integration breaking, so they would much rather go to an expert for the tool and have it done right the first time.
Aron who runs Automate All The Things is one of the go-to people for using Airtable, in-fact he has done a full course on it. So if a big company knows they have to use an Airtable connection for their website and they want it done right the first time, they know they can go to the expert on it and get a great result.
