Web design is a unique field because it combines art, creativity, technology and, if it’s a business, then sales and marketing. If you want to create a successful web designing business, you need to approach web design with a business framework. If you are an artist, you may want to create the best art possible, yet this is not what successful businesses do.
Successful businesses give their customers what the customers need or want. McDonald’s is an empire not because it has the best burgers. Virtually in any town, you can find a burger that’s better than McDonald’s. The company has become successful because it provides what its customers want: cheap food that has stable predictable quality. It also does so quickly. McDonald’s understand that it is in the fast food business. The word “fast” comes first. The word “food” comes second.
This is what many of its competitors don’t get. They try to beat McDonald’s with better food, not realising that fast is more important than food. The same principles apply to web design. You may not be happy about the fact that some of your clients do not want the most beautiful website that they can have, but want something acceptable instead of great.
As a web designer, you need to think about what kinds of customers you want. Every market has different segments. If you want to create complex, beautiful, difficult websites, you can specialise in websites for large successful companies. However, this is not the only space in the marketplace and while other websites may not be as beautiful or interesting to create, you can still make good money by selling them in volume.
How you position yourself is upto you. Nobody is forcing you to be McDonald’s. You can be Louis Vuitton if you want. However, you still need to remember that successful web design business is about creating the websites that the customers want, not about just beautiful design.