This is something that I’ve, been doing for quite some time now, and during that time I ‘ Ve learned lots of things in terms of the best way to do it and maybe the ways not to do it and in this video I’m gonna be sharing with you all of my thoughts and tips on exactly how you should go Out and sell these services kind of money you can make how to find clients how to sell it.
That also might want a WordPress website. Now I’ve, been doing this for a good few years now, but when I first started, I wasn’t really a wordpress expert. As such, I had built a couple of sites and I had a kind of basic understanding of how the per site together but yeah by no means was I an expert, but I just kind of went out.
There found a couple of clients started building websites and basically learnt while I was on the job, so that’s really. My first point: you need to worry about your current level of knowledge when it comes to WordPress.
If you’ve got a bit of an understanding. You can learn the rest as you go along. I mean there’s, loads of great resources out on the internet, but a trial-and-error bit of help from plugin and theme developers and you’ll, be just fine.
Now, to give this video a little bit of structure, I’ve, broken it down into six different parts. If you want to quickly jump to any of them, you’ll, find timings in the description below. So the six things I’m gonna be talking about today are what we’re, actually selling.
How much we’re gonna be charging for that? How we’re gonna sell it? How we’re gonna build our websites? I’m. Also gonna be talking about ongoing support, which is a great way to earn some residual income, and I’ve got a few other tips and tricks right at the end it with regards to managing clients and all that kind of stuff.
So well let’s, get started with the first part: [ Music ]. So what are we actually selling? Well, we’re, not selling WordPress development as such, and you don’t, get that confused and you want to make it very clear to whoever it is you’re selling that you are not a wordpress developer? You are a wordpress, implement or or a wordpress set or upper well WordPress.
Architect may be the right word, but definitely not a developer. You want to be really clear on this, and so because it avoids any confusion later down the line. The way that I normally approach it when I’m talking to clients is when I’m sitting down with them.
I explained that WordPress is a fantastic free platform and there’s, loads of great plugins and themes available for it, and I also explained that I ‘ Ve got lots of experience in installing WordPress and working with WordPress and in putting sites together and kind of combining different themes and plugins to produce a good outcome.
Most clients will be absolutely finalists. They don’t actually want a wordpress developer. What they want is a wordpress website and, of course, that’s, something that you can certainly deliver. Few details that you’ll also want to throw in in terms of what you’re selling.
Is that you’re gonna be using very high quality hosting, and we’ll talk about that in a bit you’re, going to be using high quality premium themes and plugins. I mean there may be the odd free plugin here or there, but generally especially the theme is going to be premium and is going to be of high quality.
You’ll also want to mention that you’ll, be there for them. After the site’s launched and they’re able to offer some ongoing support to make sure that the website keeps up and running and if they have any changes or questions or requirements, you’ll, be there for them.
Another great benefit to the client in selling this WordPress setup service is that once they have their website, if, whatever reason they fall out of touch with you or you know, you’ve moved to the other side of the world, or just generally, you Fall out with a client it’s, not a problem for them, because ever had to find some other WordPress professional to basically pick up what you’ve created using.
You know off-the-shelf plugins and themes there’s not been any custom. Development means it’s, someone else as they can just come and pick it up and support that client after you’ve gone that’s. What we’re, going to be selling a wordpress setup service, we have all the themes and plugins bells and whistles.
Ok, we’re selling, a WordPress website. I mean that is ultimately what the end product is. But I say you want to be clear on exactly how you achieve that. Let’s, talk about how much you could charge for this service and obviously this is going to depend on a number of things.
So the first thing is: when you’re just starting out in this business, you aren’t gonna be able to charge the big money straightaway. I mean that’s, pretty obvious isn’t it. You’re gonna want to start low, get a few websites under your belt, build up a portfolio and then it’s.
From that point, you’re, then able to increase your charges. Now, here’s, a few ballpark figures for you when it comes to selling a WordPress website. Back in the day when I first started a very simple WordPress website, I would usually charge around three to five hundred pounds for that and I wasn’t making much money on those, but let’s say it was a great way To build up a portfolio in dollars that’s, going to be what four hundred dollars four to six hundred dollars, something like that nowadays, our charge a bit more.
I think the last website that I did are charged around ten thousand pounds. Well so that’s about twelve thousand dollars and it’s a bit easier for me to do that nowadays, because I’ve built loads and loads of WordPress websites that I can show clients, I’ve Got a YouTube channel all about WordPress, so yeah I’ve got that kind of credibility and reputation that allows me to charge that kind of figure and of course you will be able to once you ‘
Ve got a whole load of websites under your belt and a whole load of happy clients singing your praises. You can certainly start to charge some of those really nice big figures. Let’s. Talk about a couple of other things that you can also charge, for.
There is, of course, ongoing support, which is basically just looking after the website, keeping it up to date. Kind of thing I will be talking about support a bit later on in the video, and for that you could charge an annual or a monthly fee, so that’s, really good.
It’s, residual ongoing income and again a kind of ballpark figure of that it really does depend on the client and the kind of complexity and size of the site. But you should be thinking of a figure of around 500 a year, all the way up to maybe three or four thousand a year.
Let’s say it really depends on the client. How demanding you think that clients going to be – and you know all the plugins and themes that you’ve got on the site – should allow you to kind of make a judgment on that generally I charge on an annual basis.
I get all the money up front, but you may want to sell it on a kind of monthly basis and just make sure that the client sets up a direct debit or a standing order or some sort of automatic payment into your bank account every single month.
Another thing that you can charge for and again this is another great way to earn some residual income and that is hosting it’s. Really easy to do. All you need to do is sign up as a reseller, I’d, recommend SiteGround.
I’ll, put a link up now in a card, and you ‘ Ll, also find a link in the description head over there. You can sign up for their reseller hosting and you can basically buy some credits in each one.
It allows you to set up a site and that you get a nice control panel and of course, you get some fantastic support. As you’d, expect from SiteGround by the way any links I share in this video, they might be affiliate links which would mean if you use them and you make a purchase, I will earn a small commission.
I really do appreciate it. It helps me pay the bills, and it helps me carry on making videos like this now in terms of how much you want to charge for hosting. That really depends. I mean you want to get an idea of how much other people are charging do some research, but generally the clients won’t flinch too much in terms of pricing, especially if they’re buying a full package from you.
You know the site, the support and the hosting you can kind of bundle it together and often earn some good money off the hosting, but yeah hosting is a great way to make some extra money. Just a quick point: when it comes to preparing a quote for a client, I would recommend that you don’t itemize everything out in too much detail.
So I wouldn’t itemize out, you know plugins or themes. I would just kind of put it all together as a website creation project. You can obviously bullet point what’s going to be included, but I wouldn’t put individual prices for each thing.
It just makes it easier and it stops kind of any awkward questions or back-and-forth. So if you’re gonna be using premium of themes, which I strongly recommend that you do. I wouldn’t, use free themes and if you’re gonna be using premium, plugins just bundle them into the quote: don’t, itemize them separately.
One last point: when it comes to charging for things, I’d, recommend that you don’t get involved in email services website hosting is one thing, but email services is a completely different thing and yeah best avoided.
In my opinion, because email is kind of business critical, it’s very important to people. So if it stops working, if there’s any problems, they are going to be blowing up your phone. They’re gonna, be ringing you in the middle of night and all sorts of things it’s just too much hassle for the money, so I would avoid email services and the other thing I would avoid is domain names.
I would encourage the client to keep hold of their domain name used. You know some kind of domain registrar like GoDaddy or Namecheap or name stir and get them to buy their domain name to keep hold of them and look after them in their own account.
Again. It’s, something that’s, a little bit kind of business critical and there’s, hardly any money in it. So it’s, just not worth touching. So let the client deal with the domain names and the email services, let’s.
Talk about how you’re. Actually, gonna sell this fantastic service that you’re gonna be offering, and before I talk about this in too much detail, I have got a whole load of videos on my other channel, all about selling and business and those kind of things.
So you might want to go check them out. I’ll, put a link up in a card. Now you ‘ Ll also find all the links in the description, of course, but yeah so selling, and this is something that a lot of people do worry about when it comes to setting up any kind of business really is you know I’m, not a Salesman? How am I gonna sell? Well it’s, not actually as hard as you might think.
Selling is literally just trying to help people that’s. The way I see it, it’s about talking to people. It’s about asking questions. It’s about finding out what problems they’ve been having. So maybe they’ve had a bad experience with other web designers or other web platforms, and they say yes finding out what those problems are and then it’s.
Addressing those problems with your solution so say one of the most important things about selling is listening. Listening to the client taking on board what they’ve got what their issues are, what their business is, their requirements, their needs, their problems, all that stuff, and then you kind of giving them a solution to help them fix all those problems.
Now you might be thinking okay, that’s great, but you know how do I find people to sit in front of people that want a website? Well, I’ve, had some great success with networking events and I’m sure there is some networking events in your town.
Basically just do some Google searches, I’m sure you’ll, find them networking. Events generally are breakfasts or lunches, or sometimes even evening engagements, and you basically get to go to one of these events and go into the room, meet a whole load of other business people and talk to them swap cards and all that kind of thing, and yes Say it’s a great place to meet people now networking is quite a slow process.
A few tips on networking is when you go into room. You’re there just to basically make some connections. You’re there to make some business friends if you will so that basically involves again listening and talking and asking questions and not trying to talk too much about yourself.
One thing you do want to make sure that you don’t. Do and that is try and sell to people in the room. You’re, not there to sell you’re just there to make some connections and obviously hopefully people will ask you what you’re all about and what your business is and what your services are.
And then you have an opportunity to tell them, but yeah do a lot of listening and a lot of talking and get to know. People – and you might need to go to these events three or four times to start building up some really good connections and then trust me once you ‘
Ve got those connections. The business referrals will start to come another way to get some new potential. Clients is to do some websites for free, and I know you know that sounds like a bit of a pain, but you got to do these things when you’re starting out.
If you know some people will you, you know hear about people that are after a new website, it might just be a local club or organization, something like that offered to create their website for free using WordPress.
Of course, you could get some money for expenses in terms of hosting and that kind of stuff, but it’s, a great way of getting some websites under your belt in your portfolio. And if you do a good job and you create a good site and you help them and all that kind of stuff, they will tell other people and those people will probably tell other people, and then you’ll start to get the business referrals Coming in so that brings me on to my last point with regards to selling WordPress services and getting more clients, and that, basically, is just do a good job just help your clients out just create good websites, use good software, so use good themes and good plugins.
Give your clients a great experience and just generally be there for them and be helpful and help them fix their problems, and then they will tell their friends and their business associates and those in turn will tell other people.
And then you’ll start to get some great business referrals coming in now I generate all of my clients through referral, so yeah it works really well for me, I just try and do my best trying to cast my clients and they then end Up talking about it and yeah referrals come [, Music ], let’s.
Talk about actually building the site’s. You’ve sold a few, and now it’s time to build them. So I’m, not gonna go into too much detail because I ‘ Ve got loads of other videos on this channel around creating the actual site, but I just want to give you a few pointers on this.
So my first tip is always build on your hosting. So, as I mentioned at the start, you can sell hosting using a reseller package like the one that I recommended from SiteGround. I would always recommend that you do this.
I wouldn’t use the clients hosting, because if there’s any problems you get in the situation where there’s, a lot of back-and-forth between you and the hosting company and the hosting companies saying it’S your fault and you’re, saying let’s, put on with the hosting and the clients going.
What’s going on is problem? Who’s gonna fix it and yeah just become difficult. So if you’ve got the hosting under your control. It’s, your hosting then the buck stops with you. You’re, then able to get everything sorted.
You can obviously deal with the hosting company, whether it be SiteGround. They’ll, give you some good support and you get problems fixed and it’s. A lot easier. It doesn’t make you look bad. The clients happy everyone’s happy.
My next tip is to use a premium theme, do not use free themes when you’re doing commercial projects for clients use a really high quality premium theme that way. If there is any problems with it, you can get support from the developers.
You’ll, be regularly updated with security fixes and extra features, and you’ll just generally find it a lot easier. If you use a premium theme speaking of premium themes, I recommend that you choose a nice versatile theme that allows you to do lots of things that way.
You can learn it and then you can use it for all of your client sites and they’ll. All look completely different because you’ve got such a fantastic, versatile theme. Some examples of this would be anything that uses element all really well, so something like Astra WP or ocean WP, and they’re.
Both good themes, use Elementor and can be used for all sorts of different sites. You might want to look at X theme, which uses two cornerstone page builder, that’s. Okay, it’s a little bit complicated, but you can create some good sites and then, of course, there’s.
Also Divi theme, which is popular with a number of WordPress experts, and again it uses a great page builder, making it really easy for you to lay out some great designs. So that leads me nicely on to design and when you first meet up the client.
You’re gonna want to get some ideas in terms of what kind of site they’re after a good way to do. This is to ask them to send you some examples of existing sites out on the internet that they, like the look of this way you can use them as design inspiration and just place.
It give you some guidance on how you’re gonna be laying out the site, one other tip. When it comes to design, you might be with a client and they’ll say something like. Oh, I’ve got my graphic designer here and I’m, going to ask them to knock up some designs for the web site.
Is that going to be okay with you generally? My answer to that is no. That’s, not going to be okay. We’re gonna be using premium themes and they’re gonna be fluid, and I’m gonna do a great design for you using these premium themes, but I’m.
Not gonna be able to take a picture that a graphic designer is knocked up and colored in and transfer that across onto the theme that’s, going to be too much work that involves custom development. That is not what I’m about.
If you want that, then you are going to need a different WordPress developer, someone that can build you your own theme, and then you want to explain why that’s, a bad idea, because you know you’re gonna have to Keep that theme up-to-date.
If you fall out with a developer, then you’re, not gonna really get any use it or update it, because no one else is going to want to touch it and it’s. A whole lot of other ideas. Why that is a bad idea, so you know my key point on design.
There is do not let a graphic designer get involved. My final point on building a site is you can pretty much achieve anything with WordPress when you find the right plugins, but don’t be too over ambitious, you might go and see a client and they’ll, say yeah.
We want this website, we want it to do events, we want it to do ecommerce, we want it to have. You know all these bells and whistles. We want it to. You know power, our forklift truck charging units and they’re gonna give you a whole load of other random stuff.
Sometimes you have to walk away, because sometimes these projects are just too ambitious for WordPress or they’re too ambitious. For your current skill set, I mean I’m all for pushing ourselves and you know learning stuff on the job, but sometimes they’re just too big, and I know it’s from experience because I’Ve taken on projects that were too big for me and were too big for WordPress and what ends up happening.
Is you create this and you end up adding all of these plugins to try and get it doing what the client wants and then the site doesn’t work properly and it runs really slow and it’s just a world of Hell so yeah don’t be too over ambitious.
If the clients got like these really big ideas, you even knock them down a bit or you walk away and leave them to you, someone else when it comes to using plugins. Of course you want to limit the number that you use, but I say you generally can achieve anything with a wordpress plugin and if you’re in a client meeting at the beginning and they’re asking about certain features and functionality That they want on the site – and you’re, not hundred percent sure.
If there’s a plug-in that can do that. Just explain that you can go away and do some research on that and it probably can be done. But you’ll come back to them on it, and you ‘ Ll generally be fine and it’s same as it was with the themes.
I’d, always use premium plugins if they’re available, because you get the support and you get the updates and if stuff does go wrong, you can then reach out to developer and hopefully get the help that you need.
So let’s. Talk about ongoing support. This is a great way to earn some residual ongoing income and nine times out of ten effect. Probably ten times out of ten. The client is gonna want to take the support from you because they’re, not going to want to be stuck with this website.
You just created them and have to look after it all by themselves that’s just too scary and a bit silly. If you spent load of money on a website, you really want someone to kind of look after it and keep it online and keep it working as it should.
So I mentioned a bit earlier how much money you can charge for this. It does depend on the client how complex the site is, how much of a pain in the you think they’re gonna be, and I’ve, seen a just your pricing accordingly.
In terms of what you’re, going to be doing for the money, you’re, going to be keeping the site online and that involves updating, plugins and keeping it all nice and secure. But some videos on the channel on how you can do that, but you know it’s, still move something like wordfence.
Is it good start? You also gonna be there for them. If they’ve got any questions or they need help with anything. You’re gonna, be there to respond to their emails and phone calls, and I also include very minor changes in my support package.
So if they, you know, want a blog post adding quickly, then I’ll. Do that or if they want. You know a little bit of an adjustment here or there on certain pages. I’ll, be there and do that as part of the support package.
Obviously, if they want something major, you know they want to change theme or they want a whole new section and to the website. Then I would charge for that separately. So I am a bit vague in my support terms or conditions.
I just say you know small changes and yes that could be questioned, but it ‘ S worked okay for me. So far, so yeah that’s. What I include in my support package, you may want to change it, but it ‘
S worked well for me in terms of actually managing the sport. So when something does go wrong first thing I will usually do if it’s relating to a theme or plugin is reach out to the developers of that theme or plugin, which is why using premium stuff is really important and generally they’ll get it fixed for me, so not too much work for me to do just raise a couple of tickets and give them some login details and let them fix it.
Another thing you’re gonna want to do when it comes to supporting websites is make sure that you have regular backups, that’s, always there to save you. If something major does go wrong, say a site gets hacked or you know if the client deletes a whole load of stuff, you’ve, got that backup to save them, and my last point on offering support is don’t, be afraid To use an expert if you need to so I know a few WordPress developers and they are proper developers.
You know they can get into the code and do stuff like that. I use them. If I really need to and then opportunity expensive, just for an hour or half an hour whatever it is, but they’re there. If you know something does break or something major does go wrong.
I pull them in and they help me out in terms of security, and this has happened a few times. If a client’s, site gets hacked, which is a really bad thing. That is something that I cannot do myself. I cannot clean a hack site because you know these hackers they hide stuff all over and yeah it’s, really difficult to get a hundred percent cleaned in that situation.
I would pay a company to help me with that. Maybe someone like securiy or wordfence. Indeed, they offer a removal service and yeah. Sometimes you kind of have to take a loss on it because you have to pay for it and you know whatever, but generally, if you’ve got enough support clients.
It’s, a bit like insurance. You will make money overall and if you find that you have got a client that’s, getting hacked all the time always having problems, then, when it comes to their support renewal.
At the end of the year, you can put your price up and you can justify it by saying well at the cycle. I hacked four times last year and we’re all these problems. I have to charge you more sorry, [, Music ].
So, with nearly at the end of the last section is my final thoughts, just a few tips and suggestions when it comes to making money selling these WordPress services. My first thought is: you are going to make some mistakes.
I’ve made loads of mistakes that’s for sure it’s going to happen. It’s just going to go wrong on client sites. You’re, going to mess up and yeah. The best thing to do is learn what you can from that mistake and move on don’t.
Let it get you down too much. It’s going to happen and it’s. The only kind of way that we learn how to manage clients how to build sites and everything in between so don’t worry about making. Some mistakes is going to happen.
My next thought is on the clients themselves. Some clients are going to be toxic. I guess that’s, the right word for them. They are going to SAP all of your energy and take up all of your time and probably give you the least amount of money.
For that time, I’ve had clients like this. I think everyone in business has had clients like this and those clients. They need to go simple as that you have to sometimes fire a client, and that can be difficult sometimes, but generally, the best way to do it I find is when you get to the end of a sport agreement cuz that’s, probably the Only time you can do it, especially if they’ve paid up for a year and it gets really bad, in which case you’ll just have to kind of give their money back or whatever and just say that go away, but Generally, you can normally wait to the end of the support agreement and that’s.
The time that you raise it. You either say that I’m, not doing this anymore or I’m. You know winding down and I can’t help you anymore. Ideally, you want to find another wordpress person that you could maybe refer them to and say you know you know John over here will be able to help you out that’s, one good way of getting rid of them.
Another way is just to simply ramp up the price so that it becomes ridiculous for them to renew or if they do renew. Then it’s, not so bad anyway, because they’re, paying loads of money. But yeah be careful with this, because I ‘
Ve tried it in the past. I put the price up and the client hasn’t actually gone, they have just renewed and I’ve still hated it and they ‘ Ve still been toxic and it ‘ S still not been worth the money.
So if you are going to do that, make sure that you raise the price enough to really scare them off. The other thing I will just stress again is what I said in our session is that some projects are going to be just too big and ambitious.
Do a void them don’t, try and go for them. If you think it’s going to take 30 or 40 plugins to achieve what you need, then don’t touch that project. It’s not going to work. It’s. Gon na be a headache, and you’re gonna hate it so yeah avoid the really ambitious projects.
So the final thing I’m gonna leave you with is once you get to a point where you have delivered some great sites. You’ve, got a few nice clients in your portfolio and they’re all happy and you get referrals make sure that you are charging what you’re worth.
This is a problem that I’ve. Seen a number of times, especially in the technology space, where people don’t charge what they really should be charging. They think that people buy on price, which people don’t really people very rarely buy a service on price.
They’re gonna, be looking at lots of other things in order to make their decision so make sure that you’re charging. What you were – and you know when you have been doing it a few years and you have been making some really good sites – you should be into the four figures for websites at least, and possibly even five figures for a site that’s.
You know completely normal for a really really good WordPress person, so just make sure that you’re doing that and well. I wish you the best of luck with your endeavors when it comes to setting up WordPress services.