I’ve learned a lot by trial and error in my years as a Web design business owner. I want to share 3 most important musts for running a Web design business so you can avoid some of headaches I had to go through. The key to enjoying your business is to provide your clients with wonderful Web sites while keeping your aspirin purchases down. In other words, you need to focus on these 3 key elements to running a Web design business in order to alleviate unnecessary headaches and potential legal problems.

Must Number One: Contracts

You must sign a contract with every single client you do a project for. It doesn’t matter how nice someone seems to be when you meet them and it doesn’t matter how small their Web design needs are; you need to sign a contract with everyone you do business with or you are setting yourself up for some potentially painful nightmares.

A contract shouldn’t be looked at as a negative thing; something that gives impression you shouldn’t be trusted. In fact, most of your clients will have opposite feeling when you present them with a contract. Telling your clients you sign contracts for every project you do will show that you are a step above those that don’t. Most businesses are used to using contracts and will only respect you more if you use one in your own business.

Mentioning that you use contracts will actually make a client feel more secure about your business, rather than scare them away. Any client that is not willing to be bound by a contract usually has a reason, and it isn’t because they don’t trust you. People that refuse to sign contracts usually have a pattern of not holding up their end of a deal. These people should be avoided at all cost; no matter how much money they offer to pay you.

The whole point of using a contract is to outline what each party’s responsibilities will be in project and what each can expect at outcome. Your contract needs to specify what is to be delivered by you and what is expected of client during entire project. Everything from how to deliver materials to you and providing timelines needs to be outlined in your contracts.

Must Number Two: Timely delivery of your client’s materials.

In order to make most of your time as a Web design business owner you need to keep all your client projects on a timeline. The last thing you want to have happen is to cross two or more different projects on top of each other. If you have several people working for you, and you can do more than one project at a time, you may be able to handle things. However, if you are only able to do one project at a time, you need to make sure each project is done in its own time frame and not crossing over into timeline of another project.

Updating site: The beauty of a website is that it is not static like a brochure or printed document. You can change it to reflect new products or new developments in your enterprise. You can launch new campaigns, and at any time you can add more content.

The problem for some companies and individuals is that after they have paid a good amount of money to have their site built, they do not have any personnel who can make changes to website, such as adding new text or photos etc. One solution to this is to make sure you have a good maintenance plan included in contract or agreement you make your with your web designer, so that minor changes can be made by your original designer

Another solution, and one that gives you more flexibility, is to train someone in your organization to be able to work with an html editor (like Frontpage, Dreamweaver, or other similar programs). While not everyone has skills to design a site from scratch, someone who is able to use normal word processing programs can learn how to modify text and upload files to server.