I'm unemployed and want to start a B to B service I can start from home and someday grow where I can hire some help. When I think of my skills I've built quite a few Wordpress Woocommerce sites for myself and friends. I've done everything from register the name to create everything and the site comes out pretty nice. Not award-winning but I'd be proud to make them for others and the feedback has been good. When I talk to my techie friends about starting a Wordpress business they are *all* negative on it because there is so much competition who, they say, will do it at a lower rate. They tell me to pick a different direction, even like HTML/ CSS front end development will have lots more opportunities. However I would have to go to school and train to do it. Not to mention everyone expecting Javascript/Jquery which I dont have yet. My goal is a small service that is low stress to me (low stress is important to me). I would be happy charging $25/hr to start and work my way up to $45-55/hr. Do you think a Wordpress consulting business could support this or do you think that the competition is too high and I should look at a different skill I can offer, like learning Html5/css3? Maybe if I focused on just Wordpress Ecommerce would be better? I'm worried to build a business only to find 3 years from now that competition is brutal and Im struggling to survive. I want to build something where people are coming to me for help and i can make those mid-range rates easily. Thanks for any feedback.
Tough question. Everyone and their brother can claim to be a WordPress developer, so the competition is indeed brutal. You aren't going to be able to compete on price, so what can you bring to the table that thousands of overseas/freelance developers can't? Are you a graphic designer? Do you manage projects well? Are you a good people person? Are you passionate about the work? Do you have a large network of contacts who may be able to refer business to you? Do you know SEO? You really need to find something that would make you stand out from the crowd or offer some advantage that others don't have.
There are lots of sites like upwork.com and freelancer.com where you can bid on projects, but again, you are going up against guys who charge $5/hr so that is going to be tough.
Getting yourself on Google for search terms like 'wordpress developer' will also be nearly impossible, so you are really going to have to rely on referrals and networking. You'd be surprised by how much work you can get from doing a great job on just one web site. I started from scratch with my business, and one job for a well-known company has led to hundreds of projects. So really you are going to have to make your work speak for itself - building something that is just 'ok' won't do it - you need to really kick ass!
As far as WooCommerce goes, you need to have a firm grasp of all of the nuances of e-commerce if you are going to go down that road. Do you fully understand PCI compliance? Payment Gateways? Shipping logistics? SSL certificates? Tax laws? SEO? Providing front-end development is a WHOLE different ballgame than providing an e-commerce site for a client. Be sure that you know exactly what you are doing if you are going to offer that as a service. If your client's site gets hacked due to your negligence and credit card data is stolen, you are in a world of trouble. And since WordPress is the most hacked platform on the planet, this is a very real concern. Installing WordPress and WooCommerce on a cheap GoDaddy hosting plan and calling it a day just isn't going to cut it.
So find your niche, build high-quality sites, make the client happy and stay on top of the latest trends/tech and you can have a shot of making it in this business. Will it be easy? Definitely not, but certainly worth a try if is something you are passionate about. If you are just looking to make a few bucks because you don't have any other options, this probably isn't the right path for you.
Answered 8 years ago
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