Oh, the “Niche” word on everyone’s lips! Niching can be a scary topic, especially if you are a “yes” person when it comes to your business.

Saying no to new clients and new projects seems such a daunting prospect, not to mention counter-productive.

But here’s the thing – you’ll never know how powerfully liberating it can be. And how wildly successful it can be for your business when you niche your web design business until you give it a try!

Think about it this way: niching is *not* a limitation. It’s actually freeing!

Think of it more as:

• Reaching the people you actually dream of working with
• Positioning yourself as an expert (aka. Charge what you are worth)
• Making yourself more attractive to your audience
• Increased productivity (it’s much easier to work on something you’re passionate about!)
• Easier to market your business

Now that you’re thinking about *why* it would be so beneficial to niche down, let’s look at the top 4 areas in which you can niche your web design business

Niche your web design business: by industry

This is typically the most common method when you think about how to find a niche in any field. As a web designer, you can market yourself as a web designer for restaurants or as a web designer targeting high-end women’s fashion labels. It’s a great way to get super specific around something you are passionate about! 

Different projects also call for different inclusions and deliverables so it’s important to come back to your skills and what you’re actually passionate about creating. Using the same web designer example above, a restaurant website is more of a standard brochure site, whereas, a high-end fashion website would require e-commerce and more advanced features. Niching by industry allows you to really hone your craft and stand out from your competitors. The same applies for branding and other creative services as well. 

Niche by value

Think about your core values and relate to your potential clients through your shared values. 

For Rabble Rouse, I love to collaborate with ethical brands, as this is a core value that I am able to share and can express fully through my work. For you, this may look like niching down into creative brands, so you connect to clients who also value creativity. Or maybe you value sustainability, so you target environmentally-friendly brands.

Niche by service

Niching by service is a great way to create easy to understand packages for your clients. Not to mention narrowing the focus of your work into something you can enjoy, day in, day out. For example, maybe you like working with product-based businesses, so you develop a custom web design package that includes all the key aspects that an e-commerce website needs to get up and running, and you heavily market that as a special service. Or maybe you like to only work with a certain website, such as Squarespace or Elementor within WordPress. Another kind of service type could be defined by time, for example, a simple website package completed in a week.

This kind of niche is very specific to a certain type of client that needs a certain type of service, which is easier to market. It can also help you present yourself as an expert in that specific service.

Once again, this can mean you are turning down work that you may have said yes to in the past, but this is the whole point of niching!

Niche by style

Developing a specific style for your client work is a particularly strong way to niche when it comes to web design. As a client searching for a web designer who fits their needs, a lot of their decision making can come from a visual point of view. For example, your style might be minimal and uses mostly neutral colours. Or it could be bold with a bright colour palette. These kinds of visual things are going to grab a certain client’s attention while looking through your portfolio. 

An added bonus to this: Clients tend to trust your vision a bit more. No more, “Here’s what I want, can you make this?”. They come to you because they’ve already seen your style and want something similar. So they’re more likely to let you just do what you do best.

The downside? It can still be a bit broad. Although it’s fun to work with a variety of clients in different industries, it can be tough when you’re casting such a big net. Also, your style might change!

Finding your web design niche can be challenging. Especially due to the number of possible options available to you. However, specializing in your services this way can be rewarding. It allows you to stand out from competitors more effectively and drum up more business by establishing your expertise.

If you’re interested in diversifying your graphic design business with web design, download our free ebook The Web Designer Starter Kit: 5-Step Framework To Start Designing & Building Websites.