322 - Honest Thoughts on the 2024 WordPress Professionals Survey Results

So recently , my friend Kyle over at the Admin Bar , which is one of the top communities for WordPress web designers , just did a survey of over 1,100 web designers getting real world up-to-date data on what is working for freelancers and agency owners , and this survey is available for you to check out to help you with your web design business and even if you are

not a WordPress web designer , most of all , this information is not WordPress specific , so everything from pricing , services , recurring income , what you're doing in your business , how much profit you're keeping , how much paying yourself all that is covered here .

He actually invited me recently over on a live panel recently to go over this information , on this survey , and it was a really great time I got to hear some other perspectives , but you know me , I had a lot of thoughts on each one of these and we had four people talking within an hour , so I wanted to dedicate my own little chance to go through a lot of

this information , and what I did recently is , every month for students across all my courses I go live for them with a office hours like live Q and a , and we covered the results of this survey in detail .

So that's exactly what I want to show you here Give you a sneak peek at some more insight on all this information here for this survey , which you can find live . You can go and check this out . You don't have to sign up for anything , you can just check it out . Again , if you're a WordPress user , this is going to be very , very tactile .

Even if you're not using WordPress , this is 99% non-WordPress specific . So go check it out . And , while you're at it , as a thanks to Kyle for putting this incredible survey together , make sure you go to theadminbarcom and join the community if you are a WordPresser . So here are my thoughts on this survey . So let's look at this together and have some fun .

I just posted the link for you guys to check out . If you just joined us , welcome in . We're going to recap and give some insight on some of these stats that were surveyed recently . Now , this is a big thing . This is a WordPress survey , but not much of this is dedicated to solely WordPress .

So just know if you're not a WordPress user or if you're using things alongside WordPress . This is still equally as valuable Because what Kyle did here is over 1100 agencies and freelancers alike filled out this survey . So this is real time data like super valuable .

Good on Kyle for doing this and again , it's completely free , you don't need to sign up for it . Links below so most of who were surveyed were from the US , with an average team size of two . So that's one thing to consider . The next up was UK , australia , then Canada and a handful of others as well .

So we're talking Western price ranges for the most part here . So let's dive right in . And if you're wondering these arrows here from my recollection , excuse me on what Kyle said , if you see a green arrow it means it is up from last year's results and a down arrow is down from last year's results .

So 72% of nearly 1,200 WordPress professionals are charging less than $5,000 on a website on average . So what's interesting about this is the range that is below and above $5,000 is what's striking to me . Below $5,000 , $2,500 to $5,000 is up from last year . That sits at 34% , almost 35% .

So that tells me that the majority of web designers are in between a $2,500 and $5,000 price point . That's not bad , especially if you could still get to a six-figure business at this price point . I know that in confidence , because that's exactly what I did , although my price point ended up being $5,000 plus on average once we got to multi-six figures .

That'll come into play here Now . $5,000 to $10,000 was on average once we got to multi-six figures . That'll come into play here Now . 5,000 to 10,000 was down from last year , but that's less than 20% of web designers on average .

And again , while this is WordPress professionals , if I were a betting man which I am , if I have somebody else's money , but if I were a betting man with my own money I would say that this is probably exactly about the same for Webflow , wix , studio , squarespace , showit , whatever .

They may be a little bit different , but I'd be curious to do this same survey with broad agnostic builders . Web Designer Pro . I'm probably going to do . A lot of members of Pro are here today . I think we're going to do a survey here pretty soon for Pro members as well , and maybe even in my entire email list to get a good sense of this as well .

But , all that to say , there's a lot of people charging in between $2,500 and $5,000 USD less that are in the $5,000 to $10,000 .

Now again , if you want to get to six figures , which is going to come into play here this is a good range to be in , where you do not want to go under , for six figures is under the $2,500 range , unless you have a super productized system .

All of the other aspects , even if you could knock out a site in a few hours by using templates or AI or staging sites or some sort of child theme , whatever it is . There are so many other components to web design , as we all know very well .

There is marketing , there is sales , there is onboarding , there is revisions , there's offboarding , there are strategies to continue to talk with your clients during a project and off of a project . There's team members If you have a team . There's a lot of other things here . So we really I don't want to see anyone dip below $2,500 .

It's no shocker why , in my business course , I recommend that you start at $2,500 for your pricing , even if you have a super productized , templatized web design service . So I'm okay with this . On average , I would like to see these numbers . I would like to see 26% be the five to 10 . Actually , I would like to bump these up .

I'd like to see 26 be the 25 to 5,000 and 34 would be the five to 10 . Now , this is also one thing important that I wanted to get some insight on this too , is this depends on whether this is a part of a bigger package .

So , if a standalone website is $5,000 or less than even if it's 3,500 or 4,000 , but it's a part of a bigger package , that includes SEO , might be keyword research , maybe copy messaging work , maybe lead generator type of work , maybe some digital marketing in there , and it might even include , like a year of maintenance and hosting or support .

Then that's where this is a little bit mucky too , which is as far as like , what's entailed in a website package or is this just website ? So factor that into when you're thinking about your pricing . Like , if somebody asks you , how much does a website cost , which I'm sure we've all got that question right . Well , number one , it depends .

But it also depends on Well , there's a difference between charging for a website and charging for a web design package . One more time if you're multitasking , come back to me , because this is really important for clients to understand .

There's a big difference between charging for a website and charging for a web design package that may be more well-rounded and include a lot more than just a $5,000 website on the high end . So something to consider here .

Again , this is okay , but this leads me to this next , probably the most startling statistic on this entire survey , and that is that 68% of the business owners surveyed here had a gross revenue of less than six figures in 2023 . That means nearly two-thirds Actually right , it is two-thirds , right .

Two-thirds of all the agencies and freelancers nearly 20 , over 1,100 here are top-line revenue . The reason if you're new in business , there's gross revenue and net revenue . Gross is what you make . Total Net is what you keep . It's called gross because you get taxed on it . Ew , that's icky , it's gross .

That is why this is extra startling , which means web designers as a whole went over . Did I say this in the beginning ?

There's over 11 years of experience on average for these freelancers and agency owners , which means we're looking at a decade plus of experience on average , and on average , two thirds of those folks are gross revenue , making six figures , which be 100,000 , less than 100,000 , which means you're taking home your netting maybe 50 , 60 , 70 . 50 on the low end .

If you're paying a decent amount of taxes , you have any profit in the business , tools , expenses and anything else you're paying for in your business you're probably taking home anywhere between 40,000 $50,000 on a decent low end . But top end you're maybe taking home $70,000 , depending on your tax situation and how you have your business set up .

And if you're just working yourself and you don't have contractors and you have a very , very , very lean and mean tool stack with subscriptions and , of course , if you're taking home $70,000 out of $100,000 , that means there's probably about $0 going into that really important P word profit . So that's what's really starting and that's what's sad to me about this .

We're going to spend a lot of time on these first couple , because this is the thing I'm most interested in 10 years , a decade experience , and you're probably taking $60,000 to $70,000 home and you're probably taking $60,000 to $70,000 home . What's the average US salary for a decent job ? What's the average median income ? Let me look real quick .

I'll look off screen here . Average median income . I'm going to look in my area , columbus Ohio , based off of 2022 , from what I see , this is just a Google search . There may be more data on this , but median household income as of 2022 is $62,000 , almost $63,000 for median household income in my area , but has anyone been in the grocery store recently ?

Like that's going to go fast . I say all that to say like to be , to be a business owner , to work your freaking ass off and to only a decade in , be at a point where you're at 60 to 70 , like just over what everyone else is making working a more quote unquote stable corporate job . I just want more for everyone .

I want everyone here to want more for your family , for you , for your freedom , for your legacy as we think about moving forward and building a business , and I just want more for web designers .

This shows how fiercely undervalued web designers are , whether that's unintentional , or whether it's just by clients or maybe just you not showing the value of what you're doing for web design clients . I just think you are and I know you are probably 2 , 3 , 4 , 5x more valuable than what you're getting paid right now . That's what I'm saying here .

Now is everything about money ? No , but one thing I will say is , as you progress as an entrepreneur and as a business owner , you get to a point where you realize we start a business to have freedom and to do the work we want to do , that we enjoy doing .

We want to work with the people who we enjoy working with and it is really hard to do that if you're only taking home $60,000 . It's very hard , at least US wise . Again , everyone's situation is different depending on where you are in the world , depending on what your family life looks like .

You may not have as many expenses as I do with three kids , a special needs daughter , two golden retrievers and a new mortgage . Yeah , you probably don't need as much as I do if you're not in that situation .

But when it comes to legacy building and wealth building and being a business owner and building a business taking home 60 grand on average , that saddens me because web designers are worth so much more than that and I know how much work hard work , blood , sweat and digital tears go into and real tears go into building websites .

So all that to say , raise your rates , everybody . Raise your rates right now , even if it's in the same price bucket . If you're charging $1,500 for sites , bump it up to $2,000 . If you're charging $2,500 , bump it up to $3,000 . Antoine says my pricing is $2,500 standalone or $2,000 if you're getting on my monthly recurring digital marketing plans .

Monthly recurring plans start at $3.97 for reference . Good on you , antoine . That's a good price point there , depending on what's all in there $3.97 . All in there , um , 397 . It , antoine , is yours ? Um , is yours a ? Um , like an 18 month subscription plan ? What is it ? How does that work for you ? Is that a 12 month or 18 month ?

Because that is one thing to consider with this pricing as well . And again it goes back to this first point of the five thousand dollars like , well , if it is $5,000 website over the course of 18 months , or the course of two or three years on a subscription , then those can stack up and add up the pros and cons to the subscription model as well .

But , yeah , let me know how that works for you , antoine . So , real quick , we'll bust through some of these other ones real quick . And again , if you just joined us , we are recapping the 2024 survey results from the admin bar , who surveyed almost 1200 web designers on where their income is , what's working , what's not , which we'll get to here .

Um , so , way more web designers are now making under 50 grand , which is and this may factor in a lot of people who are just starting to . So all this is taken with a grain of salt . The one that's really sad to me is folks making in between , and this is interesting too . Folks making in between $50,000 and $200,000 are all down .

Most web designers in this case , almost 50% of web designers are under $50K , and if this is you , I don't want you to feel bad about this . I want to encourage you to level up and consider charging your worth and your value , because you'll be shocked at how many clients would pay you double or triple with the exact work that you're doing right now .

I know that too very well because I started doing that and I was like God dang it , why didn't I do this like three years ago ? 22% are under six figures , 12 are in between the 1 to 150 range , less than five , and this is where a lot of folks getting in to the 150 plus range . In a multi-six figures it's drastically reduced .

Um , although more people are from last year , the numbers have crept up into the quarter million and half million to seven figures range , which is good . I love seeing that . That is trending right . But those may be more agency owners who are a little more experienced as well .

Again , this data is based off of 11 years average , so we may have folks in here who have been doing it for longer than that , although let's get real , if you're doing web design for over a decade , you started when wordpress was in its infancy likely well , not 10 years now . Sometimes I think 10 years is like 2005 . No , it's 2014 , so even 20 years .

You know , the internet was very different , as we all know , in 2004 . So , uh , yeah , there's a lot of different metrics into this . But Stacy said because Wix and Squarespace saying it's so easy . Yeah , there is definitely a lot of that , stacy . What's interesting about that , though ? We pop off Sharon , the , the do it yourself platforms .

I don't know if you guys have seen this , but , excuse me , I don't think it's going well . I don't think the DIY platforms are going very well right now . Case in point Wix Studio , which I don't know if anyone uses Wix Studio here . From what I know , I'm a WordPress guy , so , just like every other WordPress guy , I was like Wix is the devil , anti-wix .

That type of marketing is encouraging clients that they could quote , unquote , do it themselves for $5 , and they don't want to pay $5,000 for a website .

Yes , that's certainly a part to that , but what I found is Wix created Wix Studio , which is actually a completely different platform that's much more advanced , created Wix Studio , which is actually a completely different platform . That's much more advanced and it's targeted to us , to freelancers , to small web design shops and agencies .

I don't think Wix would have done that if the standard Wix builder was killing it . And I don't know if that's because of the rise of Squarespace or ShowIt , but I know a lot of students in Web Designer Pro , the community . I'd love for you guys all to come over to when you're ready so you can get coaching from me all my courses in the community .

But we've got a lot of Squarespace users there and that's expanded too to where they're actually marketing to more freelancers and agencies . Webflow is the same way . Although Webflow is pretty much known as a builder that's not DIY friendly .

An average business owner is not going to open up Webflow , just like they wouldn't open up WordPress and be like oh yeah , I can figure this out . So I don't know what's going on with the DIY market , but it's in a really tricky spot .

It'd be interesting if somebody is , and maybe it's like GoDaddy builders and hosted builders rather than Wix or some of the others . But I'd be curious to see what an average business owner who's going to start up their own website , what they would choose .

But again , I say all that to say there's a reason that Wix made Wix Studio and is now approaching freelancers and agencies . I don't know if those DIY builders are doing great , so , stacey to your point , I wonder if that l is already . I've . I've seen that shift a little bit .

Maybe it's just the algorithms and ads I get , but I'm not seeing too many of the build your own websites for for one dollar as much now . Um , some some online , but uh , I think the diy thing is is in a bit of a pivot and change . Uh , anto said for his pricing , it's no subscription . I'm hoping to provide enough value that they won't want to leave .

So it's a sales funnel with the ability to run their own ads that I create so they can manage their budget . Okay , so you're mixing digital marketing with that as well . Yeah , states a good point . Lots of AI websites now , yep , which again , I don't think it's anything to be feared as web designers . I think they're really great starting points .

What I would do , my recommendation for everybody , is to use either AI or templated sites as your productized package the $2,500 range and then custom 5 , 10 , 15k plus . So you have a productized AI or template staging site option that is very streamlined , very constrained . Those are for the low budget clients .

And then you have your custom sites that are going to get into 5 , 10 , 15 plus . Stacy says not to be doom and gloom . Yeah , no , it's all right , it's an important . This is important , though , again .

Yes , you can look at it like , oh , ai is going to run us all out of business , but how long is it going to be before an average business owner is going to do an AI website ?

And let's face it , ai is not going to handle all of the components that go in and out of a website project , not only on site but just off site , with content messaging , content acquisition , getting content , content acquisition , getting content Excuse me . So there is a lot that I don't think AI is going to be able to take over fully .

I don't even want to say for a long time , because , as we know , can AI help a client decide on what colors to choose ? And if they want their logo to pop ? I don't know . I don't want to throw clients under the bus .

You guys know that's not what we're here for , because clients , they're business owners , they just know what they see around them and if they're seeing commercials , if they hear about a way to make a website up faster , they're going to take it naturally , as they probably should as a business owner .

But it's our job to inform clients and to be the webmaster to know at least a well-rounded knowledge of all this stuff , which is why you guys are here . So let's go back into the survey results , shall we ? If you just joined us , welcome in . I am diving into the recent admin bar survey results .

Sorry , guys , I got a bit of a throat tickle right during the Q&A here . Perfect timing , perfect timing . So , as we just covered , if you are charging less than $5,000 on average and you just get to six figures , naturally freelancers are going to be taking home on average less than $50,000 .

For sure , a lot of web designers in this poll are taking home less than $20,000 . That's not even minimum wage . The majority actually no , not even majority and again , some of this may be new web designers . So , all taken with a grain of salt here , but the average experience on this was 11 years .

So if you're making less than 20 grand and you've been at it for a decade , you need to come into Web Designer Pro and let me look at your rates and let's create some packages and let's freaking go , because you are way more valuable than that . You can literally make more working at McDonald's . So , 20 to 50K 30% that's makes sense .

With all this , Only 20% are near in between 50 and 100 . And then just over . Well , almost 7% are in between six and multi six figures . So that is yeah , guys . I want to see everyone get up here . I want to , because this again , this is what you're taking home . I think , right , yeah , what you're taking home . How much did you pay yourself ?

Western wise , life is very expensive and I said this on the live panel when we went over this with Kyle and a couple others . But you got to consider inflation too . Inflation is not constrained to just the grocery store and your mortgage and everything else in life and gas . It also needs to affect your business .

So as expenses go up in life , so should your web design rates . I am shocked at how many web designers have had the same price points for like a decade . If you're charging $1,000 in 2010 , that may have been a different story than $1,000 in 2024 . So inflation also needs to affect your business as well .

I'm sure there's others that may have a different mindset , but I don't know if those others have three children and a mortgage and health expenses and everything else , or do they go to the grocery store ? We've got to inflate our business as well . I'm trying also not to be doom and gloom , just like Stacey said , but this saddens me Overall .

I just want to see web designers making more and making what you deserve and what you're valued at . This is kind of cool . 32% of web design agencies and freelancers are making the majority of their income for recurring revenue sources . This really excites me . My camera I don't have .

My effects aren't working on my stream deck , but I do have audio effects , so I am going to give a round of applause to everybody for taking recurring revenue more seriously . This is a really , really good sign . You guys probably all know I think most of you have been through my maintenance plan course .

I mean that was a life changer , a game changer for me and my business . I know it is for a lot of you , but the cool thing is there's so many things you could do in and out of recurring revenue sources now is . There's so many things you could do in and out of recurring revenue sources .

Now you can tack on all sorts of matter of SEO with keyword research on-site SEO , off-site SEO , depending on how far you want to go . You can even do Google business profile setups . You can do local SEO and Web Designer Pro .

We just had , a couple of days ago , lindsay Halsey with Pathfinder SEO shed some light on what's going on with the new Google AI , the generative search experience . So there's a lot of opportunities in SEO . Even if you don't want to be an SEO person , you should still stay on the up and up on that . So come on over to Web Designer Pro .

Go to joshhallcopro Use your student discount to get in there . Come on over to Web Designer Pro . Go to joshhallco slash pro Use your student discount to get in there .

But overall recurring revenue sources outside of SEO ongoing work like optimization , accessibility , copy messaging , any sort of marketing services that you're doing to help your clients grow , whether it's email list building , whether it's lead generation , landing pages .

You can even go further into conversion web design , which may be pages that clients aren't thinking of , like . What about a contact page ? When somebody submits a contact page , where do they go ? Do they go to the contact form ? Where do they go after that , do they get redirected to a page that has additional resources .

I guarantee you could charge for that right now . Do that right now , guys . Offer your clients a one-off project . Send an email to your email list saying hey , one thing we haven't considered , or you may want to consider that we can do as kind of an add-on or frame it like a package .

We are doing Thank you confirmation pages but built out confirmation pages so when somebody submits a lead , like a form for a lead , they don't just get a message that says thank you for your message , we'll respond .

No , they go to like a confirmation page that is built out to the brand with free resources , additional stuff they could dive into , maybe an offer , maybe a promo to boost sales for your clients .

If you come to them with that attitude and that mindset , this is a growth , results-oriented web designer we're talking about , and that could be you , and that's what separates you from a lot of other web designers who are just taskmasters and pixel pushers , as they say . I hate that term , but it's kind of true .

Are you just doing everything your client tells you ? Are you presenting ideas to help them grow their business ? Because that is what is going to separate you from everybody else , and even AI , unless they're prompting AI with their ideas .

But somebody asked me if AI is going to talk about confirmation pages or some of the other strategies that we just talked about Maybe a few , but not all of them . I guarantee AI is not talking about strategy calls . One of our most engaged members in pro , lisa Williams , does strategy calls every quarter for her maintenance plan clients .

She's going to be coming on the podcast soon to talk about this and she offers these on top of her maintenance plans . So if you're a maintenance plan client , you get a complimentary strategy call every quarter .

She opens up a two-week block and she usually takes anywhere between 5 and 10 and 15 clients that jump on those calls , but it's only a few times a year and then those lead to additional work recurring work , retainer work , website redesigns and she's made tens of thousands of dollars over the past year and a half just offering strategy calls that build into this

recurring income revenue source . So yes , all different ways you can add recurring revenue into your business . I'm really excited to see that $94 an hour is $2 lower than last year on average , so that I mean again kind of makes sense . If you factor in six figures a year , then it's likely that you're going to be around the $75 to $100 range .

If you have a team , this should be more for sure , but as a freelancer , $100 an hour is still going to be in a place to where you're going to be able to provide for yourself more than likely at $100 an hour If you are really really meticulous with that time and it's not .

You know , it's not something that is like 100 ish , but you're actually making like 10 ish . But in most cases I'd say between 100 and 200 are probably going to be at the point where you're going to be able to take home six figures . So if you're charging 94 an hour , I'm betting you're taking home $50 personally , depending on your expenses .

Again , you're worth so much more . I know you are . Accessibility is definitely a huge , huge thing , especially in the WordPress realm . Now , the admin bar is maybe the best source for this . I mean , it's one of the top sources for me personally that I go to to stay on the up and up with accessibility A lot of accessibility experts in there .

Sometimes it's overwhelming for those of you who are there , and I found out last year that the accessibility world is divided and vicious , to put it lightly . There are people who like overlay solutions and there are people who will track those people down , potentially physically , like my gosh , those , yeah .

Anyway , I interviewed people from both ends of the accessibility spectrum Tools like AccessiBe , but also hand coders and hard coders and accessibility from the ground up and , yes , it is very , very important .

The cool thing from what I learned I mean I'm not even joking about it being super vicious I got some wild messages from people who were like , basically , how dare you talk to somebody from AccessiBe ? You're a joke in your industry , stuff like that and I was like , first of all , chill the hell out . Second of all , I'm talking to everybody .

I want to get a feel for what's going on here , because if somebody's new to web design or a DIY business owner and they're not experienced with this , they may see something like an overlay solution and be like , oh cool , I can have a plugin that helps people make the fonts bigger and changes the color .

Yeah , that sounds like a good plan and that was all the thought . They didn't know any better , so don't come down on them . Even when I got into accessibility the little bit I am . That was kind of my mindset too . I was like , oh , I don't even know how you would hand code this . So there's things that can be done with a plugin that sounds awesome .

So don't mistake ignorance for malignant intent . There's your wise wisdom of the day , if it's , if it can be called that one thing I learned with that . Anywho , it is cool to see that a lot of web designers are taking accessibility seriously , at least to strive for best practices . Um , wcag , are the the official accessibility guidelines ? But yes , those are .

It's kind of like security . You could never be 100% secure and from what I've seen with accessibility , especially because things are changing so rapidly , you can never be 100% accessible .

But best practices for those who are new to web design or accessibility , it's mainly color contrast , readable fonts , good hierarchy , basic HTML principles , a navigation that's easily moved around . You'd be able to tap through websites .

I think a lot of the fancy animations and a lot of the different scrolling type features for , like quote unquote trendy websites are often a problem with accessibility . So just a good , best practiced website is going to be the foundation of accessibility . Then you can go further and further with alt text and copy kind of stuff and go down from there .

When it comes to accessibility , 90% of the folks here are doing basic or thorough SEO . Very cool , yeah , most people are doing just the basics and probably those who are more SEO inclined are doing thorough 25% in this case , less than 4% doing no SEO .

I mean , there's rarely a situation where a client wants no SEO unless they just absolutely maybe don't have a need to come up on Google if they have a social media fall . I mean , well , we all know everyone should at least come up on Google . If you Google something , you want to have a decent representation of that .

So I would say you absolutely need to have SEO on a homepage . But in some cases I've had clients tell me that before , where they're like yeah , we don't really care about that , we just send people directly . I'm like well , but if somebody may not get your link , they may Google you . And clients are like oh , I didn't think about that .

So that's where yeah , let's cover at least the basics . My SEO course . If you haven't been through that , that covers the basics . That is a fundamental SEO course for web designers . So if you haven't gone through the SEO course , get on it .

I will be updating that , by the way , I will be updating my SEO course when Google rolls out officially the new search generative experience . Why didn't they call it generative search experience ? That sounds way better than search generative experience . That sounds like I had a brain fart and couldn't figure out the right words to say Without paid discovery , yeah .

So here's what's really interesting Paid discovery . Is anyone here doing paid discovery ? Let me know in the chat of you which this could be . It could be something that is pretty robust and complex or it could be quite simple . It could be basically it just covers an hour of your time for a discovery call or a strategy call .

But what's cool about paid discovery is the idea that it's a little more of a consultation . It kind of puts you in a console . Jeremy says sometimes Awesome , jeremy , jeremy , you're in pro right now . I'll follow up with you on that .

I'd love to see what you're doing with discovery man , to see your price points and how that's working for you and how you're framing that . It's not something that I did , but in my heyday it really wasn't something that was talked about in the freelancer side of things .

It was more agencies I knew that were doing that , but from what I saw most agencies were charging for just talking to them if they were really high end . But discovery what I would say is don't tell your clients , hey , we do paid discovery . Tell them we do paid consults and then it's more of a strategy session and everything we cover .

If you're moving forward with us , you can use this as a discount on your project , or we'll use it . We'll give you a credit towards your project . Or if you want to pay us $500 for a consult , a discovery , or even if it's 99 bucks just to cover an hour or something , then you can use everything we cover and you can use that as your own strategy .

You could take it elsewhere . That's how I would frame that . I love , love , love . Seeing that this is increasing , as always in this case . That's really cool . So for WordPress users again , this was conducted in the admin bar community all WordPress users , a lot of Bricks users , so not surprised that Bricks was the number one increase over last year .

As far as designers checking it , I think a lot of WordPress designers are very , very into Bricks . Right now . All of the block editors are kind of at war with each other , just like Divi , elementor and other builders were kind of a few years ago . I mean people are like there is like a mass migration from Elementor .

Has anyone else seen this Felt kind of awkward because when I was on the live panel with Kyle and a few others , one of the panelists was from Elementor and she was super cool , super knowledgeable , great . I actually might try to get her on my podcast , but I didn't want to say this there , I didn't want to make her feel weird .

But I have seen a mass exodus from Elementor . I think they're just . It seems like month after month they're rubbing people the wrong way . They're customers with price increases but not really value increases .

And again , I just said you got to raise your rates with inflation , but you don't want to necessarily do it out of the blue and rub your customers the wrong way , especially if you're not doing something more , adding more value or just making it make sense . So I've just seen a lot of people have a lot of issues with Elementor being really buggy as well .

So that's kind of one thing I've seen . I don't have any personal experience with Bricks , but from what I've seen , yeah , it looks super , super strong and I think it's going to continue to increase with folks like Dave Foy and Kevin Geary and some others who are really taking the reins on that .

Divi is amazing especially with the lifetime license , says Stacy but it's just so slow and you can definitely get Divi to go super fast with speed techniques and just best practices . But of all of these options , I'm a Divi user but I will acknowledge and say that , yeah , divi out of the gate as of now is the slower option .

I don't know , maybe Elementor might be slower , but I understand Divi can be slow , especially if you're using a lot of global elements and theme builder elements . However , divi 5 is going to be coming out this year I don't know when . I am very , very excited to check out Divi 5 .

Well , I have a beta version of it but it's still in its infancy so I haven't really played around with it too much . But I know it's much faster and much snappier . So that gives me hope for when Divi 5 comes out here .

I'm really hoping it's going to rival Bricks and some other ones like Breakdance and others that are looking pretty sweet in the way of functionality and speed . So fingers crossed , my Divi friends , for 5.0 . And again , the thing with Divi is , I think they're just working so much on 5.0 .

They just haven't innovated Divi itself over the past couple years as much . So much on 5.0 . They just haven't innovated Divi itself over the past couple years as much . They made a ton of innovations about three or four years in a row and then it just kind of stalled when , I think , 5.0 became , because they're really rebuilding the core behind all the websites .

They also don't want to break however many hundreds of millions of installs are on Divi . So , yeah , I'm excited because I think that's going to issue in a new era of Divi innovation . And then , yeah , a lot of other builders in the mix , but Bricks is by far the runaway , at least in the Adenovar group .

Hey , noel says absolutely , I have Elementor , but just got Divi . Not sure I'm going to renew Elementor Very buggy . Yeah , that's what I've heard . You're not alone , noel . You are definitely not alone . It just seems like people left and right I see people be frustrated with Elementor .

So I don't have anything against it , I'm not an Elementor guy myself , but it's just from the outside . That's kind of what I'm seeing . Antoine said my interview with Kevin Gary and Dave Ford convinced me to switch to Bricks . Wow , antoine , maybe I should have done a better job to make sure you stay with Divi . But hey , that's cool .

Hey , whatever works for you , honestly , whatever I am such of the mindset If you find a tool that you like and that resonates with you , go for it .

If you build sites working for your clients , you're profitable , you're loving , most importantly , you're enjoying your time as a web designer and web design business owner , then good on you , let's go enjoying your time as a web designer and web design business owner , then good on you , let's go . So I'm all about . Antoine , carolyn said I'm a Divi user .

I find it really flexible for my sensibility . What's the deal with bricks ? Is it sections like building blocks ? Why is it so popular ? Yeah , the workflow is kind of what I've heard . So , antoine , yeah , I'm not a Bricks user , carolyn , so I couldn't say it myself , but it does seem like it's the words that I've seen .

A lot of Bricks folks talk , even just global , but are affecting a lot of different areas of maybe tens or hundreds of pages Bricks . Just the way the framework works , I guess it just far exceeds Divi or some others . As of now , again , divi 5 is coming out .

I'm really excited because they have some new features with the actual visual builder , including breadcrumbs and some different things . Even the UX , the visual builder , looks a little bit different , very Bricks-esque , from what I've seen . So , yeah , there must just be a lot of that . I mean , from what I've seen with Bricks , it just didn't .

The builder didn't just strike a chord with me , but I'm also a if it ain't broke , don't fix it kind of guy . So it would take a lot for me to move from Divi . Hey , seema , is Bricks like Bootstrap ? I'm not sure . Maybe if somebody else , if anyone else , is a Bricks user ? Antoine , maybe you know that could help . So , lead Source for Web Designs .

If you just joined us guys , welcome in . We are reviewing the Admin Bar 2024 survey results . Almost 1,200 web design professionals filled this out , so I'm just giving some additional insights on this . By the way , this is a Q&A , so if you guys have questions , feel free to jump in the chat and post them there . I want to make sure I get to them .

I'm trying to mute myself when I cough . I think my allergies are . I'm loving the spring weather , but my allergies are like , hey , don't be too happy . Here we come . So now I'm coughing during our Q&A session . Referrals are the most popular way for agencies to source leads , 71% are listing it as the number one lead source . Now , so this is great .

This is what I experienced as well . Again , if you happen to miss this , listing it as the number one lead source , now , so this is great . This is what I experienced as well . Again , if you happen to miss this , up at the top here , this is based off of web designers , on average , with over a decade of experience .

So , naturally , if you're in the game for over a decade , you're going to be getting a lot of referrals , especially if you are proactive . But for those of you who are early on , you might be like well , that's great , josh , but what do I do to get clients ? And that's where taking a more proactive approach with things like networking .

If you're in a local area where there are businesses , then absolutely anything you can do in person , even if you're an introvert . Even if you're an introvert , there are other introverts who are business owners locally . One of my members of Web Designer Pro recently talked about how he went to his . I think it was a B&I group .

He went to his first B&I session , jeremy , if any pro members remember Jeremy different Jeremy , not this Jeremy , not Jeremy A different Jeremy . But he went to this B&I group and he was super nervous . He was sitting there alone and then this girl comes up and she's super nervous .

He was sitting there alone and then this girl comes up and she's super nervous and she's sitting there alone and she said hey , what do you ? It's my first time here , I'm really nervous . What do you think I should do ? And he's like I'm it's my first time too , I'm also super nervous and they hit it off .

And then that ended up being I think it was almost a $10,000 site that he did working with her , so site that he did working with her . So introverts can also come together , even in person . Anyway , a lot of strategies for in-person my business course .

I flushed this out in extreme detail , so make sure you go back through that if you haven't been through the new version of the business course . There's a whole module on finding leads , which is finding . It's actually yeah , people say find clients . You don't find clients , you find leads .

You convert them to become clients and I have all my sales tips and processes in there for you . Tons of ways to get clients online too , between LinkedIn , different social media platforms where business owners are hanging out .

Facebook groups are still key , especially if they are industry specific or types of client avatar specific , types of client avatar specific , even web design groups . You can partner up with folks . A lot of DIYers are in groups , premium communities . There's partnership opportunities left and right . So whatever you need to do to get the word out , do it .

And , guys , don't neglect your personal and professional network that you have right now . That's the easiest thing to look past .

I have a lot of folks who I help get started in web design and I'm amazed at how many people just post on Facebook saying , hey , I'm building websites now and I think everyone I've known who has done that has got either tons of leads or immediately expanded their network or got paying jobs right off of that . So definitely recommend getting the word out .

Carolyn just officially joined BNI this week . Really happy that I did , lots of potential leads and great for learning . The damn elevator pitch . Good for you , carolyn . I want to hear about that too . Message me in pro if you . I tell you what because , carolyn , you're in pro . Send me your elevator pitch and I will check it out .

You can loom it to me or you can type it up . I want to hear your elevator pitch and I'll give you my sincerest constructive criticism for you to make it better . But maybe it's great . Maybe you'll send it to me . I'll be like dang , carolyn , I'm sold , let's go . That's awesome . Yeah , the elevator pitch is actually really good .

For those who don't know , if you're not experienced in any sort of networking , elevator pitch means you generally get 30 seconds to share who you are and what you do , and that is like if you can refine that in 30 seconds in person . There's your homepage copy . There it is .

I'm Carolyn , I build websites for such and such catered to this demographic , and this is the kind of results we get . Boom , that's your elevator pitch . So , yeah , send that over , carolyn , I'll check it out . I can't wait . Elevator pitch so yeah , send that over , carolyn , I'll check it out . I can't wait . Loom it to me if you want .

I'll pretend like I'm your lead or your B&I partners and you can send that to me or you can just text it out . Again , it's a really good exercise Share what you do in 30 seconds , and if you're only like a fourth of the way through , then no wonder your homepage looks like a small book . We need to reduce that .

You can talk in depth on service pages and blog posts , but homepage remember , we skim , we scan websites , so do clients . Cool , cool , cool . 63% of people are doing written content . That could be blogs , video , audio as well . Yeah , I mean , look somebody just recently one of their clients said that social media has taken over SEO .

And while , yes , social media is where a lot of attention is , that just means there's so much more opportunity on SEO . And when somebody Googles a business , what do we see ? We don't see . I mean , you'll see their social media profiles there , but that doesn't populate on google like the home page of your website does .

So written content blogging more in demand than ever . I'm going to be doing a lot of that moving forward as well , so highly recommend it . That gets into content creation . It's kind of a separate thing , but that's cool to see . Nitching Now this is one of the hottest topics in web design . There we go . The cool thing about niching is it does help .

I mean this is actual numbers on how it helps . So 28% of agencies without a niche only exceeded 100K . 41% with a niche exceeded 100K . And it makes sense because you know your customer , you know their needs , you know their challenges . You're getting results in that industry .

So I always recommend , if you have an inkling to niche and you know an industry well and it's a proven market , you may not want to niche with I don't know , a stapler company .

If staplers are going down , I don't know , maybe stapler , maybe the stapler niche is great , but I don't know Niche into an industry that is a good market , that has a lot of growth opportunities and absolutely you could soar .

But I see a lot of people go niche into a stapler market or I'm just a bad example but something that is just not proven or they don't really know . And then they're like , oh my gosh , I'm hurting for clients . I'm like , well , what's your marketing strategy ? And they're like , well , I joined one Facebook group and that's just a couple of people .

I'm like , okay , we need to 100x what you're doing , just getting the word out and that may not be a good niche . Go general . I always recommend go general at first , niche a level back . Or if you come into web design and you know an industry super well , then I feel comfortable saying go for it , go niche .

But if you niche too soon and you don't know a market and you don't have a professional network built up behind you , niching is going to be very , very , very hard . So that's my uh niching advice .

Okay , so , uh , on this one with web designer , with almost one-fourth of web designers claiming to struggle with not having enough work , only 16 of them are doing outbound marketing . So I don't think I need to say any of this . It's kind of like duh .

If you're not marketing , you're not getting new leads , and if you're not doing referrals and you don't have a big client base , then you got to market . You've got to get the word out in some way , whether you're introverted , whether you're extroverted . In some way you have got to market . You've got to get the word out . You got to meet new people .

You need to generate buzz , generate some momentum , do something fresh , whether it's on social media , whether it's being active in groups , whether it's being in person , going to new networking events , ribbon cuttings , chamber of Commerce I could go all day . You got to get the word out . So let's get the word out . So let's get the word out .

By the way , guys , I do the same thing , like , if you ever wonder at this point , I've been able , fortunately , to grow a pretty big size audience and I can continue to serve and you guys here as current students , I'm able to do that , but I'm still meeting a lot of new people through my YouTube channel , my podcast , podcast interviews I'm doing on other

shows . Folks like being on the panel . When Kyle invited me to be on the panel for the admin bar results , I was like , absolutely People may have seen my name , but I have to remember I've been doing this for a long time now seven years as a web design educator . But a lot of people are just finding me and I have to constantly remind myself .

Just because I know what I do and I've been doing it for a long time . People are brand new to me , so same to you .

You may know well , I do websites and SEO and ongoing support and care , but you meet somebody at a networking event or somebody who's like I've never met Jeremy or Carolyn before , or Antoine before , so absolutely Got to get the word out Treat every day like it's your first day in the biz . We'll skip through some of these , cause we're getting close on time .

By the way , last last call for questions . If you guys have any questions , I want to make sure I hit those for you . This is a Q and a for all students . So I want to make sure I get to any questions , that you have a Q&A for all students . So I want to make sure I get to any questions that you have .

54% of people say that they do not have plans to hire in 2024 . If only they had a scaling course that guided them through how to do this , to show them that they can scale their way .

Yes , friends , if you have not checked out my scaling course , even if you're of this mindset , I promise you it will shed some serious light on the true freedom you can have as a business owner . You have to remember everyone who said they have no plans to hire . What are these people doing ?

They are creating a job for themselves and there is no shame in that game . But when you create a job , you are capped at some point . You can only do so much by yourself . Even with AI , you can automate a lot of things , but delegation is truly where freedom lies for you , because you create a business and there's been so many stories I've seen recently .

Maybe it's just I'm in my mid 30s now People are starting to have health issues and family emergencies and stuff like that , but if you're out for like a month of work and you have zero help and support behind you . Can you pay your bills with not doing any work for 30 days plus ? If you can't , then you've got to come into my course .

Scale your Way , and I'm going to guide you through step-by-step how to do that . And I'm telling you scaling is awesome . I have never turned back . Some of you here have scaled and it's the best . So don't be afraid to scale . And again , you can scale your way . You do not need to have a big agency and a lot of overhead .

You can just rock and roll one step at a time . You'll be good to go . Really good question in here from Matthew , and I think that'll be it . That was most of the things I wanted to cover . We'll end with the work-life balance here . Again , I'll post the link in the chat for everybody , or I think what was it ? It was survey , wasn't it ? Here we go .

It's in the chat for everyone . If you just joined us , the results for the admin bar here . So check that out . And uh , matthew , I'll get to your question real quick . Work-life balance is one of the biggest struggles . Um , too much work . Let's see in that . That's a good look . That's a challenge , but it's a good challenge .

Keeping up technology that's one of my main jobs . I'm trying to keep everyone informed , so very , very cool . And then you can explore those results in the air table here that Kyle has put together for everybody . So definitely recommend that .

If you want all the details , you want to dive into that in further detail , I hope the insight that I shared there with some of the pricing stuff I mean I spent a lot of time on that just because , again , I think web designers are just so undervalued . It makes me sad . It makes me sad to see web designers struggle when you're doing such great work .

Matthew , if you were the CEO of Ntransit Studios today , what secondary services would you offer ? Would you go all in on SEO ? Yeah , I would do a lot of SEO , matthew . I would do a lot of Google business profile work and setups and probably an emphasis in local SEO . I don't personally love SEO , but it's so dang important , especially for local businesses .

I would really go into that big time . If it were a local business . I would do a lot of local SEO and then I would have a . I would probably personally dip my toe into email A little bit of creating email sequences and lead generation nurturing for clients .

Now I would not necessarily do all the setup of the emails and getting into constant contact or whatever they're doing , but I would do more consultive services for nurturing and for marketing , and I would just position myself to do websites support and care with maintenance , ongoing advanced SEO and growth strategies mainly around copy and SEO and conversions .

And then I would personally have add-ons for if you would like me to create a lead generator page for you , a landing page that goes to your email , I'm actually going to create a sequence for you to nurture the leads that come through and provide this .

I would have a templatized approach for that and I would customize that to my clients but repurpose that as an add-on , even potentially lump that in with a growth plan if it's something they would want to implement multiple times over the course of a year or two .

I would focus a lot more on results for my clients and growth , because if you position yourself as a consultant , as a strategist , you're going to make way more so . Again , I hope you enjoyed this . Just some additional thoughts on the data from this recent survey . Link below you can go to actually see these results yourself .

I didn't cover every aspect , but those are the most important things that I wanted to cover with a lot of my students who are inside of my courses , so make sure to go right up here . The admin barcom slash 2024 dash survey . You can find this live .

They do this every year , so I'd highly recommend keeping an eye out for the next one so you can be a part of this and again , go over and check out my friend Kyle with the admin bar . If you are a WordPress user the number one community for WordPress you can join for free .

It's a Facebook group , even if you're not a WordPress or a lot of great people here to meet , get an eye on what's going on , and I'm in the group as well . I'm kind of more of a lurker in the group , but I am there . It's one of the places that I go to stay up to date on all of my web design and WordPress info .

So go check it out and I really hope you enjoyed the results on this and my insight . I hope to help give you some confidence to build your web design business , to see what's working and what's not working so well .