For the last episode of the year, I think it’s only fitting to look ahead and share some goal setting tips for 2025! In this episode, I’m sharing a lesson from my Web Design Business Course on my 5 step, annual goal setting framework. We’ll dive into: Setting an achievable revenue goal Separating Net vs Gross Rocks, Stones & Boulders goals Pricing that aligns with goals How and when to measure Again, this is just one lesson inside my signature Web Design Business Course available now (along ...
Dec 30, 2024•25 min•Transcript available on Metacast Since this is Christmas week, we’re going to take a break from talking about business and dive into a much more important subject…Christmas movies. I’ll break down my top 10, what I love about them, why some have remained in the top 10 and why some newer ones have made it and I’ll even give you a bonus which has an incredible business lesson that I’ve held strong to even today. In short, my top 10 Christmas movies are: Christmas Vacation Home Alone Home Alone 2 Jingle All The Way Christmas Story...
Dec 23, 2024•31 min•Transcript available on Metacast Welcome to a special, limited time episode which is the replay of my recent AMA (ask me anything) on my YouTube channel! Some GREAT questions and discussion prompts came in that I wanted to make sure you as a podcast listener had a chance to catch as well. Why a limited time episode? Because there's a special Christmas gift attached...a freebie and a big discount! Here's my Christmas gift to you 🎁 My Web Design Process Checklist (for FREE) and/or My Guide to Getting Web Design Clients...
Dec 19, 2024•1 hr 17 min•Transcript available on Metacast I’m in a bit of an SEO pickle… Since 2017 I’ve built up all my resources - including this podcast - on my personal brand site joshhhall.co but now that my main product (my web designer membership Web Designer Pro™) is on webdesignerpro.com I feel I’m entering new SEO territory. In short, what content should stay at my personal brand at joshhall.co and since all roads are leading to webdesignerpro.com now - what content should be there? Here are my SEO pain points/challenges: It’s now a little co...
Dec 16, 2024•1 hr 29 min•Transcript available on Metacast At some point, most web designers dream of moving from lengthy, time-intensive, custom web design projects to a more “productized” or “templatized” web design service. Something that clients can purchase, that has clear boundaries, constraints and limitations. There are a lot of ways to go about productizing your offers - and one way - is to frame it as a program or course. Especially if you’re empowering your clients with any sort of marketing or growth help. A shining example of how to do this...
Dec 09, 2024•1 hr 18 min•Transcript available on Metacast If you’re on the shallow or deep end of the “introvert spectrum” spectrum, I’m guessing the sales part of web design is your least favorite part of the job, right? For some, going to in person networking, business meetups, chamber of commerce events or even calls can be energizing but for others, it’s draining. It is, however, part of being a web biz owner if you’re the one doing the selling… There must be some strategies for making sales easier as an introvert, right? There is! And that’s why I...
Dec 02, 2024•1 hr 6 min•Transcript available on Metacast Ah…the tug and pull between wanting to avoid being a burned out agency owner but also not being a stressed out, overwhelmed freelancer… Surely there’s a happy medium between the two? Good news, there is. My whole web business education model is focused around this hybrid approach to having a business that runs like a true business/agency but having the freedom and flexibility of a freelancer. Though I never had a great name for it - someone who does is fellow web design business educator Payton ...
Nov 25, 2024•1 hr 1 min•Transcript available on Metacast Copy, written by a human, with its flaws, oddities, and personally lived experience beats out corporate, stale, or AI-generated content every time. From home pages to service pages, to lead generators, blog posts, email sequences, and sales posts…the more personal and genuine you come across, the more it’ll stand out in today’s AI slop world. To help us get practical and tactical with writing personalized copy that sells more websites, I’m excited to bring on copywriter, podcaster, and speaker E...
Nov 18, 2024•1 hr 4 min•Transcript available on Metacast Josh here with big news! Web Designer Pro™ 2.0 (tiered model) is live now!! 🎉 Up to this point, Pro has been one membership tier which gave full access to all of my web design courses, the amazing community and coaching with me directly with a member cap of 250 active members. We're closing in on capacity but the exciting news is...we now have two lower tiers available! Available in Web Designer Pro™ now is: Courses tier = $49/mo Includes access to my entire suite of courses + the private ...
Nov 11, 2024•50 min•Transcript available on Metacast The Web Design Business Podcast turns 5 today!!! 🎉 What a ride it’s been so far (and I have no plans on slowing down.) For this special milestone, I polled my community Web Designer Pro™ for questions and they delivered, asking some GREAT conversation starters. So in this special, 5 year anniversary podcast episode, I’m dishing out the longest AMA session I’ve done to date at 2 hours! The questions that came in were mainly in 3 categories: Questions about the podcast (including guest selection,...
Nov 04, 2024•2 hr 3 min•Transcript available on Metacast I don’t know about you…but I didn’t officially “launch” my web design business when I got started. I just kind of fumbled through starting my freelance journey. But if I were starting today, I would put much more effort and emphasis on creating an official “business launch.” Now to the big question…how do you launch a web business successfully? i.e. Get clients fast? Well, my guest in this podcast chat, Alexia Lynn launched her web design business in June of 2024 and got 3 new clients in her fir...
Oct 28, 2024•1 hr 29 min•Transcript available on Metacast Let’s get real and share exactly how it is…WordPress is not the tool of choice for most web designers getting into the game today. It may be where most end up, because WordPress is the most popular, customizable, and only open-source platform online but as a starting point, it’s not where most new web designers are starting. Drag and drop platforms like Framer, SquareSpace, and ShowIt and even more robust platforms like WixStudio, WebFlow, and Duda seem to be where young whipper-snapper web desi...
Oct 21, 2024•1 hr 6 min•Transcript available on Metacast Clients don’t really want a pretty website…they want a 24/7 sales machine. You work hard creating beautiful designs that are built solid and have intentional messaging and copy…but how do you know all that work is paying off for your client? How do you measure results? How do you keep your clients coming back for ongoing work over and over again? Well, at the end of the day…one of the best ways is to offer some sort of CRO (Conversion Rate Optimization) as a service. But I’m sure you have a lot ...
Oct 14, 2024•1 hr 9 min•Transcript available on Metacast I recently published a newsletter sharing 5 ways I would get clients if I were starting out in web design today in 2024. It got a lot of great feedback from both early-stage web designers and established web designers looking for a revenue boost alike - so I decided to expand on these 5 strategies as a full podcast! We’ll dive into each of these strategies, how I would go about them and how I would execute on them in detail. In short: Join a referral group Utilize LinkedIn Create local SEO targe...
Oct 07, 2024•31 min•Transcript available on Metacast If you’re an established web designer, think back to your first year in business. What was your highest paid project? Aside from some exceptions, I’m guessing it was in the low-thousands…or hundreds. Well, Ben Forred, a web designer who’s still in his first year of business, building it as a side hustle alongside full-time corporate employment recently landed a $7,500 website package and in this podcast chat, shares the entire journey on how he did it. We cover: What Ben did to speed-learn and b...
Sep 30, 2024•1 hr 28 min•Transcript available on Metacast It’s been a little while since we’ve talked about accessibility on the podcast and one area we haven’t covered at all to this point is specifically how to make accessible eCommerce websites. Everything is more complex with eCommerce sites and accessibility, while complex even at the basic level, gets even trickier. So, to help understand all of this, accessibility expert Bet Hannon (CEO of accessicart.com) is on the show as we dive into: The very basics of accessibility Easy accessibility wins y...
Sep 23, 2024•1 hr 1 min•Transcript available on Metacast You’ve heard of work/life balance…but what about life/work balance? What if, instead of prioritizing our work and living life around that, we set our calendars, schedules, and weekly routines to have our work revolve around our ideal week? As freedom based lifestyle web designers, that’s exactly the option we have available to us But it takes a proactive approach to make this happen, otherwise calls, meetings, design and troubleshooting will take up our entire week. So, to help dig in on how to ...
Sep 16, 2024•1 hr 6 min•Transcript available on Metacast I’ve noticed a common thread among web designers who always seem to have no trouble getting clients - they’re easily ‘referable’ 🤝 It might be a niche, it might be a skillset, it might be something they're known for but in all cases, they’re easily referred to. For example, here are some Web Designer Pro members who fit the “easily referred” bill: Want a web designer who also helps you with email marketing? Talk to April who specializes in websites and email sequences at aprilraycreative.c...
Sep 09, 2024•33 min•Transcript available on Metacast Web designers often ask me “how long will it take to get to 6-figures in my web design business?” And it's a tough question to answer. There are a lot of variables to how fast you can build your web design business. Your background, your time availability, your area of focus or expertise, your aversion to risk, work ethic, etc are all factors. But I can tell you, there are folks who go from zero to 6-figures in less than a year. One of those folks is Sam Sarsten, a member of my Web Designer...
Sep 02, 2024•1 hr 28 min•Transcript available on Metacast What’s the most terrifying phrase that hovers in the back of all our minds as a web designer and web business owner? Well, aside from “email down” it’s likely “burnout.” You may have seen a fellow web designer go through this or experienced it yourself. And the harsh reality is, burnout is where all roads can lead if we’re not careful. The onslaught of clients, fulfillment, design, development, troubleshooting, sales, support, administration, calls, meetings, content creation, your OWN businesse...
Aug 26, 2024•1 hr 3 min•Transcript available on Metacast We’re doing a first for the podcast on this episode…I’m featuring a recent Web Designer Pro coaching call! If you didn’t know, in my web design community Web Designer Pro, I host a live coaching call every week. These coaching calls typically include: Member website reviews Member hot seats 10-15 min coaching sessions) And AMA (ask me anything) time Today, I’m sharing a recent call that had some great topics of discussion with you to help you in all these areas in your business and to give you a...
Aug 19, 2024•1 hr 16 min•Transcript available on Metacast I was recently interviewed on the EverBros Agency Growth Podcast about my journey in fumbling through starting and scaling a web design agency. It was a really good, casual chat with tons of important topics for web designers (early stage and established alike) so THE BROS were kind enough to let me repurpose our chat here for you! Don’t let the name fool you, these are not your typical marketing bros. In fact, they’re super down to earth, sustainably minded, and have a very, very successful nic...
Aug 12, 2024•2 hr 55 min•Transcript available on Metacast In person networking and referral groups remain to this day the best way to start getting clients, get more clients by expanding your network and get better clients by way of referrals. There are a lot of different ways to get clients in person and virtually, and I’ve done many but if I were starting as a web designer today, my FIRST priority would be to join a networking group. More specifically, I would invest in a referral group like BNI. Referral groups differ from networking groups in that ...
Aug 05, 2024•1 hr 15 min•Transcript available on Metacast Ever had a client ask “How long would it take to get to the top of Google?” Ah, I can see your head nodding along now. As web designers, we can’t expect clients to understand how long SEO results can take. We know nothing will lead to instant results and due to all the variables, competition and goal of the client, it may take months to see results…but there are some quick wins that you can implement to help clients see progress fairly soon. By fairly soon, I mean less than a couple weeks or eve...
Jul 29, 2024•59 min•Transcript available on Metacast Recurring revenue…the two most lovely words in web design (or any business for that matter.) Having enough recurring income to cover my family's bills is what changed the game for me, it’s what helped get us through a 56 day NICU journey and it’s what ultimately led to me creating my first course on how to launch and sell website maintenance plans. One of my students Marc Hyde went through that course back in 2021 and within three years, his maintenance plan is now over 30% of his business ...
Jul 22, 2024•1 hr 18 min•Transcript available on Metacast In the early days as a web designer, it’s common to say “yes” to any project that comes your way just to make some money and build a portfolio. But it doesn’t take many “bad client experiences” before you’re ready to weed out those bad-fit clients. But what makes a client bad-fit? Are they cheap? Do they not understand your value? Are they a bad personality fit? Are they super-intensive with communication and a drain on your mental bandwidth? All of the above? If you seem to attract a lot of the...
Jul 15, 2024•1 hr•Transcript available on Metacast Ah privacy policies…your favorite aspect of web design, right? Yeah me neither but day by day, it’s an aspect of websites that becomes more and more important with new privacy laws being passed in the states along with other countries, even outside the EU with regards to GDPR compliance. So, to help us make sense of where things are at with website privacy policies, I’m excited to bring back on to the podcast, my friend and privacy policy expert Hans Skillrud of Termageddon. In this chat, we cov...
Jul 08, 2024•57 min•Transcript available on Metacast This is probably ignorance on my part but my eyebrow always went crooked when I heard digital agencies, hosting companies, saas products, or any online entrepreneur talking about how they’re a “green” company. It’s not like we’re a manufacturing company or chemical plant with waste and pollutants. We work on a computer at home…so how can we “go green?” Use less paper? Recycle old equipment? What else can we do? Well, it turns out there are a lot of ways to contribute to sustainability and to do ...
Jul 01, 2024•58 min•Transcript available on Metacast I recently did a live training on how to Scale Your Web Design Business for Brad Hussey’s web design community CreativeCrew. We did a live Q&A session afterward and had some amazing questions come in. Brad and I got to riff on scaling a web agency, the lessons learned from our experience, what we both may have done differently and what we felt worked really well. I’m pleased to share the entire Q&A portion with you here in this special edition episode of the podcast! We cover topics like...
Jun 24, 2024•49 min•Transcript available on Metacast One of the benefits of being a web designer is your option to build recurring revenue. As a WordPress web designer, I learned that one of the best ways to do this was to offer a hosting and maintenance plan. Or “care plan” as it’s more commonly referred to these days. For years, it was my assumption that if you use self-hosted platforms like SquareSpace, WixStudio, Webflow, Showit, etc then you can't offer care plans because there's no plugins to update or advanced security to monitor....
Jun 17, 2024•56 min•Transcript available on Metacast 
