A career in web design means you will never be out of work – but how do you secure the work when all else is against you?
Web design and web development are some of the best careers going right now. While the pandemic has had a huge effect on most careers, those that work in the digital space seem to have been protected from the worst of it. As retailers fled online, we were already prepared for it. We had a running head start when it came to the mass digitisation that followed.
However, that doesn’t mean that it’s easy to get a start in the web dev world. If you want to break into it, there’s a lot of competition. In fact, newly unemployed people are online offering similar services at a fraction of the regular price because they are desperate.
Table of Contents
How to Become a Better Web Designer/Developer?
With all this in mind, you need to up your game. To get better at producing website content, here are some ways you can advance that career.
Branch into Consultancy
Web design consultancy is a good way for you to apply theory without too much practice of your own. If you are fresh out of college or university, then this might be a great way to further your career and gather experience, without having to go into a full-time role.
The only extra qualification you really benefit from as a consultant, is a teaching qualification. There are ways to help web consultants manage this training issue. Look at hays education training, for a good example.
Get Some Extra Qs
If doing a course on the next big things in your area of expertise helps you land more work, why wouldn’t you do it? When you study, you’re making an investment in your own future. You are becoming the best version of yourself in a way that benefits your future self. Every single identifiable skill you have in web design is a skill that puts you in front of the next person.
If you can afford to do it, keep re-training at intervals throughout your life. Learn new skills, gather experience, and you will be able to put it all to good use in the future.
Research your Industry
If you aren’t browsing through other people’s new websites for a half an hour every day on your break, are you even a web designer? Researching your industry helps you capture and centralise new ideas, appear forward focused and on trend, and can even land you work with up-and-comers you heard about through your network.
Knowing your industry, what the current research is expanding into and where future trends lie, gets you more work. Establishing yourself as an expert is vital to this. How do you do that? You get a site of your own and you set yourself up as an authority. If clients see a well-presented website that portrays you as an expert? They are hardly likely to look elsewhere, are they?
Final Thoughts on Bettering your Web Design Career
Consider consultancy, get further qualifications, and know your industry if you want to get ahead in web design. You have the power to set yourself apart… all you need now is consistency.