How to get web design clients (even if you hate marketing)

There's a particular kind of anxiety that comes with running a web design business and not knowing where the next client is coming from. 

For a long time, I relied almost entirely on word of mouth referrals in my business. And while I was grateful for every referral that came my way, I had very little control over when they arrived or whether they arrived at all.

Some months, I’d have no enquiries at all, and other times, I’d be overwhelmed with requests. There was no consistency or predictability, just worrying periods of no enquiries followed by intense bursts of busyness.

If you’ve felt like this at times in your own business and worrying about how to get web design clients consistently, you know it’s not a great headspace to be in. This kind of inconsistency feels really destabilising and it’s very hard to build anything solid on top of it. 

I started to feel super frustrated and, at times, question everything: Does this business model even work? Am I going to have to find something else? 

It even had me question my ability as a designer. Perhaps the reason why I didn’t have enough clients was because I wasn’t actually good at what I do(?!?)

Then, in 2024, I hit one of the quietest periods I’d ever experienced in my business.

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Why most marketing advice didn't work for me

At this point, I knew that if I wanted to keep doing what I was doing, I needed to seriously work out a way to bring in more leads and find new web design clients. But every time I thought about "doing marketing” I’d feel really heavy and blocked. 

When I look back now, I can see that there were three main things that were blocking me:

1. Fear of having to be online all the time

I'd been through burnout before (real burnout, the kind that wiped me out completely) and I did not want to go back there. Part of me worried that to find the number of leads and clients I needed to have a stable business, would mean constantly being online, creating content all the time and being ‘on’ all the time. And I just knew that my nervous system wouldn’t be able to handle that.

2. An aversion to traditional marketing tactics

There was also this other part of me that hates a lot of the marketing techniques found in the online space. Pushing, urgency and preying on people’s insecurities and pain points to make a sale feels really gross to me. I care a lot about how I show up in the world and the kind of business I run and I wasn't willing to build a marketing system on tactics that feel misaligned and unethical.

3. Imposter syndrome

I had quite a bit of discomfort around putting myself forward. A lot of designers feel this way, I think. Marketing yourself can feel pretty exposing, especially for those of us who are sensitive, just starting out or generally struggle with self-confidence.

Common ways to get web design clients (and why these didn’t work for me)

What I was looking for was a marketing approach to help me get web design clients that felt ethical, aligned, enjoyable and sustainable. It needed to be gentle on my nervous system and my client’s nervous systems and it needed to not take too much time away from the actual creative work I wanted to be doing.

I needed a marketing unicorn so to speak (haha!).

There are quite a few ways to go about finding web design clients and I've considered (and tried) most of them. Here’s some of the options I explored:

1. Word of mouth and referrals

As I mentioned, this was my main source of clients for years and I have a lot of love for it. When it works, it's really wonderful because the people coming to you are warm, there’s built-in trust and so there’s almost no selling required. The problem is you can't really control it. You can't turn it up when things go quiet or plan your income around it. And if you're just starting out and don't yet have a bank of happy clients to refer you, it's not really an option at all.

2. Social media

This is probably the first place most designers look when they decide they need to "do more marketing." In my experience, social media has never been a reliable source of enquiries. It demands so much time and energy, but the return on investment just isn’t there (for me anyway). And if I’m honest, I never liked the way it made me feel. For those of us who find self-promotion uncomfortable or who are sensitive to the energy of being constantly online, it can be super draining. 

3. Paid advertising

Ads can work. I don’t dismiss them entirely and have had some great success with them – particularly with my digital products. But they do require an actual budget and when your income is already unpredictable, putting money into ads that may or may not convert feels like a pretty big risk. They also do require a bit of setting up – you generally need lead magnets and sales funnels and a whole heap of technical backend setup which is a lot on top of everything else you’ve got going on. 

4. Networking

I'll be honest, as a neurodivergent introvert, the idea of networking events makes me want to crawl into bed and hide (ha!). I went to a couple but they weren’t for me. I just felt the interactions were very forced and I walked away exhausted. 

5. Working for free (please don’t do this!)

Okay, I’m pretty passionate about this one – and have a lot to say on this topic because this is often an approach recommended to designers when they are first starting out – and I absolutely disagree with it! 

I understand the instinct as you need portfolio pieces to showcase your work, so offering your skills for free feels like a logical place to get that.

But it very often doesn’t work out that way. While I’ve never given away my services for free to get my business off the ground (I’ve followed a different approach which I’ll talk about in the next point), I have offered discounted rates and done pro-bono work throughout the years. And honestly, at times, the experience hasn’t been great. You take on the work because you genuinely want to help this client and you feel it will also be great for your portfolio. You pour yourself into it. 

But often what happens when clients aren't paying, is they tend not to value the process as much and they don’t end up treating it with the care it deserves. This shows up as slow responses, scope creep, shifting goalposts and unrealistic demands. You end up feeling deflated and undervalued. It can build resentment on your end very quickly which is the last thing you want when you're trying to build something you love.

And often, because of all the bumps in the road with the client, the end result of the website sometimes doesn’t turn out that great either – so you don’t even end up with a nice testimonial or something you’re proud to put in your portfolio!

Now, I’m not saying this is always the case. With a really solid client screening and client design process and very clear boundaries in place, free or discounted work can go smoothly. But as a newer designer, these processes are usually still something you're figuring out and upholding boundaries when you’re just starting can be hard. And learning all this on clients who aren’t paying you is a tough way to go about it.

The good news is that there's another way to build a portfolio that doesn't require you to give time and creativity away for free…

6. Build a portfolio

There's a better way to get your first portfolio pieces – and actually get paid for it too. This is something I stumbled onto early in my business that ended up shaping my entire business model. 

Instead of building a website for a real client for free, you build one for a fictional client. Stay with me here because this idea has the potential to earn you income!

Here’s how I did it when I was first starting out: I picked the type of client I was most excited about working with (therapists and wellness practitioners). I then invented a fictional business for that client type, then designed and built a full website for them. From here, I then created variations of this same design to show different styles and use cases across that same industry – which I put in my portfolio.

What I love about this approach is that it gives you full creative control. When you're working with a client directly your creative decisions are always shaped by their preferences (rightly so). But when you're working from your own imagination, you get to develop your style purely. This means the portfolio you build actually reflects the kind of designer you are and the kind of work you want to attract more of. 

I also love this approach because you’re not pressured by anyone else’s timeline which feels really good for your nervous system and your creativity when you’re just starting out.

But here's the part I really love – you can actually make money from this ! This design you create can become a product you resell as a template or as a base design for a one-week website offering. So all those hours you put in? You eventually get paid for them, over and over again.

Of course, this doesn’t fully solve the finding website design customers dilemma because to sell your design to anyone, you still need clients to find you in the first place – and that’s what I’m going to talk about next. 

The approach that finally brought web design clients to me consistently

All those points above are legitimate ways to find web design clients, for sure. But none of them quite ticked all of my boxes – just to remind you, I was looking for an approach that was ethical, aligned, enjoyable, sustainable, gentle and didn’t take up too much time…

Here’s how I eventually found that unicorn (ha!)…

So back to my lowest point in 2024 when my business was the quietest it had ever been – instead of hustling, marketing, and promoting on social media, I decided to try something different.

I began to work out how to make my website easier to find for the people already searching for the kind of work I do. Rather than chasing potential clients (or shouting at them on social media), I created a system that allowed them to come to me, when they were ready.

This approach is called SEO – search engine optimisation. Before your eyes glaze over, try to stay with me. Because I get that, right now, SEO might feel complicated and technical. Honestly, I avoided it for years because I thought it was just another overwhelming thing to add to an already long list of things to learn. 

But what I discovered when I finally started exploring SEO is that it doesn't have to be complicated or technical at all. And more than that – it aligns with everything I'd said I wanted in a marketing approach. It's not pushy or performative. It doesn't rely on manipulation, manufactured urgency or being a content creation machine. You're simply making it easier for people who are already looking for you to find you. That feels really good to me. 

And the best news, once it's working, it keeps working – quietly in the background, even when you're not at your desk (even when you’re not online at all!)

My only regret is that I hadn’t started doing this sooner. Because it worked – and within just a few months I started seeing the results.

A booked out web design studio

I want to show you what this looked like in real life because I think seeing it makes it feel a lot more possible.

This graph shows my website's performance in the twelve months before and after implementing SEO. 

The purple line shows how often my site appeared in search results. 

The blue line shows the number of people clicking through to my website.

You can see that after implementing SEO, my website went from having near zero people find my business through search to it appearing in front of thousands of people every single day.

Here's what shifted in my business as a result:

• Enquiries started flowing in consistently – yup! I solved the dilemma of how to get web design clients without me needing to post on social media or do any active marketing beyond a couple hours every month of refining and optimising my website

• I've had my highest and most consistent income months ever, and my biggest earning financial years to date

• I hired two website designers to support me

• I started fully enjoying my business again because I no longer had to worry about where the next enquiry was coming from

• I'm often booked out months in advance and two years on, this has remained consistent

Other designers and business owners are seeing the same thing

Here's what this has looked like for some of the other businesses I've helped become more discoverable through search.

• Within two weeks of optimising her website, Nikki Fanshaw, a website designer in the United States, had two of her most ideal clients find her through Google and book projects with her.

• Kate Lister, a somatic therapist in Melbourne, started booking a new client every single week without doing any ads or posting on Instagram. While she was on holiday, five new clients booked! She's now fully booked out.

• Nicole Mathieson, a relationship counsellor in Brisbane, started seeing steady traffic from people specifically searching for her kind of support. She told me it completely changed how she felt about content creation – and that she finally understood where her best return on time and energy actually was (not social media).

This is what's possible when the right people can actually find you.

Let me show you how simple this actually is

The SEO industry can make this stuff sound incredibly complicated and honestly, I think that's intentional. But at the crux of it, SEO really comes down to three things: understanding the language your ideal clients are using when they search, structuring your content in a way that makes sense to search engines and showing that you're a trustworthy, credible business. That's really it. 

Here’s 5 things you can do right now that will help your website become more discoverable through search:

1. Work out if your website is visible in search

Before you do anything else, it's worth understanding where you're actually starting from. Are people finding your website through search at all? Which pages are showing up? What are they typing in to get there?

Google Search Console gives you all of this for free and it's one of the most useful tools you'll come across as a website designer. If you haven't set it up yet, or you're not sure how to read the data, I've written a step-by-step guide to checking your website's search performance that walks you through exactly what to look for.

Once you know what the data is telling you, you'll have a much clearer picture of what actually needs attention.

2. Work out what your ideal clients are typing into search

This is where it all starts – and it's not something you want to guess. Because the language you use to describe your work is often very different from the language your clients use to search for it. You see, when your content uses the same phrases your clients are searching for, Google is far more likely to match your pages with their search. 

So how do you work out what words and phrases your clients are using? Instead of guessing, there’s a pretty simple method to work this out. I teach you exactly how to do this in The Calm Marketing Collection.

3. Update your pages with your clients' language

Once you know the words and phrases your clients are using, the next step is making sure those words appear in the right places on your website such as in your page titles, meta descriptions, headings, image descriptions and body copy. Getting these right gives Google the signals it needs to match your pages to the right people. I also teach you exactly how to do this in The Calm Marketing Collection.

4. Focus on blogging instead of posting on social media

A social media post disappears within a day or two. But a well-written, well-structured blog post keeps working for you quietly in the background for months, even years.

Over time, a library of well-written articles helps search engines and AI tools recognise your website as a reliable place to learn about your subject, that you know what you're talking about and therefore start showing your website to more people. 

But you don’t need to be a content creation machine for this to work. I write one blog post a month. I make sure it's structured correctly, share it with my mailing list, post it once on social media, and then let it do its work. That's my content for the month done. When I explain this to clients, I can literally see them exhale.

If you'd like to go deeper on how blogging compares to social media as a long-term approach, this article is worth a read.

5. Show that your business is credible and trustworthy

One of the key things search engines are looking for are signs that your business is real, established and worth recommending. In many ways, they're asking the same question your potential clients are: can I trust this business?

A few simple places to start: add a couple of testimonials to your sales pages, make sure your About page reflects your expertise, start setting up your portfolio (and hopefully the tips earlier in this article have helped with this) and get listed in directories.

Some great directories to get listed in as a website designer are: DesignRush, Clutch, The Standout Directory, Squarespace Marketplace and any local business directories in your area. Also, setting up your own Google Business Profile is a must!

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Stop worrying about how to get web design clients and try this instead

If this has resonated with you and you're ready to try a different approach to finding web design clients – one that feels ethical, sustainable and doesn't require you to be online all the time – the Calm Marketing Collection was made for you.

It walks you through exactly how to make your web design business easier to find by the clients who are already out there looking for someone like you. 

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Frequently asked questions about finding web design clients

• How to get clients as a website designer?

  There are several ways to find web design clients – word of mouth, social media, paid advertising, networking, working for free and building a portfolio. Each has its pros and cons, but the approach that has worked best for me is SEO – making my website easy to find by people who are already searching for a designer like me. It takes a little time to build, but once it's working it brings in consistent enquiries without me needing to actively market myself or be online all the time.

• How to find clients easily?

  The most effortless way I've found to attract web design clients is through SEO. Once your website is optimised and your content is structured correctly, the right people find you – at their own pace, in their own time, when they're actually ready to hire someone. It's not instant, but it's a lot easier than posting on social media every day or relying on referrals you can't control.

• Is there still a demand for web designers?

  Absolutely. While AI tools and website builders have made it easier than ever for people to put something together themselves, what happens is a lot of small business owners end up with a DIY site that doesn't quite represent them, doesn't convert visitors into clients, or doesn't get found in search. They know something isn't working but they just don't know how to fix it. That's exactly where a skilled, experienced designer comes in. Because of this, I believe the demand is very much still there, in fact, in many ways, it’s growing.

• How do I market my web design business?

  The first thing I'd suggest is working out what kind of marketing feels aligned for you because that informs that kind of approach you’ll want to take. Do you want something sustainable that doesn't take up too much time? Something that feels ethical and doesn't require you to perform or push? Something that works in the background while you focus on the actual design work? Maybe you enjoy writing, or perhaps creating videos is more your jam. Maybe you're an introvert who'd rather never have to promote yourself directly at all. Maybe you want something that requires minimal ongoing effort once it's set up. Or maybe you enjoy connecting with people one on one and referral partnerships feel natural to you. Once you know what you're looking for, it's much easier to find an approach that's going to feel good and be sustainable long term.

  There are quite a few ways to go about it such as word of mouth, social media, paid ads, networking, even giving your skills away for free. But the approach that changed everything for me was SEO. Rather than actively promoting myself, I focused on making my website easy to find for people already searching for a web designer. Once it was working, enquiries started coming in consistently without me needing to be online all the time or create content constantly. It's by far the most sustainable marketing approach I've found and the most aligned with how I want to run my business.