How do you get your web design customers?

Guys, I need help for some of you who have been in the same situation I am in right now. I do website and graphics and its been challenging to get clients, I tried emailing local business owners, SEO, Craigslist with no much success.

What methods do you guys use to get web design clients?

I live in Los Angeles, CA.

Your help would be much appreciated.

Find local businesses that do not have a website (or have an outdated website) and rather than e-mailing them... call them... visit them... get in front of their face.

Exactly. Don't email people or try to get them to come to you when they're within reach. Put on a suit and bring your laptop with you with a portfolio of work ready to show them. Tons of people email businesses about web design, graphic design etc. so it will just seem like spam to most businesses.

If you don't want to speak to them in person, which you definitely should, get somebody else to and pay them on a commission basis. Direct mail (old school mail) can also work well too but if you send them something in the mail make sure you put a personal touch on it. Don't be lazy about it, make sure it looks to them like you put in some work and/or research to personalize the letter, rather than looking like you made 500 identical letters and sent them out to see who would bite.

Figure out where people go when they are ready to create a website, and start advertising there. The key would be to get people who are just creating a new website, not necessarily websites that already have designs. You could also use the 7878 method for this with some tweaks.

If you have friends in related fields of work, ask them to refer you to people in need of web design. You should also contact old clients with the same request.

I agree with referrals, but that mainly works with a connection/client base already in place.
I suggest either tweaking the 7878 letter method (show them their non-existent or crappy website & beside it an awesome version) OR go to their place of business and find a way to bring it up without coming off desperate. Make it seem like the idea just crossed your mind, having a template already made (perfect if you have a tablet or laptop) and say how you'd love to help them with their website. Figure it out buddy, get creative.

Use Google Maps to find local business's near you and cold call them or send them mail explaining your
services and what benefits you can offer to their business.

Remember normally there needs to be a problem in order for you to offer a solution. So focus on what
problems they might have and formulate a personal package for them. Make sure you point out clearly
what their problems are and then show them your nice little solution.

Good Luck!

Thank you so much guy for your advices, I appreciate and I will put them into use..

You could develop websites in niche markets that always pay for sites/seo and lease them to clients. Dentists always seem to work. Go register LAdentist.whatever and rank it. Then sell it.

I started with people that I knew and just casually mentioned I did websites if I knew they were potentially in the market. Networking with friends and friends of friends can be pretty successful. Doing this I found a nice little niche of building websites, logos and event posters for local music bands in my city. You would be surprised how many bands don't have someone that does this for them. Especially with you being in Los Angeles you could probably get a ton of business in that area.

How about this;

- Find a (maybe local, but not necessarily so) business with a really crappy website, such as this one; hxxp://carbonico.com.au

- Make sure they're still in business by calling them, and just hang up if they confirm they're in business

- Make a shiny new AWESOME website for them, with new logo if required

- Call them and say "Don't take this the wrong way, but I found your website and it looked really old and crappy, so I spent 3 days making you a new one. I'll email it over so you can have a look at it - if you like it, you can buy it from me - if not, you owe me nothing. I'll give you a call again in a few days - I don't mean to put you on the spot". Get their email address, send them a link to your staging server.

- Call them in a few days, hit them up for $680 or some other random number, if they say they can't afford it, offer $68/mth for 12 months. If they still say no, 'park it' and call them on the second last day of the month and say "dude, I REALLY need to get some money in the door this month - tell me what you're willing to pay?", and whatever they come back with is acceptable as long as its paid before end of month (otherwise, you'd get nothing for that site anyway).

- Do this ten times in a month, and you'll sell at least 3 or 4 websites in first instance, and then at least another $500 or so on your end-of-month ring-around. You want to sell more? Scale up the numbers - do 50 a month and sell 15 or 20, etc.

- If you're not willing to 'take the risk' of doing this, you won't do sell any websites, as you've already discovered. You need to be different to get different results. If you do the same thing as all other website developers, you'll get the same results they do!

PS - this approach will always work, because everyone wants an amazing website, but they don't want to go through the headaches of the process of building one... so, give them a shortcut to the end result, and they'll love you