Is Dublin Saturated for Web Design/Hosting/Marketing Agencies?

stainluss

Moving home in a few weeks, was doing web development in a different country and was thinking I could transfer this back home, but was always of the impression that Dublin was oversubscribed with web designers, digital marketers, social media managers (sooo many of these guys popping up:rolleyes:).

I've done some Googling and some Google Keywords searches and there are probably enough PPC scaps left for a newbie, but coupled with the time spent on social etc. I'm still trying to decide if its worth the initial investment....

Anyone have any more info/first hand experience that could sway me one way or another re: the capital being saturated in this field? Greatly appreciated as always folks

antoinolachtnai

Saturated with what? Web design, digital marketing and social media management represents an immense amount of different businesses.

I think there is plenty of work for great web developers. If you are depending on google ads to get the business, I'd say it would be pretty tough to make any money. It's really about the network of contacts.

I would have to say that there appears to me to be a shortage of really great clients in Dublin. There are clients with vision, sure, and there are clients with a fair bit of money to spend, sure, but the intersection of the two groups does not appear to be very big.

stainluss

Thanks for your response.

antoinolachtnai wrote: »

Saturated with what? Web design, digital marketing and social media management represents an immense amount of different businesses.

Any or all :P In fact, I heard there is loads of digital marketing agencies popping up with social media included, I really wanted to know if web design (because I consider it in the same sphere) is going the same way.

I have experience in all three so will probably offer all three and see where I can build up a decent network of clients. I do agree 100% that contacts out weigh ads any day of the week.

The Corinthian

Yes, but it's also a far better developed market.

I've found that many other European countries have far fewer Internet-related businesses, but at the same time the adoption of Internet-related technology for business is markedly lower than it is in Ireland.

Ireland is actually quite advanced in this regard, compared to many other places.

So to answer your question, I can't answer. There are far more Internet-related businesses, but also far more Internet-related business to be found. Whether Ireland is saturated or not as a result, is a matter for debate.

I would, however, that there's a higher percentage of cowboy clients in the Irish market - those who, as Antoin suggested, lack vision (or competence) or will obsessively end up wasting pounds in their pursuit to save pennies and get everything done on the cheap. But that's a cultural thing, I think.

pedronomix

I would worry about trying to gain traction in a market that is oversupplied by the huge numbers being released into the market as social media marketing experts, after some 6 month course!. They all seem to be intent on low-balling pricing to get customers. The same is true of website builders who may be able to produce very functional sites but are bereft of any graphic design talent. The talented folk with happy loyal customers and solid portfolios will be hard to displace unless you have some great contacts and a killer proposition. The market views many in this field as opportunistic cowboy service providers, the challenge is to be able to show that you are the real thing!

professore

Lots of "web developers" out there too who make a site look really good on a desktop computer but rubbish on anything else and none of the functional bits of the site work like contact forms etc.

Graham

The Corinthian wrote: »

I would, however, that there's a higher percentage of cowboy clients in the Irish market - those who, as Antoin suggested, lack vision (or competence) or will obsessively end up wasting pounds in their pursuit to save pennies and get everything done on the cheap. But that's a cultural thing, I think.

Luckily there's an equally large percentage of cowboy developers only too happy to cobble together chunks of almost random html with a free WordPress theme for pocket money rates.

The Corinthian

Graham wrote: »

Luckily there's an equally large percentage of cowboy developers only too happy to cobble together chunks of almost random html with a free WordPress theme for pocket money rates.

They would typically be referred to as cowboy coders or, to describe which sector of the market they occupy, bottom feeders.

stainluss

Many thanks for the responses guys, great food for thought.

Regardless of saturation, I am interested to see how web development progresses over the next few years, with GUI (albeit naff) site builders like Wix aiming for the cowboy client/in-house marketer end, powerfully simple frameworks like Bootstrap aiming for light coders but more importantly automated 'A.I.' solutions like The Grid improving, my guess is the bar of what is expected from a human freelancer will be raised considerably (think sensors, animation, HTML5 interactivity as-standard) but it will certainly be a fun ride

jmcc

Just on web developers alone, there are thousands in operation in the Dublin market. (Based on regular web surveys of Irish websites.) There's also a high level of churn in the lower end of the market as there's a spike in "new" developers around Easter and the Summer Holidays. They rarely last though one domain renewal cycle and tend to hoover up the "friends and relatives" market of people who want a website for a few hundred Euro.

Most of the medium level of the market, established web developers, tend to have a small (<30) number of clients. Above that, and the web developers start providing hosting services, typically providing hosting services on a dedicated server or two, to their clients. As they grow, they tend to acquire clients rapidly due to the having an established reputation.

Bespoke web developers tend to operate at the high end of the market but they have fewer clients. They tend to develop complex, and often database backed, websites for high paying clients.

Most of the new websites that appear in Irish webspace each month tend to use Wordpress as their software. This is because Wordpress, and to a lesser extent Joomla and Drupal, has replaced Dreamweaver as the website production tool of choice.

In terms of opportunity, there are some good opportunities in website maintenance and upgrading existing sites with shopping carts. The numbers of active new websites each month is approximately a third (or slightly lower) of new registrations each month.

Regards...jmcc

EIREX

Hi OP,

Where there is a gap in Dublin in my experience is a web designer/ marketer with very transparent, up front and easy to understand pricing.

There are probably some out there but they are hard to find. It seems in Dublin you will get a Rolls Royce solution or a pile of junk that you paid peanuts for but expected much more based on the pitch and your requirements. There's no transparent middle ground.

For example someone who says this is site 1 this will cost you x, something like site 2 would cost you about y, if you want these features they will cost x, y z etc.

SEO marketing in particular would benefit from this in Dublin.

stainluss

jmcc wrote: »

Just on web developers alone, there are thousands in operation in the Dublin market. (Based on regular web surveys of Irish websites.) There's also a high level of churn in the lower end of the market as there's a spike in "new" developers around Easter and the Summer Holidays. They rarely last though one domain renewal cycle and tend to hoover up the "friends and relatives" market of people who want a website for a few hundred Euro.

Most of the medium level of the market, established web developers, tend to have a small (<30) number of clients. Above that, and the web developers start providing hosting services, typically providing hosting services on a dedicated server or two, to their clients. As they grow, they tend to acquire clients rapidly due to the having an established reputation.

Bespoke web developers tend to operate at the high end of the market but they have fewer clients. They tend to develop complex, and often database backed, websites for high paying clients.

Most of the new websites that appear in Irish webspace each month tend to use Wordpress as their software. This is because Wordpress, and to a lesser extent Joomla and Drupal, has replaced Dreamweaver as the website production tool of choice.

In terms of opportunity, there are some good opportunities in website maintenance and upgrading existing sites with shopping carts. The numbers of active new websites each month is approximately a third (or slightly lower) of new registrations each month.

Regards...jmcc

This is the kind of informative post that makes a thread worth starting Cheers!

EIREX wrote: »

Hi OP,

Where there is a gap in Dublin in my experience is a web designer/ marketer with very transparent, up front and easy to understand pricing.

There are probably some out there but they are hard to find. It seems in Dublin you will get a Rolls Royce solution or a pile of junk that you paid peanuts for but expected much more based on the pitch and your requirements. There's no transparent middle ground.

For example someone who says this is site 1 this will cost you x, something like site 2 would cost you about y, if you want these features they will cost x, y z etc.

SEO marketing in particular would benefit from this in Dublin.

Thanks for this, its funny you should mention this because my plan was to just have three 'levels' (obviously my 3 best samples - 1 for each category... 1. Info Site, 2. eCommerce and 3. Interactive).

I wonder is it overkill for me to offer online marketing services on the same site? I have a strong background/interest in both - but I'd hate to come across as a jack-of-all trades! At the moment (in the UK) I just use it as an up sell on the development stuff but I guess entering a relatively unknown market has me drawing for me whole CV :P

I was thinking of having a small 'PPC Calculator' on the site, whereby people told me their budgets and I used industry figures to show them what's available (CPC and Conversion-wise) when ads are used properly - only problem is it wouldn't hold true for all and I'd hate to lead folks astray... I love PPC as a great starting point for because its gives you the worst/highest cost of an online customer (great way of stress-testing their margins, too) and then, over time you can work down from this with social media, organic SEO, website optimisation etc.

EIREX

I would definitely offer on-line marketing on the same site. I have always expected but frequently been disappointed by, the level of basic SEO knowledge amongst developers I have used.

I would find this service reassuring as I would expect you to then be able to build a site correctly with search engines in mind.

Anything that makes pricing as transparent as possible is to be encouraged like your calculator idea.

The Corinthian

EIREX wrote: »

I would definitely offer on-line marketing on the same site. I have always expected but frequently been disappointed by, the level of basic SEO knowledge amongst developers I have used.

That's because it's a separate specialty. Twenty years ago it might have been possible for one person to be an 'expert' in all areas of the Web, the so-called Webmaster, but those days are gone.

There's just too much for any one person to be an expert on. Programming, design, SEO, special expertise in CMS's or frameworks (and specific thereof), in mobile (be it Web, app or whatever) and so on. The more one tries to be a jack of all trades, the more they will be master of none.

professore

EIREX wrote: »

Hi OP,

Where there is a gap in Dublin in my experience is a web designer/ marketer with very transparent, up front and easy to understand pricing.

There are probably some out there but they are hard to find. It seems in Dublin you will get a Rolls Royce solution or a pile of junk that you paid peanuts for but expected much more based on the pitch and your requirements. There's no transparent middle ground.

For example someone who says this is site 1 this will cost you x, something like site 2 would cost you about y, if you want these features they will cost x, y z etc.

SEO marketing in particular would benefit from this in Dublin.

If you are talking about standard websites yes. If you're talking about dynamic websites no.

Problem is that what you think is site 1 "with a few small changes" is often a completely different level of work, maybe something exists already that can be reused or something has to be developed from scratch.

Agree on SEO and marketing though.

EIREX

The Corinthian wrote: »

That's because it's a separate specialty. Twenty years ago it might have been possible for one person to be an 'expert' in all areas of the Web, the so-called Webmaster, but those days are gone.

There's just too much for any one person to be an expert on. Programming, design, SEO, special expertise in CMS's or frameworks (and specific thereof), in mobile (be it Web, app or whatever) and so on. The more one tries to be a jack of all trades, the more they will be master of none.

I'm talking about the SME looking for a simple solution with a single supplier and transparent pricing. Not a jargon laden explanation which is what I usually get which is why there's an opportunity for the OP.

EIREX

professore wrote: »

If you are talking about standard websites yes. If you're talking about dynamic websites no.

Problem is that what you think is site 1 "with a few small changes" is often a completely different level of work, maybe something exists already that can be reused or something has to be developed from scratch.

Agree on SEO and marketing though.

Yeah I'm very much talking about standard websites. With lots of nuances there's just too much complexity to offer a standard price. It shouldn't be hard to get a standard price for a standard site but is in my experience.

The Corinthian

EIREX wrote: »

I'm talking about the SME looking for a simple solution with a single supplier and transparent pricing. Not a jargon laden explanation which is what I usually get which is why there's an opportunity for the OP.

OK, seeing as the jargon has confused you, I'll try to explain it another way.

If you're looking for a single supplier it is highly unlikely you'll get all you want from them because oddly enough the complexity of Web work outstrips the capacity for one single person to master everything. This isn't just with SEO, but mobile or pretty much any other area of the field.

Naturally, they should know the basics of other fields, at least how they appertain to their own particular discipline, but beyond that spreading yourself out over multiple disciplines will simply mean that you won't stand out of the crowd in any.

So no, the opportunity isn't really there for the OP. Best they can do is have a pool of other resources with those complimentary skills they can subcontract to.

EIREX

It's not rocket science. If the OP has been doing it years I'm sure he's well able and if he produces results and knows he can in the future he should go for it.

The Corinthian

At entry level it's not rocket science, but what you're suggesting is that he specializes in not specializing. This will leave him in the market for the first Web site for small companies, forever being undercut by offshore outfits and new entrants and in the long run he won't retain many clients if and when they want to further develop their sites, as it'll be beyond his capacity to do so, because that's when it does become rocket science.

Read jmcc's earlier post if you want to understand how the market is segmented.

It's a sector of the market that is more a rite of passage than one to see your future in, TBH. The companies that go for such developers tend to be the one's who'll choose the cheapest available option, pay the lowest rates, cut corners and have the highest probability of not paying. Not somewhere you want to spend the rest of your professional life.

devildriver

EIREX wrote: »

Yeah I'm very much talking about standard websites. With lots of nuances there's just too much complexity to offer a standard price. It shouldn't be hard to get a standard price for a standard site but is in my experience.

The problem there is that there is no such thing as a "standard" website. And your concept of "standard" will be entirely different from someone else.

In the same way as there is no such thing as a "standard" house or a "standard" car.

Yes there are conventions that most websites follow and you could infer a sort of "standard" from these commonalities but from experience most clients want a bespoke site that is highly "tailored" to their business while looking to pay an "off the shelf" price.

EIREX

devildriver wrote: »

The problem there is that there is no such thing as a "standard" website. And your concept of "standard" will be entirely different from someone else.

In the same way as there is no such thing as a "standard" house or a "standard" car.

Yes there are conventions that most websites follow and you could infer a sort of "standard" from these commonalities but from experience most clients want a bespoke site that is highly "tailored" to their business while looking to pay an "off the shelf" price.

Well the website builders seem to be doing an OK job offering a couple of templates and limited editing in satisfying a lot of demand from SME's. They pretty much have standard nailed.

The Corinthian

EIREX wrote: »

Well the website builders seem to be doing an OK job offering a couple of templates and limited editing in satisfying a lot of demand from SME's. They pretty much have standard nailed.

Well, that pretty much answers the OP's original question, at least for the type of supplier that would seem to interest you.

devildriver

EIREX wrote: »

Well the website builders seem to be doing an OK job offering a couple of templates and limited editing in satisfying a lot of demand from SME's. They pretty much have standard nailed.

Well if you are happy with an "OK job" then that's the solution.

EIREX wrote: »

They pretty much have standard nailed.

In most cases that standard is far below what I would find acceptable.

I take your point though, a lot of businesses want what you call a "standard" site with common sections: news, products, contact etc. And for those businesses a Wix or Weebly, cheap DIY solution seems to be a viable option.

But in my experience a lot of SME's need guidance when it comes to online marketing / website building and that's where an experienced designer can help, educate and create a solution for them that will deliver better results than the highly restrictive "website builder" platforms.


EDIT:
Apologies! Just realised how far off topic we've gone with this sub-discussion.

stainluss wrote: »

Moving home in a few weeks, was doing web development in a different country and was thinking I could transfer this back home, but was always of the impression that Dublin was oversubscribed with web designers, digital marketers, social media managers (sooo many of these guys popping up:rolleyes:).

I've done some Googling and some Google Keywords searches and there are probably enough PPC scaps left for a newbie, but coupled with the time spent on social etc. I'm still trying to decide if its worth the initial investment....

Anyone have any more info/first hand experience that could sway me one way or another re: the capital being saturated in this field? Greatly appreciated as always folks

To respond to the OP:

Is it possible to bring some of your clients with you from foreign shores?

And in addition to that whether or not Dublin is over-saturated I think it makes sense to broaden your scope for new clients, definitely to the UK and further afield.

gargargar

stainluss wrote: »

Moving home in a few weeks, was doing web development in a different country and was thinking I could transfer this back home, but was always of the impression that Dublin was oversubscribed with web designers, digital marketers, social media managers (sooo many of these guys popping up:rolleyes:).

I've done some Googling and some Google Keywords searches and there are probably enough PPC scaps left for a newbie, but coupled with the time spent on social etc. I'm still trying to decide if its worth the initial investment....

Anyone have any more info/first hand experience that could sway me one way or another re: the capital being saturated in this field? Greatly appreciated as always folks

There are certainly a lot. However you can make money doing it. There is not much money in the low end where you are competing with students/wix etc.

If you are a good designer, and can invest time in taking cheaper projects to prove your ability, then you can move up the food chain.

I have a friend who just paid 20k for a brochure site for a SaaS company.

jmcc

EIREX wrote: »

Well the website builders seem to be doing an OK job offering a couple of templates and limited editing in satisfying a lot of demand from SME's. They pretty much have standard nailed.

Website builders, if you are talking about the automated DIY processes used by a the larger hosters and others such as Wix and Hover cater to a completely different category of customer to the one who gets a web developer to build a site. Those types of customers are typically using the web merely as a business card rather than a brochure. The amount of content on these sites is minimal and is often just the contact details with a Google or Microsoft map and directions. Anyone trying to compete with this market really should reevaluate because the whole process of domain registration with a hoster/registrar to working website is designed so that anyone can be up and running in minutes and web developers do not even get involved in the process.

Most of the web is actually brochureware. This is based on years of running web usage surveys (at the moment, approximately 2 million per month) and actually categorising website use rather than just from reading some web dev blogs or the wibbling of technology churnos in the IT or some other comic. The heavyweight sites tend to have a very different profile to brochureware sites and one indication is that they are not on shared hosting. Brochureware sites are easy and quick to produce and that means that almost anyone with basic web development skills can put one together. That's the problem in the low end of the market - competing with many low skilled players who can do the same job and possibly for less. It becomes an issue of contacts and social networks. After a web dev's social network is exhausted, it is a battle for new contacts and contracts.

Regards...jmcc

jmcc

With Google's increasing levels of insanity, there does seem to be an opportunity for web devs to retro-fit some level of mobile compatibility to desktop type websites. It might also be a good idea for web devs to profile potential clients and not sell a high-end db backed site to a client that only needs a business card site and perhaps a Facebook page.

Regards...jmcc

The Corinthian

jmcc wrote: »

It might also be a good idea for web devs to profile potential clients and not sell a high-end db backed site to a client that only needs a business card site and perhaps a Facebook page.

Problem is that the numbers don't crunch for a developer, consultant or any service industry individual to do something like that.

The sort of static, business card site you're talking about would probably take well under a day to do, and if sold for a few hundred this might make financial sense - say 250 Euro and it takes you three hours to do. Why 250 Euro? That's your competition and what clients in that market expect because "it's not rocket science".

Problem though is it doesn't work that way. Even with the most optimistic scenario, where the client clearly communicates all they want and supplies all necessary branding assets and you don't have to go out to meet them, scoping what they want will take another hour or two.

Then the client will need to review and submit any minor changes (that you can't really charge for). Again, optimistically, an hour to hour and a half for the communication and changes. Then add another hour for deployment, going live, setting up even a virtual server, DNS, testing whatever. Oh, then there's admin - invoicing, contracts, credit control, etc.

And let's not forget the time sunk into getting the client in the first place. You're not billing for that, but it's still work. Note, I've not even mentioned SEO.

That's already going over a working day for 250 Euro, which is actually quite good in the developing World, but in Ireland is not viable unless you're a student living with his/her parents. And/or on the Dole.

I think that market only works for those aforementioned developers in countries where the an average monthly salary runs into the hundreds at most or for automated systems - portals like Wix or their ilk where the client can waste as much time as he or she desires.

So I still maintain that this particular market is still just a rite of passage. Where young developers cut their teeth and learn the ropes, before moving up the food chain.

gargargar

I don't know these guys or how successful it is, but this is one way to get rid of the time wasters.

Graham

gargargar wrote: »

I don't know these guys or how successful it is, but this is one way to get rid of the time wasters.

I'd imagine a few years back when the world was at 'peak app hype' they got sick of being bombarded with the 'next big idea' fifteen times a week.

devildriver

gargargar wrote: »

I don't know these guys or how successful it is, but this is one way to get rid of the time wasters.

Nothing wrong at all about being honest upfront.

This one gobsmacked me a little:

http://paradoxoneday.com/