So, you are looking to become a web design pro and start your business? You’ve come to the right place. After all, you’re on the web right now – what better place to start.

Starting a pro web design business can be fun and rewarding. At the same time, it is definitely going to be challenging and, at times, seemingly impossible. The same goes for starting any business. But, the more hard work and effort you put into the project, the more rewards you can reap later on as your business thrives.

There are three key individual traits that one must have to start their web design business.

Pro Web Design Knowledge

Of course, you must be knowledgeable about web design. A core foundation of advanced knowledge of HTML, CSS, Java, and other programming languages will help you get your business off the ground, by providing quality, well designed web pages to clients.

Design knowledge is also required. You need to have the creative and coding capabilities to both imagine and implement an easy-to-navigate, eye-catching website. Regardless of how long you boast about your coding experience, it is these creative client sites that will sell your services.

You can start your web design business with limited technical knowledge through recent platforms like WordPress. WordPress allows you to create a website based on themes, already carrying the navigational structures and designs that otherwise would require advanced knowledge of HTML, CSS, and other languages to create. Better yet, you can subscribe to professional theme programs, allowing you to customize themes for your clients’ sites based on your design knowledge, without requiring much coding experience.

Passion for Success

Passion is the foundation of any successful business. You need to eat and breathe web design best practices. You need to have a sick obsession with reading design blogs. You need to strangely long for soaking up more and more programming knowledge. It is this passion that will drive your business. Without passion, your business may succeed. But, it will never be as successful as it will be if it is driven by your main passions in life.

Good Business Sense: Driving Traffic & Customers

In addition to knowledge and passion, you simply have to have good business sense. However, in today’s Web 2.0 environment, it is no longer enough to just will a business into existence. It takes hard work and an understanding of how businesses succeed on the web.

This is where online marketing comes into play. Today, all web design business owners must be self promoters and online marketers. The competition online is fierce. Without an understanding of how to drive proper traffic to your website, it is likely that your customers simply won’t find you and they will opt for a competitor instead.

Simply put, if consumers can’t find you, it doesn’t matter how good your design skills are. Pro web design relies not only on skill and passion, but also on your fervor and dedication to web traffic.