Having just returned from a wonderful trip to see clients in Australia and catching up with some members of the Divi Community too, I found that the gig economy is everywhere. I also realized that as a vendor marketplace – our vendors are part of that economy too.
(I know, it took me a while to get there)
Nowadays, mostly as a result of the shift of the service industry as a whole to a more digital space. The internet makes it much easier to order food, to get a ride, to have a website built, to have logos designed, to have content written, and to get just about any kind of service. As a website developer or designer, the gig economy could help you much more than you might believe. Here are a few of the ways it can affect you.
Flexibility in your work
When you’re working on major web design and development projects for clients, you may not have space for time to take on another project of the same scale. However, the gig economy often prioritizes short-term, mini-projects that take a lot less of your time. This means you can advertise on sites like elegant marketplace and get extra short-term work that won’t get the in the way of your full website development projects but ensure you can do more and get more for your time.
Offer a greater diversity of services
For your primary website or brand, you may want to emphasize your full-scale web development and design services. However, offering a diversity of services means you can reach out to those who might not need a full website. Creating a pricing model for smaller projects like landing page development or Facebook advertising campaigns allows you to reach more of the market, and gig economy spaces are perfectly primed to help you reach the people looking for those short-term services.
Diversifying your income
You may get the most profit in return for full website design and development and, as a result, may want to prioritize finding clients interested in those services above all else. However, if you focus solely on one service, what happens when work in that field dries up for a spell? Are you left with nothing to do and no money coming in? The gig economy lets you diversify not just the work you do, but how you make your income. If you’re not working on full website development right now, you could instead be working on a host of landing page projects to keep providing that income.
Boosting your brand and connections
The people who look to gig economy spaces for specific services may not be the same people who will visit your website for the full suite of your services. As a result, tapping into the gig economy can help you make connections that can secure you future lines of work, not just short-term projects. What’s more, it’s easy for happy clients to review and recommend you on these platforms, helping quality service providers quickly rise to the top where they can receive many more requests instead of having to spend money and time advertising and marketing their own services.
The gig economy could be a net positive for web developers and designers. It can allow you the opportunity to diversify your client base, to help you advertise in new spaces, and win clients that you might currently be missing. Becoming a part of the gig economy helps you tap into where the majority of online service transactions are already happening.
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So, the next time you get an Uber, order some takeaway or get a handyman through check a trade or use Amazon – give thanks to the GIG ECONOMY – we are all, knowingly or not, a part of it and it offers everyone an opportunity to work, get paid and spread the word about our talents and ambitions.
