Writing this review takes weeks, and I’m down to the wire at getting it published in 2023! I enjoy the reflection time, remembering what worked early in the year, reviewing the data, and celebrating wins. I hope you enjoy the behind-the-scenes glimpse of this small business.

If you’d like a really behind-the-scenes view at my life outside of One Nine Design, I just published my favorite books, podcasts, shows, and other personal wins for 2023 here.

Website Design

In 2023, I was honored to work with 20 clients on website design projects. A few were brand-new designs, others were website refreshes, and a few were SEO and Accessibility audits. What I love most about website design work is the variety of clients I work with and the new industries I learn.

For example, I started 2023 learning all I could about cable TV, internet, and phone services. I took CAS Cable to their new Squarespace platform, and every single metric increased - from time on page to clicks, scrolls, and form completions. Plus, according to one employee there, we increased their pride in sharing their business with other businesses. (“We’re not embarrassed to send people to our website anymore.”)

I also had my first client from New York - a fun milestone. Working with the team at Green Beetz was so much fun - we completely overhauled the function of their website with new workflows that worked for their team and improved the accessibility and SEO simultaneously. Learning about their work in teaching kids in NYC and worldwide about healthy eating habits was fascinating. (I’m still hoping this curriculum makes its way to Wood County Schools, because it’s 100% free.)

I continued work for United Way Alliance of the Mid-Ohio Valley and Wood County Society and built a brand new website for Habitat for Humanity of the Mid-Ohio Valley. (Side note: My favorite part of the Habitat site is how it turned out on mobile - it’s such a great user experience and optimized for online giving!)

Some fun stats around website design

• 100,000 - estimated words written for client copy

• 300 - number of Grammarly documents to check writing voice, vocabulary and reading level

• 5 - average star rating from clients

• 6 - My average project duration in weeks

• 17 - Number of times a seemingly unsolvable design problem turned into a dance party (celebrate the victories!).

• 365 - number of days I was grateful to be working in this business

Website Accessibility Course Launch

In May, I launched the Access for All: A Website Accessibility Essentials Course - the culmination of completing my Web Accessibility Specialist Certification through the International Association of of Accessibility Professionals (IAAP). I spent over a year of continuing education learning website accessibility best practices and standards to ensure that every digital product I put into the world was accessible to all audiences regardless of their abilities.

I then took all of that knowledge and resources and distilled them into easy-to-understand learning modules, along with a dynamic checklist and code resources that anyone can follow and use as a guide.

The course is designed to teach other website designers and those who DIYers the accessibility basics, so that they too can ensure their work meets the current standards.

The most enjoyable part of this entire experience was meeting with community members and online users who use assistive technology to access the internet. The information and insights they provided were invaluable to me - and reminded me that simply sticking a widget on your website that claims to make it accessible can sometimes do more harm than good.

The course has been very well received among my fellow website designers. Megan said,

“She broke down the often complicated and overwhelming technical jargon and requirements into easily actionable steps. Andrea's course gave me all of the tools I needed to get the job done! And she went over and beyond answering additional questions that I had. I highly recommend Andrea's services, and it was a pleasure working with such a talented, and kind human!”

My hope is that the course will grow in 2024, reaching even more designers and especially those who decide to design their own websites, as they are often in the dark about the importance of digital accessibility. I’ve already promoted it with Shannon Mattern on her popular podcast, the Profitable Web Designer Podcast and with Josh Hall on the Web Design Business podcast, and I have few other appearances scheduled for 2024. With one in four online users in need of some assistance in navigating a website, digital accessibility should be a priority for all of us.

Nonprofit Template Library

What a year for the Nonprofit Template Library! Now in its third year (it was formerly known as the Nonprofit Template Shop for the first two years), the Library has grown to over 60 templates and trainings! In 2023, nearly 400 nonprofits purchased a template or the full library - wow!

I added 12 new templates in 2023 alone – some of the favorites included:

• Volunteer policies (added to the existing policy manual template)

• Tri-fold brochure template

• The post-event impact report (added to the existing sponsorship template)

• The mini-grants bundle with a program abstract template, line item budget template, and sustainability language template

• The professional development post-event survey template

It was no surprise that the board report template and event sponsorship proposal template continued to be fan favorites (and these are still available as a stand-alone purchase for that reason).

I was also able to gift the Library to 27 nonprofits this year, something new I started in 2023.

My favorite part about the library (other than creating templates) is hearing feedback! So many of you emailed me after the monthly template drops to say thank you, to tell me of your wins after using the template, and even a board member sought me out to thank me for getting the board report in the hands of their executive director.

I’d love to hear from you if you’re a Library user - what do you love? What do you need? Tell me in the comments or send me a message!

Marketing

In 2023, my marketing expenses were…$0.

Yep. Zero. Needless to say, my return on investment was quite healthy. I know most traditional businesses must spend on marketing. In fact, I highly encourage it as long as those expenses are tracked, measured, and analyzed for ROI.

I did set a healthy budget for marketing this year. However, every time those planned expenses came up, my client calendar was full, my shop sales were up over projections, and my net profit was higher than planned. So I scrapped the paid marketing and got back to work. This happened about six times throughout the year.

Now, if we want to get technical here, my website hosting plan (Squarespace) and email marketing software (MailerLite) are technically marketing expenses, but I place those in my operating budget each year. They are the two most important tools in my business.

For some fun numbers, let’s look at that side of marketing:

• I had about 82,000 visits to my website with 74,000 unique visitors

• 80% of my website traffic came from search engines (see why I teach SEO?)

• The average visitor spent 3 and a half minutes on my website. For my industry, this is really, really good. Other than conversion rate, this might be my biggest win for 2023.

• Speaking of conversion rates, my Shop converted at about 5% this year. Again, for my industry, this is fantastic - about double the normal average.

• I sent just shy of 25,000 emails this year through my email marketing campaigns- and had a click-through-open-rate of just under 10% – I’m thrilled with that!

• My new subscribers only grew by an average of 30 or so, each month. (See under “fails” to see why this is 100% my fault). My unsubscribes were very low, though, so I’m pleased with that.

• Most importantly, I was CONSISTENT! I sent about two emails per month to each of my email lists (clients, shop prospects, shop buyers) and have about seven automated email series active based on email preferences.

So no, I didn’t spend money on ads or random marketing, but dang I marketed. And it worked.

I won’t go into blogging, social media efforts, podcast appearances, volunteering, and in-person networking but those were all a part of my efforts in 2023 as well.

Continuing Education

I prioritized continuing education this year, and it held some great growth and expansion opportunities.

I’ve already talked about my path to becoming certified in website accessibility, but I also attended the Squarespace Circle Day for the first time in 2023. Spending four days in New York City with other Squarespace designers and business owners was incredible. I learned from the experts, got a behind-the-scenes peak at Squarespace's operation, and met the best people! This trip was a definite "out of my comfort zone" event, and I'm proud of how I embraced the opportunity and made the best of it.

Big Wins

Big wins are really personal and subjective, of course. For some, big wins is all about the money. For others, it might be growth, sustainability, or something else.

My big wins for 2023 were:

• Diversified income

  • 2023 was the first year I had four steady income streams that all work in tandem. This was a goal I set a few years ago, and there is no shortcut.

• Financial Freedom and Flexibility

  • My calendar for this year was full of breaks, days off, time with my family, vacations, and intentional work. I have always set my schedule, but this year, I leaned into putting my priorities on the calendar and scheduling intentional work afterward. This approach is a massive privilege (one I’ve earned but still a privilege, I recognize). It means I start my day with at least an hour of exercise before diving into work. It means I pick up my son from school just about every day. It means I protect evening hours and weekends as much as I can. And it means I say no to projects that are not a good fit or aligned with my strengths because I have the financial freedom to work with my best-fit clients. 

• Client boundaries

  • This year was the year of no. No, I can’t extend that deadline. No, I cannot take on work outside the scope of our contract. No, I cannot take your call at 7pm. I held tight boundaries, and my best-fit clients completely respected them.

• Notion project management

  • Ask any business owner how many iterations of project management tools they’ve used, and you’ll get quite the exhaustive list. I settled on Notion early in 2023, and it all clicked. I use it for client dashboards, managing website design projects, and my content calendar. Notion helped me keep all my tasks/notes/ideas in one place, and I love it.

• Collaboration

  • I will always include collaboration under the Big Wins category. This year, I worked with 12 different designers on various projects, from offering copywriting services to design help, custom coding, accessibility audits, and a few strategy sessions. I love it when designers and fellow business owners recognize their strengths and reach out for help in areas where they need a little guidance. I’ve done this many times and find collaborative projects with experienced designers are the most fun!

• Financial Ducks in a Row

  • Early in 2023, I updated my contracts, upgraded my business insurances, and I’m ending the year with a few new bank accounts and updated financial strategies to manage investments, savings, and expenses. This feels like a huge win for the year and has me excited to start 2024 in great shape!

A few failures/lessons learned

This article wouldn’t be a great review if I left this section out. There are always a few failsures, lessons learned, and “dang, I dropped the ball on that,” to mention.

• Lead generation

  The curse of having a booked-out web design business for seven years is that marketing and lead generation often falls to the bottom of my list. I swore I’d do better in 2023 and…I did not. I had a few freebies/lead magnets throughout the year that did okay but I did not promote them, my email sequences were lackluster, and I have no idea how they performed. As a result, I only added about 30 subscribers per month to my email list, well below my potential.

• Wasted money

  I spent money in the year's first half without proper planning or strategy. I tried new tools without really researching them first. I forgot to cancel a trial on software and had to pay for an entire year when I didn't want to use it. I left too much cash sitting in my checking account and lost a lot of potential earnings on interest. Basically, I got lazy. I did course correct at mid-year and, as mentioned above, have prioritized getting my finances in order for 2024. I also decided against a new MacBook (even though mine was "breathing hard") and did a hard factory reset on mine - it's working as good as new again! 

• Missed opportunities

  I did not prioritize writing new articles in 2023, despite knowing it’s the number one driver of traffic to my website. This was just poor time management on my part. Between new clients, maintenance clients, and running the Nonprofit Template Library, writing always fell to the bottom of the list. And because some of my articles continue to perform really well despite being a few years old, I got away with it. I did updated a number of articles, adding new sections and making revisions, but I really wish I had added new content. Needless to say, I have scheduled time for this for 2024 in my content calendar and will make it a priority weekly moving forward.

Where One Nine Design is headed for 2024

• I'll continue providing limited website design for nonprofits and small businesses - typically one client per month. If it's time to refresh your website, prioritize online giving, or finally ensure your website is helping you achieve your goals, please reach out ASAP to schedule a discovery call.

• The Nonprofit Template Library will continue to grow! While I won't be committing to a specific number of additions (12 was insane this year), I do have many ideas for what will be the most beneficial to nonprofits (including exploring an affiliate model so you can benefit from sharing it with others you know). I'm always open to suggestions, too! The price will increase to $199 (still $3 per template!!!) in January, so if you still need to purchase your full access, I recommend doing so before 12/31.

• My email readers will remain a priority. I enjoy writing emails monthly and may increase the frequency (only slightly) when it feels right. I am grateful to those who trust me to be in their inbox – and I want to ensure that every email delivers exceptional value. if you’re not on the list, you can join here.

  That’s a wrap for 2023! If you read an article, received an email, worked with me on a website or design project, purchased a template, or followed along on social media, thank you! One Nine Design is a growing, thriving business because of you. Cheers to 2024!

You might find these related posts helpful…