Should IT contractors have their own website?

Research by APSCo (Association of Professional Staffing Companies) shows that the demand for IT professionals has increased by 28% year-on-year. And our own research into contractor salaries (available in our article ‘Top paying contractor roles’) shows that IT contractors are amongst some of the highest earning contractors, with a Senior IT Manager being able to ask for £525.00 per day.

This is great news if you’re an IT contractor! However, this demand also results in more people choosing to become contractors, meaning more competition for roles.

A professionally presented CV and an optimised LinkedIn profile you can provide a recruiter or hiring manager with a brief overview of your skills and experience, a website highlighting your work may just help you secure your perfect role.

The benefits of having a website

A website enables you to visually display projects you’ve worked on and discuss in more detail your involvement and the results you achieved. In addition to your portfolio of work, you could also use the website as a platform for sharing your thoughts and ideas through a series of articles or videos.

This could lead you to receive more enquires for your services from direct clients or recruiters who have come across your website or who read one of your articles.

Things to consider when building a website

Whether you want a simple one-page website or a comprehensive site, there are some things to consider first:

1. Who will be managing the site? If it’s yourself then you’ll need to build it on a platform which is easy to maintain. There are several on the market but the most widely used are WordPress, Joomla and Drupal.

2. GDPR – Particularly important if you’ll be collecting information through your site. While, Article 30 of the GDPR regulation means that businesses with less than 250 employees aren’t bound by the GDPR regulation but you should familiarise yourself with it by visiting the ICO website.

3. How will people find your website? It’s all well and good having a website but if you plan to use it for business development, you need to think about marketing your site. There lots of options, such as including a link to your website in your email signature, having a link to it from your LinkedIn profile and including its URL on any business marketing materials like business cards.

What costs are involved with owning a website?

You can keep costs down by building your own website (as long as you have the expertise to do so), but you may still have to pay for:

· The domain name

· Website hosting

· An SSL certificate

· A content management system

· A website theme

· Imagery for the website (if you plan to incorporate it in the design of the site)

While some of these may be a one-off cost, you will have to factor in recurring costs for renewing your domain name and website hosting.

Don’t forget that as the website is related to the running of your limited company you should be able to claim some of these costs as a business expense, which can be offset against your Corporation Tax bill.

For further information on business expenses, or to find out about all-inclusive monthly accounting packages, speak to one our Directors on 01962 867550, or send us a message via our website and we’ll get in touch with you shortly.