OK, show of hands- how many of you think of your company as a “website design company”? This article is for those of you who raised your hands. You need to evolve. It won’t be easy, it’ll cost time and money and mean you’ll have to start looking at your business completely differently. But if you don’t evolve, you’ll die.

Here’s the thing: website design is a commodity. That means you’ll find yourself chasing smaller and smaller projects for clients who often rightfully see your company as an easily replaced cog in their marketing machine. Sure, you can point to how your websites look better than the competition, and defend your business to the ends of the earth, but it won’t do you any good. Nobody cares.

Depressed? Don’t be. I’m here to help you evolve how you look at your website design business. Here’s a few tips that will help your web design business evolve into a successful modern enterprise:

1) The web is going mobile, get on the web standards train
Do you know how to build websites that work on mobile devices? What’s your website look like on an iPhone or iPad? Does it have a big ugly gray box where your Flash components should be? Shameful. Embrace web standards in your design work, and make a point to show your clients how having a website that works on mobile platforms is a great thing that massively increases their return on their web design investment. Take the time to educate your clients about how your work actually functions correctly on an iPhone. The web is now everywhere, and now your clients should be, too.

2) Learn video
The web is also going video. YouTube is the number two search engine in the world. A company that can offer solid, professional digital video services to their clients along with excellent, standards-based website design has a leg up on the competition. Now, to make this work you really need to commit to learning video production. Maybe it’s best to partner up with a firm that really gets video. We decided to do this ourselves, and it involved classes at UCLA’s film school, years of short film and web video experiments, and now we’re including video on almost every website design project we’re involved with for clients. The fact that we took the time to learn how to tell a story in video has paid off handsomely in all aspects of our work.

3) Learn everything you can about social media, and how to use it effectively
A website design company that really grasps social media and can learn how to leverage it to their clients benefit is golden. There’s a lot of poseurs and fools out there, so by really making it a priority to be an expert in social media you’ll stand out like a shining beacon.  You could be seen as a superhero, even.

There’s a common theme in these three tips: you need to grow your services and learn how to seamlessly incorporate new skills into your repertoire to stay on top of this business. The truth is, to succeed today you cannot just be a website design company. You need to evolve. Most importantly: you need to become a problem-solver, not just a service provider.

When the web was new, we were always learning new things and constantly figuring out how to use what we’ve learned to help our clients solve their marketing problems. It was normal to constantly innovate and incorporate new skills into projects. This is how we got to be a part of a whole lot of “firsts” including producing the first rock concert on the web, the web’s first live newscast, our virtual reality work for the Olympics, and so forth. The takeaway is when you put out commodity work it’s only natural that your clients see you as a commodity. So don’t do that! It’s kind of funny, having been involved with this industry since its start, but the way to succeed is the same as it was back in 1993: constantly learn, constantly find ways to set your clients apart online. Yes, this costs money. Money that smart clients are almost always willing to pay for expertise beyond that of the great unwashed masses of website design companies that are more like assembly lines than anything else.

A long time ago, I made the decision that we’re not simply selling website design services. We’re selling integrated digital marketing solutions to client problems. There’s a huge difference, and it’s not just in wording- this change took time and lots of money. It took vision and guts. But it’s been a great success for us. You can do the same for your business.

Once you’ve made the commitment to be more than a traditional website design company, the question becomes how to categorize your business as you evolve. You’re now on your way towards providing integrated digital marketing services to your clients, and you need a box that fits your new mindset. My favorite term is Digital Agency, and Interactive Agency works well, too.

Whichever term you choose for your new enterprise, good for you for evolving, and welcome to the new web game. You’ll find there’s a lot fewer bottom-feeders up here, and the work is much more fun and rewarding.