I have 2 versions for this story: the usual "this is what I love doing and I have the skills for it" type of answer and a Christian narrative where it's all about faith and obedience to God.
Don't want to read? Just watch the video below.
I've been building sites for ages but I didn't feel like it was something I could do full time until last year.
I've created my 1st site in college, back in 2015 or 2016. We had a Web Design class and we were supposed to build a Wordpress site.
I did well but I wasn't particularly interested in the process.
Then I had to launch and manage my own online store and blog for my 1st small business. I initially run an online boutique and switched to apparel clothing at some point. Check out @swaudeez.ladies on IG if you're curious. I cannot tell you how many times I had to work and revamp my sites. I had a SHOPIFY store and a blog built with WIX.
Long story short, after a while, I made the decision to step back from the ecom field to focus on SEO, which is a skill I've developed while working in web agencies in my early
twenties. And as I was helping florists with their SEO, I noticed that the root of the issue was their sites.
It's impossible to increase a site visibility with poor foundation, no text, unoptimised images and a bad User Experience. So I took my SHOPIFY and WIX knowledge and build websites for them.
To reply to the title of this article, I'm only building websites for florists because 1) I don't mind working with floral backgrounds and images all day long 2) I love anything floral 3)I think my productivity would go down if I'm catering to other industries.
The calling to become a Web Designer was hidden in me for years but I wanted to do things my way till I changed my mindset.
I was saved in 2021 and I knew God wasn't pleased with the way I was running my apparel brand. I was selling sexy clothing to women and rebranded to target an extremely feminine and girly audience on IG. I call them the pink community. My motives were all over the place, my marketing wasn't the best and even though I wanted to impact people with my brand, something felt off. The truth is I wasn't serving anyone except myself. The pink influencers were wearing my branded pink hoodie and that was it.
Then I thought "why not going back to SEO?" I learned SEO while working in Web agencies in my early twenties. So I gave it a try and remembered how annoying it was to work on certain websites. Just to name a few, I worked on painting business sites, home renovation sites, auto repair shop sites, indoor playground sites and motorcycles parts & acessories websites.
It was tiring! The only way to avoid frustration was to niche down and only work for certain people. Then I brainstormed all the feminine industries I could possibly work for. Makeup, fashion and beauty were eliminated straight away. Don't ask me why. I just didn't feel it. And one evening, I found the floral community on IG.
I took a big breath and wondered "do I see myself workinig on floral keywords, flower images, writing content for florists on a daily basis?" And I was like "yeah, why not, it sounds fun"
So I positioned myself to only provide SEO for florists. And it didn't take me long to realize that they were struggling to rank higher on Google because of their DIY websites. And that's why I'm only building websites for florists now.
Now time to talk about my faith in all of this.
I felt like God always wanted me to build websites but my flesh was against it. I've always dreamed of running a successful clothing brand. But as I grew my relationship with God, I noticed that He changed my heart desires. I was too focused on the "world" and its tendencies. I was only working for the money and there was no real deep meaning behind my grind besides that.
I learned over the years that we will NEVER be fully satisfied when we're extremely self-centered. You need to have a sense of purpose in life, otherwise you'll be working yourself to
death without helping anyone.
I view my Web Design work as an act of obedience to God because it wasn't my original plan. The skills were there but I left them dormant because of ego and pride.
If you're a Christian reading this post right now, I encourage you to go back to the Source. Go back to God's intial calling. There's a chance that it's already within you. Dig deep, meditate on
the Word and fast. Please don't be surprised if it's different than what you thought. The flesh wrestles against the Spirit. God knows better.
Use me as an example. I'm finally helping and serving people (YOU) and I know each piece of content I release will eventually reach the right person in need of answers. Ecom and the fashion industry were my dreams but I couldn't help anyone doing that. Respond to that still small voice telling you what you should be doing. Let me end it with this statement
The Holy Spirit of the Lord lives INSIDE of you.
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