After well over a decade fully dedicated to web development, I learned a thing or two.

Here are a few thoughts that may be helpful:

Obviously, HTML, JavaScript, and CSS are table stakes.

There are plenty of jobs out there where you only require these, but it's always smart to go beyond the basics.

Don't get comfortable because the money is coming in.

A good way of increasing your value is by adventuring outside your comfort zone.

Whenever you are ready, I'd recommend you look into:

Databases
REST APIs
UX

There's much more, but this is a great place to start.

As soon as you get the hang out of databases and understand how to create a server-side API, you'll be able to cover much more surface.

User eXperience (UX) is the other skill that I which more developers had. (And no, you don't need to be a designer to learn UX!)

If you want to become a freelancer, it will be much harder to get work unless you can build end-to-end solutions.

This is one of the reasons platforms like WordPress and Squarespace are so popular: they give you all you need to build entire web applications.

There are virtually infinite opportunities for web developers. There are also virtually infinite developers chasing those opportunities.

It's going to be hard if you don't stand out.

To stand out, you need to do something different.

Let's see three of the ideas that worked very well for me.

I "specialized" in each one of these three.

These set me apart and reduced my competitors. They ensured a never-ending stream of work.

Idea 1: Page Speed Optimization.

Pick a few companies. Do an analysis of the performance of their site. Share one page with them for free.

What they pay for:

A more comprehensive report
Recommendations on how to fix problems
The work to fix the problems

Every tool I used for this was free (I think they still are.)

Generating reports and recommendations are highly scalable. Fixing the issues isn't.

The main investment is acquiring knowledge about web performance.

Idea 2: E-commerce Integration.

Pick a few companies that aren't yet selling online. Send them a link to a fake store with their own products.

What they pay for:

Integration of the store in their site
Setting up the product catalog
Training their staff

Pick one platform and stick to it. (Shopify is a great candidate.)

This idea is scalable. You can pre-build a lot of it and later load the specific product catalogs really easily.

Even better if you can niche down to one vertical like restaurants or clothing retailers.

Idea 3: Component Catalog.

Build a bunch of small web components that you know are common across different businesses. Send them mockups showing the integration.

What they pay for:

Integrating the specific components
Monthly usage fee for the components

Here are some examples (the sky is the limit here):

An interactive map showing their locations
An image gallery
A PDF generator for users to download documents
A file hosting system
A blog
(The e-commerce component is a spin-off of this idea)

Remember that you don't need to bet everything on a single direction from day 1.

Create different landing pages and see what sticks.

Test and, depending on what works, adjust and narrow your focus.

When I started I made a lot of money turning PSD (Photoshop) files into HTML/CSS pages.

That was the work.

It was very well paid, and there was very little competition.

But it dried up. Today there's very little money to be made doing that.

As tools and frameworks have improved, the work has shifted as well. Turning designs into HTML is very much commoditized today.

This will continue happening.

This will impact the type of work we are doing today, how we do it, and who does it.

The idea is not to panic. Just keep aiming to move your area of influence one step higher.

If you do the bare minimum today, you'll be replaceable tomorrow.

So don't stop.

Hope this helps.

If you want more content on software engineering, machine learning, and adjacent topics, give me a follow. I post threads like this every week.

You can enjoy more of this content here: @svpino.