6 Great Reasons Not To Skimp On Your Website Spend
When it comes to thinking about a new website for your business, it pays to allocate a healthy percentage of your marketing budget to hire an experienced web design agency or specialist. Ideally you should hire a company with an impressive portfolio and glowing testimonials.
Potential clients call us regularly with stories that are the stuff of nightmares. Often they’ve found the cheapest quote available and ended up with a website that’s badly designed, slow to load, unresponsive, difficult to navigate, and has no impact at all. They also often report woefully inadequate service levels throughout the build process.
For most professional web agencies, prices will range from £800 to £1,000 upwards, depending on your exact requirements. A basic 5 or 6 page website at the lower end of the scale would typically still take someone at least 2 or 3 days to design and create. Of course you might need much more in terms of functionality, and in this case the price would increase significantly.
Skilled professionals charge realistic prices to reflect the time involved with creating and building a website. They take pride in their work and create sites that their clients are happy with, and are proud to show to their own customers.
Here are 6 good reasons not to be stingy when it comes to pricing up your website
1. Your website is your global shop window
Your website expenditure should never be an afterthought. As a business owner it’s likely that you will have a budget for salaries, marketing, accountancy fees, rent etc and we would advise you to include your website (including maintenance and development) in your budget. You should never undervalue this key global marketing tool.
2. Your website should have a professional design
Your website represents your business so it’s essential that it has a great design with fresh content and crisp images. An experienced web design agency will consult with you to ensure that your site looks impressive, communicates the right message, and ultimately has an impact on your target audience. It will also be user friendly with very intuitive navigation.
3. Your website requires technical expertise
A web specialist will have the technical skills and expertise to add functions such as an e-commerce facility with secure payment links, an online booking/reservation form, an availability calendar, or styling using clean, well-written code. They will also ensure that it loads efficiently and works properly on all web browsers.
4. Your website will easily be found on search engines
A professional will ensure that your site is fully search engine optimised to maximise your chances of receiving a high number of visits from potential customers and ranking highly in search results.
5. Your website will be easy to maintain and update
A great web designer will ensure that your site has an easy to use content management system so that you can make simple updates yourself if that’s something you’d prefer to do (if not, then your agency would no doubt be happy to update it for you at an agreed rate).
6. You'll be getting great value for your money
The money you spend on your website may initially seem a lot, however when you consider the impact that it can have on your business it is easier to justify. You should consider the value of your website based on the predicted sales/turnover that it may generate for you over time. We encourage you to think about the costs of your product/services and take into consideration the potential revenue that the initial and on-going investment in your website could bring in.
Of course you can try to build one on your own, but unless you have design and programming skills or experience it could take you weeks or even months to create, and it’s unlikely that your website would have the impact that it would if you hired a professional. And of course if you’re spending weeks or months designing and building your own website you won’t be focusing on your business or utilising your own skills.
Doesn’t your business deserve the best website it can have?
For further information on our services, please feel free to contact us.