In this article I will take you through everything you need
to know to choose a web design company for your small business website. I shall give you design tips, web design package
costs and information on the average cost of a small business website in
2016. So keep on reading.
If you are looking for a new business web design then there
are a few things that you will want to consider before making your purchasing
decision. First lets discuss web design
cost.
Small business average website
design cost
Giving an average website design cost is pretty tricky
because there are so many companies out there that offer web design services
and their final product will range so much in quality. A recent study showed that 46% of people say
that a website design is the number one criteria for determining the
credibility of a company, because of this I would assume that you would want a
quality website built for your business, so for the purpose of this article I
will get rid of prices you may get from people offering lower quality services.
In the past I have worked on websites that cost as little as
£1000 to a website that cost over £700,000.
The £1000 website was for a small family run antiques store, while the
£700,000 website was for a multi national company that had over 15 regions with
different languages, products and content.
The difference in cost is determined in this example by the
functionality of the websites, the number of members of staff working on the
projects and the time taken to finish each website.
Thankfully for you, a small business website design wont
cost anywhere near £700,000. As a rough
figure, in my experience an average
cost of website design for small business in the UK is going to cost
between £1500 and £15,000. There will be
some website designs that are cheaper than the figures quoted and some that are
more expensive, it all depends on the functionality of the websites and the size
of the project.
These numbers may seem high especially for a new business,
but lets use the following example to show why the numbers add up.
Web design for a
cosmetic dentist.
The average cost for porcelain veeners in the UK is around
£5000. In the UK porcelain veneers gets
searched for 1900 times a month. You
also need to take into account that is for one search term, other searches like
cosmetic dentist, teeth whitening, etc all get thousands of searches per month.
If your new website is at the top of Google for just the
term porcelain veneers then you would only need 1 person out of 1900 to
purchase your product and your business would be making an extra £60,000 a
year.
If you could add £60,000 to your business this year would
you consider £1500 to £15,000 cheap or expensive?
Without knowing exactly what you need for your small
business website it is hard to give a more accurate figure, for a more accurate
quote for your business you can [contact us here].
Small business website
design packages
You may have seen some website design companies that offer
web design packages. For example:
·
Web Design package 1 = £500
·
Web Design package 2 = £700
·
Web Design and CMS package 3 = £1000
·
Ecommerce Web Design package = £1500
All of the above are made up but I’ve seen similar offers on
the web. Here at WeeAre we don’t offer
website design packages. We feel that
your business is unique and there is no way that your business for example a
builder in Cardiff, is going to be anyway similar to a Psychiatrists office in
New York City.
Each business we deal with whether it is a small business or
a startup will have individual goals that it wants to achieve with its website. Ultimately you will want more customers, but
you will have to go about acquiring these customers in different ways, therefor
we don’t think website design packages suit our business style or yours.
We also think that website design packages don’t offer
value. Sure most of them are cheap, but
web design packages tend to use the same templates for each site. So your cheap site will look the same as 1000
other websites that the company has built within the last year. Getting your website design right will
differentiate you and your competitors, get it wrong and you will just blend
in, or worse will look untrustworthy.
Companies that offer packages also tend to use the same web
page template over and over, there is no emphasis on quality and if that
template is not search engine friendly then you will struggle to rank your
website in the search engines.
Small business website
design tips
We have discussed cost, web design packages and now we will
give you some tips on what to look out for when choosing a new website design.
Your website has to
be responsive
Responsive website design used to be something that web
design companies charged extra for, now if your website doesn’t work on all
devices then it is out dated. Over 50%
of website visits now come from mobile phones and tablet devices. If your website doesn’t respond to the
devices viewing it then you risk isolating over 50% of your potential
customers.
Here at WeeAre we develop our websites to work on all the
latest phones and tablets as well as desktop computers. This is something we do as standard. You can take a look at some of our [web
design work here].
If losing 50% of your customers isn’t bad enough then you
may want to know that Google themselves will reward responsive websites. According to Google they will favour mobile
friendly websites in the search engine rankings because they provide a better
user experience.
For example our responsive website we built for [Skinhance
Aesthetics] has a user score of 98/100 because of its user friendliness.
[Skinhance screen shot]
Not only will Google reward you but also you will keep your
users happy. They can browse your
content easily without having to zoom in and out to find what they are looking
for. Google estimate that if a user cant
find the content they are looking for right away then there is a 60% chance
that your potential customer will leave and will head over to another site,
your competitors.
Your new website
should collect email addresses
Email marketing is not as glamorous as social media but it
works!
Email marketing is the most effective way of growing your
business. If you want to grow your small business or startup then you should be
collecting emails. The number of
companies that don’t collect potential customers Email addresses shock me.
Over 91% of people check their email once a day. Being a small business owner myself I can say
that I check my emails over 20 times a day, I imagine you are similar to me.
The potential reach of an email is far greater than that of
a social media post. For example your Facebook
or twitter account may have 500-5000 followers.
If you sent out a tweet or Facebook post then only 30% of those people
may see the post. This is due to so many
other accounts posting. It’s estimated
that there are over 350,000 tweets sent a minute.
If you compare that to an email list of potential customers,
then lets say you have 5000 on your list.
If 80% of the emails get through to the customers then you have a much
higher rate of engagement compared to social media.
Email marketing has the highest ROI, According to [exact
target link] for every £1 spent on Email Marketing they average a return of
£33.
All of our websites are set up to collect email addresses
for your business.
Your new website
should be SEO friendly
Without visitors your website just takes up space on the internet.
So many businesses set up their website and then forget
about them. After you, your website
should be your most important sales person.
It works for you 24/7, 365 days a year.
Once your website is set up you should be looking to get a
good ranking on the search engines. One
extra customer a month could mean the world of difference to your small business,
by choosing a website design company that makes search engine friendly website
you are already ahead of the competition.
Combine your search engine friendly website with our [SEO services] then
we can achieve amazing results for your small business.
If you would like to discuss our SEO services and what we
can do for your business then you can [contact us here].
Small Web Design
Company
For a small business owner or a start up you are going to
get more value for your money by choosing a small web design company. For example at web design south wales we have a small team of
5 people. Our staff wear many hats, but foremost we have:
·
A developer
·
A designer
·
A SEO marketer
·
A PPC marketer
·
A Content Creator
By every definition we are a small web design company, but
that is an advantage for you and your business.
You will only deal with a dedicated account manager through the whole
web design process. Your website design
will also be more affordable due to us having low overheads. Our work is also very good and we believe it
speaks for it’s self. You can see some
of click here.
