Functional Web Design – What’s The Cost?
Many of the small businesses we speak to are worried that developing a website will be prohibitively expensive – but it doesn’t have to be!
But that doesn’t mean you should go for the cheapest option available just because you’re trying to save money. A badly designed or broken website will do more damage to your brand than not having one at all.
The best way to save money on a website is to get it right the first time, otherwise you’ll end up paying someone to do it on the cheap and then paying someone else to fix it.
A single page that includes your services, your unique selling point and your contact details is enough for some businesses. Others will require a large site with blogs, an online shop and pages and sub-pages detailing each of their specific products in detail.
It’s important to think about what kind of site would serve your business best. Consider what your competitors are doing and what you as a customer would be looking for from your business’s online presence.
Low Cost/High Quality
Many people think that low cost means low quality, but this doesn’t always have to be the case. Many web design firms will charge you the maximum they think you will be willing to pay rather than base their price on the complexity of the project you have asked them to complete.
In most cases it is possible to create a visually interesting, responsive, fast and effective website on small budget by taking advantage of popular platforms, templates and pre-made plugins. If there is something you want designed for your website, there’s a good chance someone has already made something identical or similar that you can adapt.
What Elements Are Essential For A Good Website?
- A clear indication of your products and/or services.
- Easy to navigate.
- Quick page load speed.
- Measurable calls to action on every page (Contact Us, Get In Touch, Newsletter Signup forms, etc).
- SEO-optimised page titles and meta descriptions to make the site Google friendly.
- Functions equally well on desktop and mobile.
- Easy to update/change in the future.
- Easily shareable on social media through direct ‘Share’ links.
- Trackable with Analytics software to see how successful it is at meeting your website goals.
When we develop websites for our clients, we include all of these elements as standard.
What Makes Website Design Expensive?
The two things that will drastically increase the cost of developing a website are bespoke design and bespoke functionality.
- Bespoke Design
If you don’t want to use a template and instead want a website that looks completely unlike any other, you’ll be paying for a lot of design time before a single line of code ever gets written. The benefit is your site will be truly unique but unless you really have the budget to play with you are usually better of adapting an existing template. - Bespoke Functionality
If your website needs to link with other proprietary parts of your business like looking up price information from your POS or integrating with your stock taking system this can require some serious coding knowhow and the time to properly bug test the system. Whatever you need your website to do, it’s almost always possible but the more unique and complex it is, the more expensive it will be.
Not sure what you need? Get in touch with our friendly, expert team to discuss your options!
