Why a Website?
Having a website is vital for any business in the 21st century.
Whether you’re a small home run business or a large e-commerce enterprise, having a website is important for your credibility and visibility to potential customers. Websites can promote products and services or offer them directly to consumers. Most questions customers will have about your business can be answered by the information on your site.
It’s also important for businesses to have websites because they allow you to build
Credibility and trust are built when your website explains your offering, what sets you apart from your competitors, and showcases your experience. Businesses can also use their websites to share information with interested parties, such as the media or industry insiders (influencers), and post press releases that announce new products or company milestones.
Whatever type of business you operate, you should consider adding a website to your marketing mix. Your business can reach exponentially more new customers and it can also increase the return rate your existing customer base too. A website opens many doors for marketing your business and acts as a home base for you and your brand.
Things to Consider Before You Get a Website
What is the website’s purpose?
To inform customers, obviously, but what else would you like it to do?
Sell products
Book appointments
Get contacts/leads?
The website is your oyster. While you consider that, please also start to think about
What affects the Customer’s Experience/Journey?
Your website should flow in a way that introduces your business to customers, while answering their immediate questions. Think of it like the opening scenes of a movie; except instead of 2 minutes, you might get 2 seconds before the consumer makes a decision or judgement about your business.
Customers want to know who, what, where, and when. The why is important, but customers are only going to care about your why if you make them like who your business is—on a whole. So before I rush into the whole branding thing, we should think of the basic tabs, or pages, your website should have.
Contact
Shop
Info
That’s just the tip of the iceberg. But before you dive into anything else, lets outline exactly what type of business you’ll be introducing to consumers.
Do I know my brand?
Your brand is who your business is. A good brand can also portray what you’re about. How the business identity is displayed to customers should reflect how you want them to feel about your business.
Are you tough and reliable? Or cheerful and fun? How you choose and design elements can affect the message your brand sends. Designing them too differently or wild will disconnect and confuse consumers; you want to choose and adjust elements to create harmony and structure for your brand.
Logo
Colour Pallet
Fonts
Imagery
Try and think of these early on. The more effort you put in here, the easier it will be to form the base of a unified theme for your website.
By now most of the W questions customers could ask have an answer. If they don’t, well your contact info will probably be obvious and inviting, should they need more. The next question is for you;
How do you want to create your website? What is your budget?
Website building platforms like Wix and Squarespace are surprisingly easy to get started on. Anyone can make a basic site on there for free. But that’s all it will be, a basic site. If you are a serious business owner, which reading this far down you might be, then you are going to need at least your own domain.
Domain ($10-20/month)
And if you’re going to start investing some money into a website, someone is going to start investing time creating it. Some web builders you can get by with no or low monthly costs—like Google Sites or WordPress—but it’s going to take longer to make, might be more code based, and just won’t look as nice… Customization will be limited and key features you probably want won’t be included.
Standard things for businesses too, like analytics, email collection, shopping, scheduling, etc. I would recommend you add a line in the budget for a web builder plan or plugin. The cost will depend how many capabilities you need and if you pay monthly or yearly; on average I would say $30 but it can really depend.
Web building tool/plan/subscription/platform ($15-50/month)
Now we’re down to the nitty gritty, okay, now what? Now, you make the website! If you’re a professional, you can create a beautiful site, rich with content and sales funnels in about 30 hours. If you’re not a professional, maybe this would take 60 hours; once you account for all the time you spent researching platforms, themes, and tools, teaching yourself those tools, troubleshooting the code you eventually mess up, and searching for best website practice and copy.
Since you’re reading this, I will take a guess that you’re not a professional, and want to budget how much you should spend on it. I personally have two options:
Web Developer Packages (Buy 15 hours for $500)
Web Developer by the Hour (avg $52/hour)
You can get a site up and running in 15 hours. Some areas might be bare bones in terms of copywriting or content. Having these to supply your developer at the beginning will speed up the process and give a better picture of what the final site should look like.
After a basic site is made, I can give you a little run down of backend and what you need to do to continue and manage the site. If you don’t have the time or mental real estate to learn how to manage and fill in the site, that’s what I’m here for!
To learn more about my website process, get a quote, or ask. question, please visit the Web Design page.
Learn more about my pricing strategies and how I compare to the market. Click to Read blog.
