If you are like most business owners, it’s easy to get caught up in the excitement of planning your next big thing. The reality is that your website will help you reach your goals faster and easier than any other marketing tool. But how do you know if the agency or designer you are considering will maximize your investment? As you try to balance affordability with value, it’s easy to fall into the cheap website design trap.
A good website should lead to new business, good quality at an affordable price. But it can be hard to find a website designer who does great work at a price that’s affordable for you.
Often, website designers who quote you low prices do shoddy work. But that doesn’t mean you have to pay an arm and a leg for premium website design. Instead, you can get affordable website design by asking prospective website designers some key questions.
The Cheap Website Design Trap Has Two Victims
There are a few things to consider before searching for cheap website design (also known as affordable web design). Many people search online for “cheap web design” only to find out it is not necessary. People who search for “cheap web design” fall into one of the following categories:
- Small business owners with a modest budget who want a website designer who can build a good website for an affordable cost.
- New business owners who want the lowest price possible, without realizing the hidden costs that come with cheap work.
Small business owners
When you’re running a small business, cash is tight. We also understand that a website is essential to getting customers in your door. You can’t afford to pay thousands of dollars for a “good-looking” site. However, you shouldn’t settle for a cheap looking design with bad code.
So, how can you know whether you’re getting a good website or not? Well, you simply need to learn about the features of a good website.
Here are some of the features of a good website:
- The pages load fast
- Website hosting has a 99.99% uptime
- The support team fixes website errors fast
- Website hosting servers aren’t shared with other websites.
- Website content isn’t copied from other websites.
There are other things to look for on a good website, but those are some must-haves.
New business owners
Turning an idea or hobby into a business means you’re operating on a very, very limited budget, if any at all. Often, this is why new businesses use a website builder to get their business online. There are, of course, many design and SEO drawbacks to platforms like Wix and Squarespace, but it accomplishes the main goal of getting online.
Questions To Ask Yourself To Avoid Cheap Web Design
One of the biggest mistakes you can make on a website is not asking good questions of yourself about your website. For example, why do you want a website?
Most people say they want to show up on Google, get more leads, or build a brand. But those are generic answers that don’t really help a website designer or clarify how a website will support your business goals.
When you’re answering the questions below, give clear and specific answers. If you don’t know or aren’t sure of your answer, do some research. A little Googling goes a long way…
Question #1: Why do you need a website?
Again, most people give generic answers about being found online or wanting more leads. But it’s important to be more specific than that about your website goals.
You need to explain how you want your website to help you reach that goal.
For example, if you want your website to get you leads, you can say:
“I want a website that gets me at least 28 leads every month.”
Here’s why that sounds better:
It’s specific, measurable, actionable, realistic, and time-based.
We have clients that have been getting dozens or hundreds of leads per month from their website for the past two years.
That’s the power of a premium website that’s aimed at a specific goal.
Question #2: Who is your target audience?
Another mistake that companies make on their website is not targeting the right audience. Identifying your target audience is the first thing you can do to grow your business. If you don’t know your target audience, how can you offer them a tailored solution? To help more people find your business, you must understand who wants to buy from it.
Every part of your website should be geared toward providing people with a clear picture of your business. Your site’s homepage or landing page begins the conversation with your target audience about you and your services. This reality makes these pages some of the most important areas of your website. Why spend time designing a beautiful site if no one can find your contact information or learn more about your services?
Question #3: What do you want your website to look like?
One of the most important steps in building a web design for your business is to create a style guide of your preferences. This process helps to ensure that you are going to get exactly what you want from the project.
Here are five tips for creating a web design style guide.
1. Understand your brand and target audience.
2. Define the values and themes you want to convey to people.
3. Provide instructions on how your logo should (and shouldn’t) be used.
4. List the approved colors and color palette for your website and brand.
5. Set clear rules for your website’s typography.
Question #4: What do you want your website to do?
Beyond the look of your website, you also want to be clear on your website’s function. In other words, what do you want your website to do?
For example, many of our on-the-go clients get a text message alert for every contact form submission they receive through their website. We programmatically pass values from the form into the SMS alert.
These days, you can do pretty much anything on your website, provided you have the budget to pay for the required labor and integrations.
Another example would be integrating with payment processors and platforms like PayPal, Stripe, and Authorize.net. Many times, these platforms provide web developers with API documentation, which can expedite the process of integrating it into your website.
However, a web developer can look up all of the documentation they need for the integration. Your role is to make sure you’re being clear and specific in your expectations and requirements.
Leave cheap website design and call AMARQUEZ!
At AMARQUEZ, we’re challenging the status quo in web design. Rather than do “everything” like every other digital marketing agency these days, we’ve narrowed our focus to websites. This lets us avoid making web design mistakes that are overlooked by “we do everything” agencies.