We get it.
Running a business is all about spending your money wisely and investing where it truly matters.
If you’re in need of a website that will truly wow your market, going for the most affordable custom website design option might just be a waste of your hard-earned cash.
We’re not saying you have to sacrifice an arm and a leg to see results online – but we’re saying you have to invest smartly.
So, you have a business website. It’s not great… it might be old or a DIY project done by a non-professional.
All good – just realise this: if you expect real results and to build trust with your target market, your mediocre website just won’t cut it.
Investing in digital advertising might get you seen online, but using an ad to send people to a website that does not inspire trust might just break that trust on the first go, and it’ll do your brand image more harm than good.
If you need a new business website, your best bet would be to engage a full-service website agency that considers and delivers a full suite of services and that focuses on the three key elements that make a website work:
The following elements are non-negotiable in creating a powerful digital brand and evidence-based UX and in generating traffic.
Strategy
Oftentimes, paying an outside specialist is useful to see things objectively and develop a great strategy to achieve a certain goal. This goes for so many things in life! (Isn’t that why we pay fitness instructors, accountants, life coaches, psychologists and tutors?)
The same goes for website strategy. If you want an effective website that acts like your hardest-working employee, it needs to start with a solid plan.
You need the help of professionals to define a bulletproof digital strategy and craft a strong brand message that the pages on your website can then bring to life.
Doing a deep dive into your business goals and analysing your market is a great start at refining a strategy for your website build.
Without a clearly defined strategy and proven process, your website will lack substance and brand direction, and you’ll miss the opportunity to truly connect with the people you want to talk to.
An optimised user journey
With so many do-it-yourself graphic design platforms out there, these days every man and his dog can deliver a pretty design. But this might not be good enough if you’re trying to build a professional website that works.
When it comes to the look, feel, information architecture and user journey on your website, the smart thing would be to hire a design and UX specialist to deliver a result that is right for your industry, based on rock-solid research.
Building a great UX for your website cannot be ‘slotted in’ during a cheap, off-the-shelf website build project.
The hard truth: Google will quickly notice if your website is too difficult to navigate and penalise you for it. We want none of that!
Coding
Off-the-shelf websites may look pretty from the front, but it’s the coding in the back-end that can make or break your website.
Unfortunately, quality coding is NOT something your website will have when you pay the cheapest price possible.
If the code is messy, your website will be hard to work on and it will not run properly for the end-user.
Maintaining your website and fixing bugs are expensive, so poor-quality coding will cost you a lot of money.
It will also be pretty hard for your website to rank on search engines, no matter how pretty it is to look at or how interesting it is to read.
It’s crucial that your website developer uses quality coding right from the beginning. This takes time and high-level expertise, which is why it’s a worthy investment.
Content
Now, we’re going to hit you with the hard truth: unless you’re a trained digital content producer with knowledge of SEO and best practices… you shouldn’t be touching the content on your website.
Why does professionally written content matter so much for your website?
SEO
SEO, in short, is anything you do – any form of improvement or optimisation – to increase the quality and quantity of traffic to your website. It’s all your efforts to tell Google that YOU are the authority in your field and it needs to send users to your website to solve their problems.
In our experience, paying someone to retrofit SEO to your website is a waste of money and time.
There’s no such thing as “adding SEO” to your website. SEO is a necessity that is smartly woven into each aspect of the website build process… which is why a consolidated website design approach is the best way to go.
Considering all the above, it’s clear that you cannot cut corners on the most important elements of your website development. There are, however, certain things you can do to make your new website as affordable as possible.
Sleek and simple
Working with your website strategist to streamline your business services or offerings will ensure a sleek and simple website design with uncomplicated menu structures and no unnecessary pages.
If your developer builds your new website with the capability to add pages and elements like video in the future (which they should, really – ask your strategist), then you can start small with the goal to grow as your business does.
A staggered content plan
Consider slowly increasing ongoing professional content marketing as you can afford it. Maybe start with a bi-monthly blog added to your website and a quarterly newsletter at first, and build up to two or even four blogs per month with a newsletter campaign, a social media strategy and digital ads to expand your reach. This will strengthen your Google ranking over time.
Go in prepared
Making sure you understand the process and that you are happy with the proposed strategy before it kicks off will ensure a smooth build. Changes mid-way through will cost you more – so be pedantic in the beginning, and then stick to the plan!
Stock first, then custom
Adding elements like a photo shoot or video production for your website is wonderful for brand recognition but can also significantly increase the cost of the website. You don’t have to do all this from the start. Your website strategist will most likely include stock media as part of your build. Make use of this until you have enough resources along the line to build your own arsenal of business imagery and videos.
Cutting corners in your website development process might save you money at first, but so many of our current clients have burned cash this way before and have had to reinvest in a new website.
Engage a professional, full-service website agency now for sustained growth. Contact our friendly team at Brilliant Digital today to start the conversation.
Our team has the skills and expertise to help your business develop a strong digital presence and increase its market share.
Let’s start a conversation today about becoming your digital growth partner.