No two websites are exactly alike— each come with their own specific goals and requirements.
Maybe your goal is to drive traffic to your site to get more leads from local shoppers.
Or, maybe it’s to educate the public on a topic or matter that's important to you.
You might even have a product(s) that you’re ready to start selling online.
Each one of these scenarios have different requirements your website will need in order to be successful.
Before you start looking at portfolios, or making calls to every web developer in town, it’s important you start thinking about (and I suggest writing down) the goals and requirements you have for your new website.
Once you have a clear understanding of what you are trying to achieve, looking at web design portfolios and filling out contact forms becomes a lot easier— because you already have an idea of what you're looking for.
If you’re not sure where to start, here are a few things you might want to consider.
There are hundreds of possibilities. Your first goal should be to think about all the things you’d like people to do on your website, things that would make your customers happy and/or make your life easier.
One of the biggest fears businesses have when hiring a web dseigner is getting taken advantage of or not being delivered the value they were promised.
That’s understandable, and the web industry has put that burden on itself. Because anyone with an internet connection can call themselves a “web designer” and there have been many bad actors who have made the industry hard to trust as a whole.
Unfortunately there isn’t much standardization in the web industry from a pricing perspective. If you get multiple quotes (and you should!), you’re likely going to find that those prices range drastically from one designer to the next.
You might not have the slightest clue on what things should cost. While websites can range from free (do-it-yourself options) to hundreds of thousands of dollars. Here are some of the average prices for different kinds of websites in the US:
As you can see, even those price ranges vary widely.
Your individual needs and the experience and skills of the designer you choose (more on that in a minute) will be the biggest factors in determining your website’s cost.
Small businesses who are just starting out, wanting to at least have a website to list on their business card, won’t need much functionality. These types of projects are usually less expensive.
Projects that require eCommerce, have a critical need to be found in search engines, or require members areas can become more expensive quickly.
While no one can answer the budget question but you— think about the problems you have and what it would be worth to you to solve those problems. A website that accomplishes its goals can be very valuable to your business.
Keep in mind that websites aren’t just an expense— they are an investment. If you have clear goals in mind (ones that can result in bringing your business more profit) it’s not uncommon for a website to pay for itself quickly (and hundreds of times over).
Many designers will help you effectively use the budget you have and give you reasonable expectations of what they can deliver for you within your range.
At the time of writing this there are 1,744,517,326 websites online right now? That’s about one website for every 7 human beings on the planet.
When the internet was a smaller place, it wasn’t uncommon for a website to get traffic quickly just from being published online. But today, there is a fierce competition for visitors.
Each day around 5 million new blog posts get published— yet somehow you need to attract attention to yours. This doesn’t happen by accident.
Since you started reading this guide more than 10 thousand pieces of content have been published on websites— and that doesn’t account for all the other things posted on Facebook, Twitter, etc.
While all of that sounds like a big mountain to climb, you’re not vying for everyone’s attention— just your ideal visitor’s. When you can identify and focus on just those people, there are a lot of strategies to start getting visits to your website.
You may end up wanting to work with someone to help you drive traffic (like your web designer, social media manager, content creator, etc.) or you may want to do it yourself— but either way you go, you must have a strategy to attract visitors for your website to be successful.
Let’s take a look at a few common ways people drive traffic to their website:
A website that doesn’t get traffic likely won’t produce much value for you (monetarily or otherwise). When you are considering building a website, you need to also consider how people will manage to find it among the billions of websites to choose from.
The day your new website is published isn’t the finish line— it’s just the beginning.
As we’ve talked about with both content and the “build it and they will come” myth, there are ongoing tasks, strategy, and work that will be required for your website to thrive into the future.
Maybe you want to take this on yourself, or maybe you want to rely on a professional that can save you time (and honestly, be more effective).
Let’s look at some of the things you’ll need to consider in order to be a successful website operator.
It's important to realize that most business owners aren’t web designers, and many of them outsource the maintenance and upkeep of their website to a professional— and many web designers offer this as a service.
In fact, because of the bulk-discounts developers can get for many of these costs, sometimes it might even be cheaper to hire a professional for website management than it would be to handle it on your own (not even accounting for the time involved in you managing these things yourself).
The last thing you want to do is leave your website dangling the breeze. I’ve heard far too many stories of website owners who have run into problems when their website isn’t being properly maintained. Their entire investment hanging in the balance— that’s not a place you want to find yourself in.
