Most people who contact us ask the question: “How much does it cost for a basic website?”
The answer is not simple. How do you define a “basic” website?
Is it one page or 3 pages, or 5? Is it created from a template? Is it built on Wix, or Squarespace, or WordPress? Is it custom designed? Is it built by your cousin, or a web professional? Do you want it to simply exist, or use it as a business tool that is going to help you attract and convert customers?
Regardless of the above, any good “basic” website that is going to serve your business well involves a lot more work than people initially think.
Quite often people are thinking a “basic” website is one that doesn’t have many pages. So they’re thinking of a small website. But in our experience, what people are really wanting when they ask for a basic website is something that costs a few hundred dollars.
Regardless of size, a website is the online representation of your business. Do you really want a cheap website representing your business in the online community, particularly when more and more people are going online to choose products and services? And do you want to miss out on sales opportunities because of a poor performing website?
In this article, we’ll give a brief explanation as to what happens behind the scenes here at Impressence Web Studios when we are building our version of a basic website. We consider our process as the bare minimum for a website in order for it to be working for your business, and not just existing.
Business Consultation
The first thing we do is understand your business and your goals. What you want to achieve in your business determines:
- The content needed on your website
- What your business needs to be able to do on your website
- What your target audience needs to be able to do on your website
- What foundations need to be laid for anticipated future requirements
- What other platforms your website needs to integrate with
Content Gathering
Believe it or not, this can be the longest part of the project and is the cause of 99% of project delays.
But the content – both written and graphical, is imperative to the success of your website, and heavily influences the next phase – Website Design.
We recommend professionally written content for your website. Writing for a website is very different from writing for other mediums. Good website copy will:
- Be easy for everyone to understand
- Convey the benefits of your products/services to your visitors in a way they understand
- Will be strategically written to help your site appear in search engines
- Will be strategically worded to encourage visitors to engage with your business
Even if you are providing your own content, we are involved by providing guidelines and templates to help you produce your content. We also edit that content across your pages for best use and advise when your content is lacking (or too plentiful!).
Website Design
This part of the design process is the part that most people think about when having a website built. It’s the “pretty” side of things – and it’s ultimately what everyone notices most. But the design isn’t just about what looks good (which, of course, is very important). The following considerations are assessed and implemented into the design:
- Your content
- Current design trends to ensure the site looks up-to-date
- Usability so that the site is easy to navigate
- Strategic placement of words, images, and buttons to increase the likelihood of turning visitors into customers
- What appeals to your target audience
- What complements your branding
Website Development
This is where we turn the design into a functional website. At Impressence, we build on WordPress as we believe it’s the best platform for most small businesses, enabling functionality and control to serve you well now and into the future.
Web development also involves:
- Ensuring your website looks right and functions properly across all screen and device types (from large monitors to smartphones)
- Integration with platforms and services (e.g. Facebook, Google Analytics, your mailing list)
- Optimising the site to minimise page loading times
- Behind-the-scenes activities to increase your website’s chances of appearing in search engine results
Testing & Launch
We do thorough testing on websites before they are launched. A website that is consistent (in design and application), functional, and free of as many errors as possible is the best way to present your business in a professional light. After all – how distracting is it when you find an error on a website? It tends to take away the focus of everything else. You don’t want that happening to your visitors!
In this phase of the project we carry out the following activities:
- Testing on multiple screen sizes, devices, and browsers to ensure the website displays correctly
- Proofreading of all text by a professional proofreader
- Checking for design consistencies
- Testing functionality of links, forms, and integrations
Once thorough testing has been concluded, we migrate the development site to the client’s hosting and manage all aspects of setting up and directing domain names.
Ongoing Support
Once a website is launched, it’s only the beginning. Your website is a business tool that should be maintained, updated, and utilised. We offer services to assist businesses in doing just that. We love to see businesses growing by using their online presence to their advantage.
Conclusion
The above is what we do at Impressence Web Studios as a minimum for all of our new website projects.
If you’re serious about building your business and want a website that is going to help you do that, we’d love to chat with you.