A high-quality website is worth every penny spent on it. Before you can start designing your ideal website, however, you need to develop a website budget that will provide the financial means to accomplish everything necessary to have a high-quality business website.
- It’s your store front: the first interaction many potential customers will ever have with your business.
- It’s your first line of inbound marketing strategy.
- It presents all the information potential customers need to make a decision about your business.
Stage One: DIY Versus Hiring It Done
One way to shave some money off of your website budget is to choose to do it yourself instead of hiring a quality professional. There are, however, a couple of problems with this approach. First, you aren’t a website designer (unless, of course, that is exactly what your business is meant to do). As a business owner, you will wear many hats and accomplish many purposes. A website designer, however, can often offer a higher-quality website design than you’re able to create on your own.
Next, keep in mind the value of your time. If your time is better spent on another task–marketing or creating your product, for example–then it’s well worth the cost associated with developing our website. Make sure to account for the cost of your time when deciding what you have to spend on any project, particularly website design.
Designing Your Website
In order to set a budget that will meet your needs, it’s critical to know several things about your ideal website. Make sure you detail:
- What type of design you want, including the portion of the website that will need to be custom-designed for your needs.
- The unique content that is necessary for your website.
- What functions your website will need to perform, especially if those are different than the standard functions available on every website.
By hashing these out early in the process, you ensure that you have the budget necessary for the website you really want. Understanding where you can cut corners is critical early in the process, before exceeding your budget will force you to make cuts in areas you’d rather not.
Quality and Expertise
When you pay for a website designer, you’re paying for their quality and expertise. It’s not just about their time or the actual costs for the website. It’s also about the end experience–and that’s something you have to take into consideration when setting your budget. Decide what quality means for your website and insist on it through the development process.
Sharing Your Budget
When you’re working with a website designer, your first instinct might be to keep your cards close to your chest. Your fear is that if you give your designer a budget, they will go right up to the end of it, while if you keep it a secret, you might get a better deal.
Sharing your website budget, however, is the best way to get the highest-quality work your website designer can give you. It will ensure that they don’t waste their time offering pricey add-ons that you can’t afford and allow them to spend their time focusing on the elements of your website that are important to you.
Your website is one of your most powerful inbound marketing tools. Don’t leave it to chance! Instead, develop a website budget that will display exactly what you need out of your website and what you’re willing to spend to get it.
Ready to get started?
Contact us today to learn more about how we can help make your website its best.
Speak to the Website Design experts at Pixel Fish
Call us today on 02 9114 9813 or email info@pixelfish.com.au
