Year: 2007

Building a Website On a Budget

As a web designer one of the most common questions I’m asked is “how much does a website cost?”. Unfortunately the answer isn’t that simple and my answer usually is how long is a piece of string. The cost of a website is determined by your requirements. A small four page brochure website will be significantly less that a website that sells 4000 products online. You’ll also find the costs vary from one web design firm to another.

When building a website on a budget it’s important that you spend time researching your requirements and planning your website. This will help give both you and your web designer a clear idea of what you are after and what steps to take to ensure a successful online presence.

Define Your Online Goals

The first step in building your website is defining your online goals. What do you want your website to do for your business? Is your goal to sell online, collect leads, inform people or to promote your brand? You may have more than one goal for your site.

So what are the goals of your website?

  • To sell online?
  • To collect targeted leads?
  • To provide information about your products and services?
  • To brand yourself?
  • To provide customer support?
  • To entertain?
  • To build a community?
  • To receive advertising revenue?
  • To reduce printing and mail out costs?

Everything about your website should be geared towards achieving these goals. When deciding on the goals, keep in mind that not all goals need to be achieved at once. It’s often a good idea to prioritize your goals to ensure they are achievable within your budget. For example, you want to sell women’s fashion online but your budget will not initially cover a whole e-commerce store. Consider starting with a site that provides reviews of your latest fashions, a newsletter for people to sign up to, contact details and directions to your offline store. As your site grows in popularity you can add additional features. A really good web designer will have insights into how you can build a website that can scale and support your long term goals. Defining your goals is the first step in realising a successful website. The clearer your they are the better the strategy you will develop, and the easier it is to measure your online success.

Look At Your Budget

Once your website’s goals have been defined it’s time to start looking at your budget. When building your website you’ll need to looks at all the costs involved including the website design, content creation, website hosting and the promotion of your website.

The design of your website can include logo design, graphic creation and photography, such as product photography. Take a look at your current marketing materials and determine what can be used on your website and what will need created from scratch. It’s important to keep in mind that your online image should reflect your offline brand. This can be achieved by using the same logo and colour schemes as well as utilising other elements used in your existing marketing materials.

Content creation more simply refers to the text on your website. This text includes information about your business and the products and/or services you offer. Are you able to write this text yourself or will you require someone to do it for you? The text on your website will also have an impact on your search engine rankings. Incorporating keyword phrases that people would use to search for your products and services should be included within your text. This is part of what is known as Search Engine Optimisation (SEO). It’s worthwhile discussing this with your web designer. Many web designers offer this service or if not should be able to recommend a specialist firm. If you have the time you could also read up and have a go at doing this yourself. At the end of this articles are list some resources to get you started.

Look At Your Website Hosting Options

Your next consideration is choosing a website hosting provider. There are hundreds of thousands of website hosting providers which can make choosing the right one a daunting task. When researching your available options keep in mind the following:

1. Reliability
2. Speed
3. Storage Space
4. Scalability
5. Support

Once again your web designer should be able to help you choose a website hosting provider to suit your budget and requirements.

Website Promotion

The final consideration in developing your budget is the promotion of your website. A common mistake is the assumption that if you build it they will come. Not so. The internet is huge, and growing every day, if you want people to visit your site you need to promote it, just like you would an offline business. Website promotion can include a multitude activities including:

  • Search Engine Optimisation (SEO)
  • Pay Per Click (PPC) Advertising
  • Link Building
  • Newsletter Creation
  • Blogs
  • Promotions
  • Forums

There is far too much to cover here but I’ve provided some references at the end of the article to get you started.

When it comes to setting your online budget I often find it’s better to look at your budget in terms of what you are prepared to spend in the first 12 months as opposed to just budgeting the initial development of your website. By having a budget for the first 12 months you and your web designer can look at the best way to allocate your money. It may be that you spend 60% building and hosting your website and the remaining 40% to promote it.

Talk To Potential Web Designers

Once you have defined your website’s goals and set a budget it’s time to start talking to potential web designers.

Don’t be afraid to let the web designers you’re talking to know what your budget is. Even a ballpark figure is better than keeping them in the dark. Any professional web designer will work with you to ensure that you get the maximum bang for your buck. By keeping your budget quiet they have no way to ensure they are giving you their best possible advice or recommendations. Consider the analogy of buying a car. If you’re in the market for a new car you need to give the salesperson an idea of what you are prepared to spend and what you want in car so they can make the best recommendations. It’s the same when building a website.

When talking to potential clients I always say when choosing a web designer – don’t just go with the cheapest designer. Go with the one you can relate to. The one who makes sense and seems to be on your wavelength. As long as your budget is reasonable a professional web designer should be able to work with you to develop a successful solution. You and your web designer should be a team working toward the mutual goal of building a successful website within your budget. The more you work as a team the more likely that your end product will be a success.

Summing It Up

In conclusion in order to build a successful website on a budget you need to spend some time developing your site’s goals and setting a realistic budget that will allow you to meet those goals. Armed with this knowledge you are ready to choose the right web designer who can help you realise your vision and help you build a successful website.

Kim Krause Berg Talks SEO and Usability

My friend, Kim has a great video interview out talking about SEO and Usability. Kim is a great proponent on ensuring a website is usable once a visitor lands there. As she says there’s no point in being number 1 in the search engines if visitors can’t find what they’re looking for on your site.

Kim also talks a little about the start of Cre8asite Forums, my home away from home. It’s a great interview and well worth a look.

Pricing Web Design Projects

There’s a great post over at Blue Favor on Pricing Web Design Projects. The post is excellent and definitely deserves a read. A couple of points I really like:

A crucial problem to accurately pricing projects is that proposals happen so early in the process, as the vendor we only have a couple of meetings, phone calls or a document to understand the project. We do our best to come up with a fair and accurate price, but it often feels like a shot in the dark.

This is something I have grappled with for years. To be able to give an accurate idea of price you need a clear idea of what the client is after. And to know this you need to spend time working with them to determine their goals, requirements and strategy. Which brings me to the next point in the post:

Though every book I’ve read on the topic of pricing says to never ever ballpark, I have a tendency to do so. If they can’t disclose the budget I typically try to start throwing a few numbers from previous projects to help gage the scope of what we are talking about, call it a good faith effort to start the discussion.

I too often do this, partially for the reasons above. Ideally I like to get a budget but that is not always possible. If not I try to do a rough scope of the project and give the client an idea of costs. If we’re on the same wavelength we take it from there.

The post also goes on to talk about determining hourly rates, quoting by the hour or project and tips for clients when pricing a web design project. Definitely worth a read, and an addition to my feed reader.

Five Reasons Why I Blog

The lovely Bill Slawski from SEO By the Sea has tagged me in a new blog meme: Five Reasons Why I Blog. Thanks Bill. 🙂

Ok, so why do I blog?

I was Pushed Into It

Ok maybe that is a bit harsh but I was encouraged to blog – it was tied into a blog design project ThinkProspect was doing for a client. Admittedly I had heard of all the benefits of blogging but just hadn’t found the time to start my own. I’m now very grateful for the push.

I Love Blogging

Since that early push I’ve discovered I really, really love blogging. It took a while to get the hang of it all but now I love it. It’s a great creative outlet and usually gives me a nice push on those mornings I’m finding it hard to get going.

To Improve My Writing Skills

This has almost been a side benefit but I’ve found blogging has really helped my writing and finding my own voice. Something I felt I had struggled with previously.

To Communicate with Clients and Prospects

Blogging has been a nice way to communicate with clients and prospective clients. In particular prospective clients can get a feel for me and ThinkProspect before they even pick up the phone. I’m amazed at how many people have come to us after reading and liking the blog.

To Educate and Inform

I’ve had so many wonderful people help and support me over the years it’s great to give back to others. I’m also so appreciative for all the comments I get for the blog. It means a lot to me to know people are enjoying it and talking about it.

Here are the 5 people I’d love to hear from:

  1. Miriam Ellis-Loraditch from SEO Igloo Blog
  2. Li Evans from Search Marketing Gurus
  3. Darren Moloney from On SEO Pond
  4. Barry Schwartz from Search Engine Roundtable
  5. Pierre Far from eKstreme.com

    The Worst Thing an E-Commerce Site Can Do

    My husband is trying to order some decent products online. He’s made his selection, provided his details, given them his credit card info and submitted his order. The page then hangs and hangs and hangs and hangs. Re-submitting does exactly the same thing. He’s given up and gone elsewhere.

    I wonder how many e-commerce sites put through dummy orders just to test their system. In the bricks and mortar world you make sure you unlock your door each day. The same should happen online.

    Successful Keyword Research and Selection

    I come across a lot of people who are under the assumption that a website must be optimised for their one main keyword phrase only. Nothing could be further from the truth.

    Your website should contain hundreds of keyword phrases all targeting variations of the sorts of words people would use to find the products and services you are offering. As a rough guide focus on one or two phrases per page.

    You can also use this approach to target both competitive and not so competitive terms. For example the keyword phrase “blue widgets” may be extremely competitive whereas “buy genuine blue widgets” is far easier to rank well for. By combining both on a page you can effectively target both competitive and non-competitive keyword phrases. You may rank quite quickly for the non competitive phrase, whilst ranking well for the more competitive phrase might take more time and effort.

    So now you know how to approach distributing your keyword phrases but how do you know what the right phrases are? This is where keyword research come in.

    Start with reviewing your marketing materials and talking to staff to get an initial list of phrases used to describe your products and services. You should also look at what industry jargon is used and what words your clients and customers use to describe your offerings. Use these words to form a seed list.

    You now need to research those phrases. There are a number of keyword research tools out there that can help you do this. This research can help you determine how popular and competitive a keyword phrase is and help you choose the best ones for your website. Here are some great keyword research tools you may want to try:

    • Word Tracker – offers a free trial as well as paid subscription options.
    • Keyword Discovery – also offers a free trial and monthly subscriptions.
    • Google also have a great free keyword tool to help you find relevant phrases for your website.

    These tools will help you come up with a comprehensive list of appropriate keyword phrases for your website.

    Finally nothing beats testing. Analyse your website’s visitors and work out which keywords are performing for you. Ongoing tweaking and adjustments will help ensure you are targeting the right keyword phrases and getting targeted traffic to your website.

    Copy – the Overlooked Element of Web Design

    There’s one element of designing a website I find constantly overlooked – the copy, or text, or to put it more simply the words on the page. Even when I go to great pains to explain that a website needs compelling, easy to read text it takes ages to get little, if any copy to add to the site.

    I think one of the reasons for this is for most small businesses a website is the first time they’re marketing their business in a medium that allows you to add lots of copy. Think about it – most traditional advertising mediums charge by the column centimeter (or similar) so for much of their advertising there is only a small space to work with. A website changes that, and with unique compelling content (eg copy) helping your search engine rankings suddenly copy is really important. Not that it wasn’t before but you get my drift.

    In initial discussions many prospective clients say they’re happy to provide the copy. But when it comes to the crunch it is often easier said than done. Which I understand. Most of them are busy enough running their businesses without having to sit down and put together pages of copy. It’s also not something they usually have a lot of experience with.

    These days I find the easiest solution is to write the copy ourselves. As we usually optimise the website as well as build it it works out well. We’re able to write keyword rich, compelling copy that is beneficial to both visitors and search engines. It makes our lives easier and our clients can get on with the job of running their business. Which is what they do best.

    The Benefits of Business Blogs

    Many of my clients are starting to pay attention to blogs and wondering if perhaps they should be blogging themselves. My answer is always a resounding yes!

    Running a business blog has many benefits. Here are just a few:

    • Blogging is a great way to communicate with clients, customers and prospects. Whether it be talking about new products or services, company news or resolving an issue, you can communicate on a level not seen before.
    • A blog give you a voice which in turn gives readers an idea of who you and your business are. Your goal is to then engage them enough to want to do business with you.
    • Blogging can help position you as an expert in your industry.
    • Blogs attracts links and can help you in your search engine rankings.

    There you have it, just a few reasons why a blog can benefit your business. I’m sure there are many more so feel free to post yours in the comments.

    Pretending To Be What You Aren’t

    I’ve been in business for a while now and one of the things that frustrates me the most is companies businesses trying to pretend they’re bigger than they really are. I’m sure you know the ones – a one person operation with a “Head Office” and “CEO”. Now I’m all for professionalism, and creating a good impression, but in my experience businesses that pretend to be larger than they are often come across as contradictory, if not fake. “Hmm, you have a head office, CEO and CTO but the same person seems to do all your communication. Weird…. Think I’ll move on.”

    Back in the nineties (ooh I love that) people didn’t seem so tolerant of small businesses and particularly businesses that were run out of a home. I know I lost some work back then just from being perceived as too small, or god forbid a “home business”. Not that I minded, if someone made a judgment based purely on where I worked we probably wouldn’t have been a good fit anyway.

    These days I don’t see a business’s size or where you work being such a problem. In fact in many situations being small can be an advantage. The client gets personalised service from a company that can think quickly on it’s feet.

    This brings me back to my point – stop trying to be something you aren’t and embrace what you are. The more authentic you are the more appealing you’ll be.

    Besides, didn’t you know, Small is the new Big. 😉