If you are starting a new business or have an existing one and don’t yet have a custom business website design it’s time to start thinking about finding a professional small business website developer.
Searching for a website development firm online can be pretty daunting. There are thousands upon thousands of business website developers online. If you feel overwhelmed you may want to consider going with a local custom website design company. If there isn’t a decent business website designer in your area however then you will need to find a decent developer online.
Before you hire website developer for your small business make sure you are clear on the type of website your business needs. There are a few basic types of business websites and the cost of each can vary greatly. Here are a few of the types of websites a small business may have:
1: Information based website. Information based websites make up the bulk of small business websites online. While it may seem obvious to call a website “information based” the fact is that a website can be just that, but that it can also be much more. If you are a small business that just wants to get their name and business information online for potential visitors to find and then call or email you then an information based site is what you need for your business.
2: Information based website with limited ecommerce. There are instances where a business will need to sell a small amount of items or take a payment over their website, yet they don’t want to spend the money on a full blown ecommerce solution. For instance if you sell a software package but only have three product options you don’t really need a full ecommerce site. Another example would be a singer or songwriter with a self produced CD that they want to sell on their site. Instead of having a full blown shopping cart they could just use a third party payment solution like PayPal. If you want a basic site that tells visitors about your business while offering a few products for sale, then this option is for you.
3: Ecommerce business website design. If you are going to use your website as an extension of your retail business to sell many items online with then you will need an ecommerce enabled website. Ecommerce websites are very complex to establish and are therefore normally much more than expensive than a regular, information based website.
4: Blog or content management business website design. If you need the ability to update your own website often, say through blog posts or by updating the content of your pages daily or weekly, then you will need a website design that is designed either within a blog platform or a content management platform such as Joomla.
There are other types of business websites but most small business website designs will fall into one of those categories. It’s also important to understand the different aspects involved in designing a business website before contacting a business website developer about your small business website development. Here are the key components that EVERY website MUST have in order to function properly.
1: A domain name. Your domain name is your address on the internet. Your business domain name should be as short as possible, should relate to your business name or what you do, and should be registered by YOU. Don’t ever let a website developer or website design company register your domain for you. Whoever registers the domain is who maintains ownership of it as long as they renew the registration each year. Which means if you allow a small business website designer register your domain for you, they own it. There have been cases where unscrupulous website design and development companies have held clients domains hostage to keep them from leaving their hosting services. So be sure to find a good domain name registrar and REGISTER YOUR OWN DOMAIN.
2: A Host. Every website online has a host. The host is a computer or server that is ALWAYS connected to the internet and stores your website design files in a section of their server. In exchange for a monthly fee they make your website available to anyone who enters your domain name by serving your website files to the visitors computer. There are some free hosts out there but they will normally add advertising to your site or force your visitors to view popup advertising. There is nothing more unprofessional than a small business website using a free host. Normally small business website designers will also offer hosting and updating services for your website.
3: Website design content. Your website content is anything that goes on your website, from text, to photos, to scripts, PDF files, anything. Normally when you hire a website development company it will be your responsibility to provide them with your website text content and any photos you want used on the site. Then the website development firm will be responsible for creating the actual graphics, design, and layout of your site. Good website design content is crucial to a great website. If your business website text is vague, hard to follow, or just plain poorly written it will reflect directly on your business. If you do not want to write your own business website copy there are copyrighting firms that can do so for you.
4: A website manager, updater or webmaster. Once your site is online and functioning properly it will need to be updated from time to time to keep from getting stale and outdated. Most website development services also offer website maintenance with their business website hosting packages. The manager will take care of any text updates needed for you site or corrections to your content. They can change out photos, imagery, forms, and any other information or files that relate to your website. There is normally a small monthly fee for these business website update services and many website hosting plans that are managed include monthly updates as needed.
While there are other aspects to build a professional small business website those are the basics and EVERY WEBSITE has to have all of them. Knowing this before you hire business website development company can save you money. Ask what all is included in their small business website packages, ask if any of the above items cost extra, if they do avoid that additional business website design cost by finding a website developer that includes all of these services in their business website package price.
Custom business websites don’t have to be expensive but be leary of any website design and development company that offers a price for business website design that seems to good to be true. Often these are offshore firms that specialize in throwing up business website very quickly using business website templates that they have used on hundreds of other sites. Basically if you are paying to little for a business website expect a cookie cutter website design.
Professional websites don’t have to be super expensive either. You should expect to pay $400 to $800 for a 5-10 page information based business website. That cost may or may not include features such as a custom business logo design, business stationery design, or a full year or so of website design hosting and updating. Website development companies aren’t really able to charge the thousands that they used to get for business related websites due to the fact that there are so many other website design firms competing for the same business on the internet.
Developing a quality website for a business takes skill and experience. Don’t trust your online business image to a first time freelancer, a college student looking to expand their portfolio, or a kid in a cubicle a thousand miles away with no insight in to how business in your country is ran. American website designers know the American market better than Indian website designers, it’s just a fact of location. Small business sites make up a large portion of all the websites online. Make sure yours stands out with a great looking design and easy to navigate pages. Don’t hide your contact information at the bottom of the page make it front and center and easy to find.
Website design development must also include some form of search engine optimization. You can’t have a small business website construction and then just expect people to somehow magically find it. While your collateral and advertising will help it won’t hurt to boost your search engine position. It’s not really that hard to do, especially if your local competition isn’t doing it! While SEO can be a profession all unto itself there are a few simple things you can do to make sure your site is seen by more people on the search engines, Google being the most important.
1: Good text content. Find out what people are searching for to find a business website like yours and then include the phrases they are searching for in your website text. Some new business owners don’t realize that if the phrase people are looking for to find a business like theirs in a search engine aren’t on their site, they won’t ever come up in the search results. It all has to do with search engine relevance. The only way you can make your website seem relevant to a search engine for any given keyword phrase is for that phrase to be included in your website text. You can use a free tool like Google’s keyword tool to search for phrases that relate to your business. Then review the results. It will tell you how many times that phrase is search for in a month, along with other similar phrases and their search results. Go down the list and pick out the phrases that match what you do and copy them. Then add those phrases into the text of your site. Add them in naturally, meaning make them flow within the text of your site. Don’t just stick them at the bottom of your business website in a big long line, the search engines don’t care for that.
2: Regionalize. If you are a local service oriented business proclaim it proudly on your website. There is no point in being so general with your text to the point that people from all over the world find your site. The truth is if you are a local business offering a local service, you want to attract locals! Attracting people from Texas looking for a landscaper when you do landscaping in Tennessee isn’t going to help your business. It’s not always about the number of people that visit your new business website, it’s about the quality of those who visit. If you get 1000 visits to your business website per month but only 10 of them are in your service area, you haven’t helped your business much at all. To make sure you are getting local visitors be sure and list your business city and state prominently on your website, preferably on every page and in the TITLE of your site. Also add your location into some of those keyword phrases we talked about earlier. If you are a local contractor for instance “construction contractor” is not a great keyword phrase but if your in Boston “Boston construction contractor” IS a great keyword phrase. Sprinkle your location as well as other cities you service through out your site. Google will see your site as relevant to a region and service if you include both within the text of your business website design.
Websites for small business are an important part of your business branding and marketing. Make sure your business website is front and center in your marketing. If you spend $1000 on a great looking website and then bury the domain name at the very bottom of your business card in tiny print, you are wasting your money. The same goes for advertising. If you are advertising locally in print ALWAYS include your website. People like to surf and research a local business before doing business with them, so make it easy for them to do so. Leaving your website address off of your small business advertising is like telling the potential customers who read your ad that you don’t HAVE a website, and therefore don’t keep up with technology.
If you are ready to hire a small business website designer please consider the services of
LogoDesign-WebDesign.com we are a professional website design company with over 10 years of professional business website design experience. We specialize in smalll business information based websites and can also assist you with adding a blog, simple ecommerce and much more.
Visit our website today for details or call us toll free at 1-866-539-3266