Website design, as well as your online presence, is something your small business can not afford to cut corners on. If you live in the Accord area and are looking for a New York-based website designer, contact Shawn Tooley today at 315-307-3359.
Whether you’re a entrepreneur starting your first business or you’ve owned a small business for decades, one thing is absolutely true: the success of your small business depends on maintaining a continual flow of new customers. In this age of digital business marketing, it is clear that a professional website design is most certainly the cornerstone of your overall marketing plan. Small businesses who value and use a professional website and social media presence attract more customers. In short, you want to ensure that your small business is visible in places where people are spending their time.
Web design companies across America are working 24/7 to help small businesses get found online. According to a recent study at MIT, the average consumer spends over three hours online per day using a combination of search engines and social media.
According to Google, there are 63,000 search queries done per second in 2018. Therefore, the average consumer in Accord may perform multiple online searches per day – don’t you want your small business to show up in a search result for your product or service? Yes! Continue reading for more information on what is involved in professional website design and the benefits of incorporating a website design into this year’s marketing budget.
Statistics overwhelmingly show that a small business who has a professional online presence receives far more business opportunities than a small business who uses older marketing techniques like newspaper, radio, or television advertising. We’re positive that reaching customers in Accord is easier with professional website design.
Responsive Web Design — What Is It And Why Does It Matter?
Responsive web design, in lamens terms, means everything displayed on your small business website will look good regardless of what people are using to view your site.
A long time ago people could only viewed websites from desktop computers. Most monitors were between 15 and 22 inches wide. With that said, nearly all websites were made so that they would look great on a desktop monitor. However, with the introduction of tablets and smartphones, a awesome web design needs to look great on all devices. This is where responsive web design technology shines.
Today’s mobile devices have much smaller screen sizes than their desktop counterparts. This means that in order to display website content properly, the website items most likely need to be rearranged. In the example below, we show the services offered by a contractor. For a standard desktop or laptop monitor, the viewer will see these services listed horizontally.
When viewed on a smaller screen, the website content needs to adjust and scale itself to be readable by the viewer. So in this example, each of the three columns of services would be displayed vertically for readability. This adjustment happens automatically with a good responsive website design.
Responsive website design isn’t optional it’s mandatory. When you hire us (in city) to build your website, you need to be sure that responsive website design is included in the company’s website design services. If they don’t have a web design portfolio that includes responsive design, find another website designer in city to be your small business website designer.
Website Design Pages – What Information Should I Include?
Website design doesn’t have to be confusing or complicated. There are 16 fundamental pages to a great small business website design. We’ve taken the time to discuss each one of these website design page necessities below.
Home Page
Your website starts with a home page. This is your primary “overview” page and should provide specific information about what your small business can do for your customers. Website home pages are meant to give visitors a solid overview of what they are going to find on your site.
Products / Services
Websites that build a separate page for each product or service and add details about each convert very well. It’s a good idea to start each page with a brief summary of the product/service and then write as much information as you can. Remember, if your website pages are too long, you can always break it up into additional pages or add graphics to the page to help. Websites that lack content typically perform badly. Your customers are trying to find information and they want to get that information quickly. They don’t want to wait until tomorrow when they can speak to you on the phone. The more information you can provide about your products/services, the better.
Contact Us
Professional website design includes many different places for your contact information. It shouldn’t be hard for your customers to contact you. Create a stand alone “Contact Us” page, include all of your details in an “About Us” page and it is also recommended to add your name, address, and phone number (called a NAP) to the bottom of each page on your website.
Pricing
One of the most important things you can include on your small business website which displays your pricing. It is fine if you can’t be specific, provided you can put a price range. Example: professional website design starting at $500.
Testimonials and Product Reviews
Web design agencies often build websites that include testimonials. Building trust with the viewer is important and a testimonial from your current customers can show your soon to be clients that you are reliable and trustworthy! We recommend that you make it a point of every customer interaction to have your happy clients leave positive reviews on your Google and Facebook pages from their home computers a day or two after working with your company. Simply send them an email and direct them to the best place to leave a review.
Frequently Asked Questions
Your Customers will have questions!
FAQs have proven to be a huge timesaver for many small business owners. Nobody likes to answer the same question repeatedly – so investing in a FAQ now saves you loads of time later.
Inquiry Form / Contact Us Form
We hope you have a mailing list for your customers in Accord? If not, get one ASAP. Email marketing is affordable and very, very effective. To start, most people don’t like giving out too much personal information, so ask for only the basics: Name and Email Address. Then, once every week or so, send an email to your customers and include information that may be of interest to them.
About Us
As we mentioned earlier, customers enjoy information about your company. The about page is a very important page as it tells your customer 3 key elements.
- Who you are.
- Why they need your service/product.
- Why they should trust your company.
If you own a physical retail store in Accord, you should also include a photo of your store as well as your business hours. Many small business owners include their mission statement or purpose on this page, information and photos of their staff, professional biographies and qualifications, recently completed projects, and more.
Policy Pages (Privacy, Refunds, Terms of Service)
To make your customers feel more comfortable when making a transaction at your website, you should provide them with your return/refund policy. Try to avoid legalese and technical terms and spelled out step by step. Privacy continues to be a major issue for customers shopping online. They often have concerns about how their information is going to be used. This has shown to be a major barrier when making a sale. The Internet shopping experience is built on trust and privacy is the number one ingredient in trust.
Blog
Here we are: the most challenging portion of a website design for most small business owners, their blog pages. Let’s be real: if you’re not a writer – you don’t like to write.
A blog is basically a series of articles that are available on the web which have to do with the niche that your small business falls into. Blogs are normally updated quite often using software that helps people without experience in blogging to keep their blog updated. Blogs are a wonderful tool as they help with SEO, communicating important information to your customers, and adding additional content to your website to help you maintain authority over competitors. Website designers in city often have content writing services available to their customers to help them keep a weekly blog up to date.
Photo Gallery
Do you have photos of your Accord business? Excellent! The term “a picture is worth a thousand words” was coined well before the internet was imagined … but now more than ever – it’s importance is visible. Your small business website HAS TO include a photo gallery of some sort. It is very important to how your products or services are being appreciated by your customers.
Site Map
Even though this page typically isn’t viewed by your customers, it’s a must have for popular search engines. A site map is similar to a table of contents. A sitemap instructs the search engines about the content that you have on your website so that they can find it easily and when it was last updated.
Website design, as well as your online presence, is something your small business can not afford to cut corners on. If you live in the Accord area and are looking for a New York based website designer, contact Shawn Tooley today at 315-307-3359.
Website Design Timing – How Long Should It Take?
Small business owners typically only to know two things about web design: how much does it cost and how long will it take until we launch the website? Professional website designers in city will often use plugins and software for your website that can speed up the process of building a website.
When web designers first started designing websites, they hand-coded page upon page of content for small business websites. This was a very boring and difficult process. Veteran website designers felt burdened and therefore charged a hefty fee to compensate them for the many hours building these HTML websites.
Web designers today incorporate content management systems (CMS) into website design so that they can easily add additional pages, color schemes, font choices, and provide all of your website pages a consistent look and feel. A popular CMS such as WordPress can cut development time in half and save you lots of money.
Many website specialists have a structured process, splitting their web design projects up into multiple phases.
For example:
Phase One: Discovery – they learn as much as they can about your small business before starting a design. This process can take anywhere from a day or two to a week.
Phase Two: Website Design Mockup – usually performed in Adobe Photoshop or as a wireframe. This phase of web design can take a week to finish.
Phase Three: Website Design Alpha / Beta – an unpublished first draft of your website, which can have multiple revisions. This can feel like the longest phase and can take anywhere from a few days to a few months, it just depends on the size and scope of the project + the functional elements.
Phase Four: On-Page Optimization – SEO is an important part of your website the process of making sure that all of your photos and pages are SEO optimized for search engine standards. While this can add more time to the project – many parts of this phase is completed during phase three of this example. Phase four typically takes an extra week.
Estimated overall time to complete a website (after content is received):
5 page website = 14 days | 10 page website = 21 days |20 page website = 35 days
Website Design Prices – How Much Will it Cost?
For many, this is the deal breaker: how much will this all cost? Honestly, this may surprise you. Website design has a wide range of professionals who charge a wide range of prices. Some developers charge a $x/month fee while others quote each and every job as a unique customized project with seemingly high price tags.
Here are some numbers that we believe are fair to both small business owners and developers as a flat fee:
5 page website = $1500 | 10 page website = $2000 | 20 page website = $2750 | Ecommerce Websites = $3000+
North Country Design offers SIMPLE Flat-Rate Pricing!!!
Website design, as well as your online presence, is something your small business can not afford to cut corners on. If you live in the Accord area and are looking for a New York based website designer, contact Shawn Tooley today at 315-307-3359.
Here are our prices for Fully Managed Website Design in Accord for flat rate monthly fees:
Landing Page = $99 down & $59/month
5 page website = $200 down / $199/mo.
10 page website = $500 down & $199/mo.
20 page website = $1,000 down & $199/mo.
Note: $199 monthly fee includes all system updates, 1 new blog written monthly, cross-posted to Facebook, Google, & Twitter accounts.
We understand that budgeting can be tough. Give us a call and talk with us about it. We’re reasonable. We can help most people get started.
Website Design and Social Media Channels
Starting in 2021, people all over the world will spend more time browsing online than they will be watching TV, according to new data from measurement company Zenith. Most of that online time will be spent split between searching Google for information, shopping online, and using social media channels.
As a small business owner you should incorporate a couple of social media channels into your marketing plan so that you’re able to reap the benefits in both Google and your customer loyalty.
According to SproutSocial – 73.4 percent of social media users follow local small businesses because they’re interested in their products or services. Beware: 46 percent of social media users will unfollow a brand if they’re posting too many spammy messages.
It’s very important that your marketing messages are written so that they’re valuable to your customer without screaming ‘Click Here To Buy! every day.
Social media is important when you’re running a business in Accord. Professional website designers like to incorporate social media links in their website design because Google has specifically stated that social relevancy is important for ranking. When you post on Facebook, Google, Instagram, or Twitter – a social signal is noticed by Google.
Planning your message in advance is not only super beneficial to your customer engagement… but also to your overall SEO. When people arelooking for products and services in Accord can easily find your small business.
Website Design and Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
Creating a web presence for your small business is very important but in order for it to help your business get more calls, your website needs to be seen in search results very often.
The phrases that people search for in Google (ex. Professional website design) are referred to as keywords. Whenever searches are carried out using your particular keywords, ideally your website should appear.
Websites that do not appear on page one of Google results when people carry out searches are basically irrelevant. Ensuring that your site is positioned very high for specific keywords is the primary purpose of SEO. SEO is hands down a critical role in web design.
Value of SEO
Website Development and SEO work together. Today, more web designers are choosing to integrate SEO when designing websites. Let us state again how important it is for small business owners to not only be aware of how important SEO is in terms of their website design – but the exponential value it adds to the lead generation process.
You see it’s all about traffic. If your website design is compatible with SEO, it is likely to draw more traffic. A website can look good and represent your business splendidly … but if nobody ever views it, then what’s the point? If it is not search-engine friendly, you are stripping the ability of Google to access your content and rank you accordingly for your products and services.
Choosing The Best Small Business Website Designer
Are you ready to hire a website designer in Accord? Here are some things to keep in mind:
Web Developers should want to get to know you, your business, understand your audience, and establish your marketing goals. How can they possibly design a website that reflects your brand if they’re not taking time to build a professional relationship?
Do they have an structured, systematic planning process (remember above where we discussed website design phases?) that helps lead you through the design phases. A trained website designer will usually have all of these things clearly laid out.
Ask them what they know about SEO and online marketing. They should be creating a properly optimizedsite that strategically incorporates SEO into the development process.
Remember, a good website design expert is as valuable to your company as a Master Jedi!
Ask your developer for a very detailed quote with every cost listed clearly and with zero surprise charges after the proposal is signed. Be sure to ask what they accept for payment Are you invoiced weekly or do they work on a milestone basis?
Talk to clients they have worked with to see how smooth working with them on a website design project was. Ideally you will want to work with who has great design skills as well as good project management skills.
Ask them about website maintenance. Do they update the website after it’s designed? If you’re going to handle updates yourself, ask them if they’ll design your site in WordPress so that it is easily maintained by a business owner.
Read through the contract line by line and understand if and when you own the copyright to the entire website. All of the content, including graphics that you hired someone to custom-create for you, and all the coding work, should be yours at the end of the project. On that note – make sure you own your domain name. GoDaddy charges around $20 a year to renew a domain name and it should be in your name on an account that you own.
Website Design: Putting It All Together
In conclusion, your website is crucial to the underlying success of your small business. Choose a website designer that you can trust to do quality work. Understand the complete process, the pricing, the timeframe, and the inner-workings of the website design process. At the end of the day, pick an experienced website designer that you’re happy with who has the best price for the services offered.
We would love the opportunity to work with your small business on this web design project. Call us today for a detailed quote which will show you our complete cost, timetable, and references for completing your website design project.
