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 Albany area and are looking for a New York-based website designer, contact Shawn Tooley today at 315-307-3359.
Whether you’re a brand new small business owner or a seasoned small business pro, one thing is certain: the success of your small business depends on maintaining a way to attract new customers. In today’s world of tech-everything, it is clear that a professional website design is most certainly the cornerstone of your small business marketing plan. Small businesses who incorporate a professional website and social media presence get more customers. In short, you want to ensure that your small business is visible where customers are spending their time.
Web design companies all over the globe are working 24/7 to help small businesses get found online. According to a recent study at MIT, the average consumer spends over 3 hours online each 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 Albany may perform multiple online searches per day – wouldn’t you want your small business to show up in a search result for your product or service? You do, right?! Continue reading for more information on what is involved in professional website design and the benefits of incorporating a website design into your company marketing budget.
Statistics clearly show that a small business who has a great online presence makes more money than a small business who only uses traditional marketing such as newspaper, radio, or television advertising. We’re positive that reaching customers in Albany is easier with professional website design.
Responsive Web Design — What Is It And Why Does It Matter?
Responsive web design, simply put, means all information your small business website looks great on every device people use.
A long time ago people only viewed websites from their home desktop computers. Most monitors were between 15 and 22 inches wide. So nearly all websites were created so that they would look great on this type of monitor. However, now that everyone owns mobile devices, a awesome web design needs to look great on all devices. This is where responsive web design technology shines.
Smartphones and tablets have much smaller screen sizes than their desktop counterparts. This means that in order to display website content properly, the website items may need to be rearranged. In the example below, you’ll see the services offered by a contractor. On standard monitors, the viewer will see these services listed with three columns spanning the width of the website.
When viewed on a smaller screen, the website content needs to scale and adjust itself to be readable by the viewer. So in this example, each of the three columns of services would stack on top of one another for readability. This adjustment happens automatically with a good responsive website design.
Responsive website design is no longer an option it’s mandatory. When you hire us (in city) to build your website, you need to ensure 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, choose another web design company 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 must give visitors a well written overview of what they are going to find on your site.
Products / Services
Websites that use a separate page for each product or service and add details about each perform very well. It’s a good idea to start each page with a brief summary of the product/service and then add as much information as you can. Remember, if your web page appears too long, you can always break it up into additional pages or add photos to the page to help. Websites without a lot of content typically perform poorly. Your customers are looking for information and they want to get that information ASAP. 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 multiple places for your contact information. It should be very easy for your customers to contact you. Create a unique “Contact Us” page, include 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 website page.
Pricing
Equally important is a page 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 $400.
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 sales transaction to have your happy clients leave a review about their experience on your Google and Facebook pages from their home computers a day or two after working with you. 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 the more information you have on your website, the less time you’ll spend answering questions by email or phone.
Inquiry Form / Contact Us Form
We hope you have a mailing list for your customers in Albany? If not, you should. Email marketing is inexpensive and quite 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, keep in touch with your customers and include information that may be of interest to them.
About Us
As we mentioned above, your customers actually want 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 Albany, 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 staff photos, professional bios and qualifications, recently completed projects, and more.
Policy Pages (Privacy, Refunds, Terms of Service)
Customers like to feel secure when making purchases online, you should provide them with your return/refund policy. Ensure it is easy to understand and spelled out step by step. Privacy continues to be a major issue for customers in online shopping. They may 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 aspect 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 category that your small business falls into. Blogs are typically updated daily or weekly using software that helps people without experience in blogging to keep their blog updated. Blogs are a fantastic tool as they help with SEO, communicating important information to your customers, and adding additional content to your website which helps you stay ahead of your competition. Website designers in city often offer blog writing services available to their customers to help them keep a weekly blog up to date.
Photo Gallery
Do you have photos of your Albany business? Great! 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 MUST) 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 doesn’t get viewed by your site visitors, it’s a must have for popular search engines. A site map is similar to a table of contents. A sitemap tells the search engines about the content that you have on your website so that they can find it simply 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 Albany 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 website design: how much will it cost and how long will it take until we launch the website? Professional website designers in city will often utilize plugins and software for your website that should speed up the process of building a website.
When web designers first started designing sites, they hand-coded page after page of content for small business websites. This was a very boring and difficult process. Veteran website designers thought they had to charge a lot of money to compensate them for the countless hours building these HTML websites.
Web designers today use 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 possible about your small business before they get started on a design. This process usually takes anywhere from a day or two to 7 days.
Phase Two: Website Design Mockup – usually done in Photoshop or as a wireframe. This phase of website design often takes a week to complete.
Phase Three: Website Design Alpha / Beta – an unpublished first draft of your website, which usually allows for multiple revisions. This can feel like the longest phase and can take anywhere from a few days to a few months, depending on how many pages and the functionality that your website design requires.
Phase Four: On-Page Optimization – SEO is an important part of your website the process of making sure that all of your images and written content 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 variety of prices. Some developers charge a flat rate monthly fee while others send an estimate and quote 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 Albany 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 Albany 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 shopping online than they will be watching TV, according to new data from measurement company Zenith. The majority of that 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 quite important that your marketing messages are crafted 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 Albany. Professional website designers often 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.
Ongoing social signals and consistent updates to your small business blog is not only really great for your customer engagement… but also to your overall SEO. People looking for products and services in Albany 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 the ideal goal is having your business become more profitable, your site needs to be seen in search results very often.
The words that people search for in Google (ex. Professional website design) are called keywords. Whenever searches are carried out using your particular keywords, ideally your website should appear.
Sites that do not show up on page one of Google results when people carry out searches are basically invisible. If you make sure that your site ranks very high for specific keywords is the primary purpose of SEO. SEO is absolutely 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.
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 amazing and represent your business splendidly … but if nobody ever sees 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 properly for your products and services.
Choosing The Best Small Business Website Designer
OK, so you’re ready to hire a website designer in Albany? Here are some things to keep in mind:
Web Developers should want to get to know you, your business, pinpoint your demographic, and work towards your marketing objectives. How can they possibly design a website that reflects your brand if they’re not taking time to get to know you?
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 professional website designer will usually have all of these things clearly laid out.
Ask them what they know about SEO and internet marketing. They should be creating a completedsite 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 the designer for a bulleted detailed quote with every cost listed clearly and with zero surprise charges after the proposal is signed. Also ask them how they bill you. Are you invoiced monthly or do they work on a milestone basis?
Ask to speak to their website design clients as references to see how smooth the website design process was. Ideally you need someone 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 maintain the site yourself, ask them if they’ll design your site in WordPress so that it is easily maintained by a business owner.
Review your contract line by line and understand if and when you own the copyright to the entire website. All of the content, including images that you hired someone to custom-create for you, and all the development code, should be owned by you. 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, the website design project is crucial to the overall success of your small business. Choose someone that you can trust to do quality work. Understand the entire process, the pricing, the timeframe, and the inner-workings of the website design process. Our best advice is, pick an experienced website designer that you’re comfortable with who has the best price for the services offered.
We would love the opportunity to work with you on this web design project. Contact us today for a detailed quote which will show you our complete cost, timetable, and references for completing your website design project.
