Almost 11 months since I last added a blog post to the site, which is pretty terrible considering I regularly tell folk they need to keep their content fresh. It’s generally good for search visibility as it shows search engines that your site is live and you’re actually doing stuff, good for potential customers for pretty much the same reasons, and it’s essentially time invested in an asset that you actually have complete control over and isn’t at the mercy of a social network’s algorithm (maybe Google’s algorithm I suppose), but even still – your website is your space in which you can present your business and work you’ve done any way you want.
So I thought I’d just write a bit about website costs here as I was talking to someone about this last week and the parallels between building a website and plenty of other jobs out there. It’s essentially the old Fast/Cheap/Good triangle, but I’ll try and take a minute to explain why the websites I build will likely be more expensive than lowest bidders or DIY sites like Wix.
The main reason is that I’ve worked in various roles in the digital marketing world over the years – from web development, through SEO, to Google and Meta advertising and through those years I’ve built an fairly comprehensive understanding of what actually works.
I define “works” as actually converting visitors into customers – be that through purchases, lead generation or brand positioning.
There are thousands of poor quality websites out there that don’t do that, and that’s down to a lot of factors, but generally because it’s not even considered in the planning. You still see DIY site plans and web developer packages along the lines of “homepage, 5 service pages and a contact page” for a fixed price. That’s a commodified product that will do the bare minimum you need a site to do. Any business they generate is likely to come from awareness built through other channels, and there’s rarely any research or measurement built in.
So – time is money as they say, and if you want it done properly (unless you’re just starting out and on a tight budget, you want it done properly) – your website should be based on your market.
You need to understand the way people search for your products or services (here’s an example). That needs to be comprehensive for your targeted area because it informs you of the demand and the variation in the way people seek to solve problems that your product or service can address. If you don’t have that, you’re not going to know what content you need on the site to let them know that you can solve their problem or fulfil their need. That ultimately informs the structure of the site. Often it’s a roadmap and content is added after the site is live, but it’s essential if you want to maximise your audience and your conversion rate.
Then the actual content. Fair enough, AI has sped this part up – many a site was delayed back when I started up as we were “awaiting content from the client”… There is no substitute for expert knowledge however, so even with ChatGPT, a bit of real world or local insight and expertise is a major benefit. The content follows the demand, and the website structure reflects that. It needs to demonstrate expertise and capability and ultimately convince the website visitor to convert, and it needs to do that no matter what device they’re using to view it.
Not all visitors will convert on their first visit either. That’s typical – folk are on the bus researching problems, or get distracted by their kids fighting over whose turn it is on the playstation, or the dog reminding them to feed them. So there are technical elements that also need to be built in to help you capitalise on any interest you manage to get. You need retargeting pixels for social accounts that will allow you to remind site visitors of your products or services after they’ve visited. You need tags to help with measurement of advertising – these are often set up badly and lead to all kinds of confusion about whether ads are working or not. We get this stuff done properly so we know when somebody clicked on an ad and didn’t convert, or if they visited a specific page on the site and spent more time than average on it.
I’ve worked on this tech with a lot of big companies, and it’s generally not included in DIY site builders or web build packages (it is often a pain to implement properly to be fair, and I’m saying that after doing it hundreds of times)…
There’s the technical setup of the pages themselves – once the research above is done and the sitemap planned, it needs to be clear to search engines (and visitors) exactly what the content of a page is about. Elements that will show on search engines need to be descriptive and also encourage action. Products or services need to be marked up in a way that clearly communicates the offering so that it can be fully understood by Google and Bing.
I could go on, but I better get some actual work done. To summarise – it’s the preparation, planning and stuff behind the scenes that ultimately makes a good website that will actually convert, and that stuff takes time so affects the overall cost. You can pay a lot for big agencies to do this stuff as you have specialists in each field working on a project (SEO team, Technical team, Designers, User Experience Experts and Developers) and that’s where the big agency price tags come from. Or you can get in touch with me and we’ll get you something that works and will continue to work at a reasonable, transparent price.
