Why is it Worth it to Pay for Good Web Site Design?

“I can build a website on my web host for free. I saw an ad for websites for $500. My (brother-in-law, sister-in-law, cousin, father, friend, daughter, son) knows html and will build me a website for nothing.”

True but.

These are the options you have if you truly have little to no budget, or you hope it is merely an interim site. If you spend money on print advertising chances are you can set aside money for a decent website which:

• Is working to advertise your business 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.
• If done correctly your site is converting prospective clients or customers to actual clients or customers  – perhaps while you are asleep.
• It can take messages, much like a receptionist and should be professional (much as you would expect an actual receptionist to be).

So what goes into making a great website (and why is it so darned expensive*)?

First a good designer will research your target audience, goals for the site, (education, convert, involve, etc).

Decisions about navigation, areas of functionality (forms, share buttons, blog) will be based on a combination of client requests and designer recommendations. The designer may look at your web statistics (if redesigning an existing site) to determine what browsers the bulk of your traffic are using – valuable information when making decisions about layout and the coding behind it.

At  this point a wireframe might be built – really a means of determining where content areas will live on the page and how much prominence each will receive in the final design and then the real fun begins.

A palette that will fit your business or consider existing branding guidelines (if any) is important. I can’t tell you how often I check colourlovers.com for inspiration. I remember taking digital photos of my apple tv menu once when working on a website for an AV Custom installer so I could try to echo the look and feel for what would clearly be an electronics savvy audience. See the final result below:

And as design is also function after all the way in which the site is built and the usability of the functional areas are key to the success of the site. The way in which the site is built and the content that is added will affect how quickly and how high search engines rank the site.

At the end of the day the free site built using templates or via  “site builder” software on your web host can’t compete.

 

*expensive means different things to different people. The average site I build for small business costs less than a full page color ad in a local magazine.