You know how frustrating it is when your website is looking dated, slow, and not converting your visitors into action-takers.
It’s time for a new website, but where do you start?
You visit many types of website solutions looking for the perfect fit for your business at the right price, however, it’s not easy especially when there are so many different options and price points!
Relax. We’ve got you covered. This article will show you a range of options and will help guide you to decide which option is right for you.
Where do you start and how much should you pay for a website in 2024?
You dive into research mode – and before you know it you’re drowning.
A wrong choice could lose you “new leads and sales” – instead of boosting your website visitors and conversions – the wrong choice could put you behind the 8-ball!
You’re facing so many options; and a long decision process.
When you have decision fatigue your chances of making a BAD decision multiply.
To avoid decision fatigue, follow these three key steps:
- Look at your business needs and set a goal and outcome that you would like to achieve with your new website.
- Write down the problems that your current website has and review the broad categories of website solutions to see which one solves those problems.
- Decide on which solution best meets your needs, and your budget aligns with your goals and timeline.
Let’s dive deeper into each of the three steps:
1. To figure out what you want your website to achieve, first, look at your current situation…
Do you have a new offer in your business and would you like to test if your audience will go for it?
Has your business pivoted, or has your market moved and you need a new website to keep up?
Are you a well-established business with a strong business model, and a great reputation, and would you like growth in your business?
Do you want to design and build your website yourself or hire an external team to design and build your website?
Do you understand how to design a conversion-focused website to get you the best results possible?
Do you have a deadline for when you would like your new website to go live?
2. Write a list of problems your existing website has, which may be…
Your website is not bringing in the leads and sales you think it should be generating.
Your website is looking dated, and boring, and it doesn’t stand out from your competitors or appeal to your target market.
Your website doesn’t reflect your awesome product or service and doesn’t position you as an expert and authority in your niche.
Your website isn’t a “24/7 marketing machine” that brings you the right prospects and entices them to take action.
You are losing search engine rankings each month, and your website is getting slower over time because it has prehistoric coding, and is held together with too many plug-ins that look like duct tape and zip ties!
Whatever your situation and the problems your website has, the sad truth about your website is that…
IT’S JUST NOT WHO YOU ARE ANYMORE…
Once you know you’re clear on the two steps above, the next step is to get serious about understanding what it takes to attract the right audience and convert them into paying customers.
Ideally, your website will need:
- A quality, stunning & unique website design that entices your audience to be attracted to do business with you on your terms.
- A modern design that reflects your business, differentiates you from your competitors, and positions you as an industry leader.
- Persuasive copywriting that has clarity – written to educate and motivate your visitors to take action.
- A strategy and a clear pathway that warms up your cold website visitors into hot buyers.
- A website that’s easy for you to edit yourself, and that’s built lightweight and fast with modern coding that helps boost your rankings.
3. Review the website options below and decide on an option that best suits your business growth
The options below show you the pros and cons of the choices available. Decide on which solution best meets your goals, needs, wants, budget and aligns with your timeline. Let’s start with the cheapest option…
Off-the-shelf D.I.Y. Website Templates:
A template website is a pre-designed and pre-coded website that you buy “off the shelf”. You install the template on your domain then add your content yourself.
You can expect to pay anywhere from $20 to $300-ish for a website template.
Some of the most popular D.I.Y. Website Templates are found at ThemeForest, TemplateMonster, Weebly, Wix, SquareSpace, etc.
Templates are great when you’re starting a business or testing a new offer. You can get a website template up and running quickly to see if your ideas work. A new website can be incredibly hard to visualize – so the right template can get your ideas out of your head and onto a screen.
Website templates have become increasingly popular in the last few years, thanks to, how many there are, how easy they are to install, and how much fun techies have played with them.
When you check out template sites on the internet, you’ll see just how many there are to choose from—ThemeForest alone has 45,000 templates!
Templates can be incredibly beginner-friendly. Most only need a couple of clicks, and “hey presto” – they’re installed on your domain.
Because there are lots of templates to choose from, there’s almost certainly a theme that caters to the industry you’re in. And they’re cheap, too!
Templates have their limits and diminish over time!
No matter how “cheap” templates seem, they have hidden costs down the track. If you don’t understand their limits, you could impact your business visibility and long-term website performance.
Template-based websites are like off-the-peg clothing. The design is usually quite generic and it’s often not flexible. Like off-the-peg clothing, you have to fit the template and the way the template works.
Overall, templates can’t be customized very easily. They do what they were originally created for. They’re not built or designed for your unique business, or optimized around your content and offer. If your business changes, a template won’t change with you.
Templates can break over time. They’re coded for a particular version of a particular content management platform (like WordPress). As the software around the template changes, the layout and content can stop displaying correctly.
They will probably work fine for a while, but over time as you start trying to customize it and add plugins, it doesn’t look like you hoped, it gets slower and things break. Eventually, your frustration usually leads to wanting to start again with a better solution.
So they’re great for startups, they’re great for trialing a new offer – HOWEVER…
Once you’re making money, it’s time to invest. Invest in both creating a unique visual brand AND in converting the engine room of your website into getting you a positive result. A result that looks great and will be a reliable website tailored to your unique business.
Will a template work for your growing business?
Templates are ideal for “soft-launching” an offer. They let you get a website out there quickly!
However, over time template websites tend to run into some key issues:
- Not optimized. Templates are meant to be used by thousands of people, which means they’re made to be generic. Instead of your web design working around your content, you often have to tailor your content to fit the template design.
- Not original. Since templates are available for everyone to use, there are likely a dozen other businesses using your template right now. It goes against your site’s memorability if your website design looks too familiar.
- Not Focused On Conversions. Some templates may look pretty, using all the bells-n-whistles latest design trends, however, most of those trends will hurt conversions and not boost them. If they use display effects like parallax, sliders, video backgrounds, and other fancy animations they will (1) slow down your website AND (2) frustrate and distract your visitors.
You may not need an entire website though. You may only need a landing page, so read on…
D.I.Y. landing page builder templates:
If you are out to test a new business idea or offer, then you may NOT need a whole new website. You may be better off creating a single landing page to promote your offer and see if your target market is interested in your offer.
A landing page is a single web page that offers one specific thing. It’s focused on explaining the benefits of that offer, who it’s suited to, and why people should take you up on your offer. It’s designed to get visitors to say “yes” to one specific offer – a free offer, a paid offer, etc.
D.I.Y. page builder templates are web pages that you can build yourself from pre-set drag-and-drop components. You install a landing page template on your domain then add your own content.
There are many landing page builders, with a range of tools at various price points. Most of them charge around $100 – $300 per month.
That is great value initially if you’re testing an offer for a short time. However, if you stay with them for years, they end up being more expensive than a fully custom website!
Some of the most popular landing page builder platforms are Clickfunnels, Leadpages, Instapage, and Hubspot.
One of the best things about landing page builders is that they’re quick to install and easy to use, so you can make a new online offer fast.
Landing page builders are also designed to be mobile-friendly. You can use them in conjunction with pay-per-click ads to make specific offers where people do most of their research – on their phones and tablets.
Like any D.I.Y. project, a landing page builder can soak up a whole lot of time and energy. To make the most of your investment, you’ll want to have a whole lot of marketing clarity before you start – especially about your target market, your offer, and your USP.
If your primary need is to…
- Make a new offer to your customers; OR…
- See how you can improve an existing offer; OR…
- Test multiple offers for a short amount of time
…then a good way to go is to start with a landing page builder template.
When you have tested your offer and you have a WINNER, then perhaps it’s time to move the successful landing pages to your own website, so that you own that asset forever. After all, landing page builders charge you every single month, so while it’s a cheap option at first, over time it adds up.
If you have tested your offer and it’s converting, then read on to discover a couple more options on how to take your website and brand to the next level.
Here’s one of those options to choose from…
‘Brick-and-mortar’ website agencies:
Location-based website agencies bridge the gap between wanting a new website and having a new website. If they’re really good, you may only need a couple of meetings with the agency.
You tell them what you need, pay them money, and the agency does everything from conceptualizing the design to coding the website. You give them your content, and then they’ll design, build, and optimize your website for you.
The downside of hiring a specialized website agency can sometimes be the expense. (You’re paying for all the people involved, after all!) The graphic designers, the developers, the project manager, their office, their marketing team, their equipment, their insurance, etc.
Businesses that choose one of these website agencies are typically medium-sized businesses that are looking for specialized functionality and custom programming as well as a powerful online marketing process.
Do your “due diligence” on the agency.
Read this article on how to find the right website design agency.
Finding a website agency is like hiring an auto mechanic. If you’re not familiar with the inner workings of your car, then it’s easy to get stung.
You don’t really know what you’re paying for—you’re just telling them what the problem is and then waiting for them to fix it. If you haven’t chosen wisely, you could end up paying more than you should.
Looking for a new website agency needs care and investigation – because you need someone honest AND someone with real competence.
To safeguard your business, look for established, well-run companies that make sure they maintain their reputation by delivering excellent work.
Regardless of how much you like them and how well they seem to understand you in your first meeting, make sure you get evidence that they really can meet your needs.
A good website agency will be more than willing to show you what they can do – they’ll have case studies plus before-and-after examples, along with video and written testimonials.
What to expect from “brick-and-mortar” agencies:
Agencies require minimal effort on your part. So, if you’re busy and looking for a website solution that doesn’t involve you too much, then you should think of investing in a website agency. (And it IS a marketing investment, not just a cost.)
They are usually very good at what they do, so you will most likely get a good result.
How much are ‘brick-and-mortar’ agency services?
Some agencies will charge by the project. Others will establish an ongoing monthly contract. You could be paying on average anything from $20k to $100k (and then some) for bigger projects. That’s why they attract bigger businesses.
Agencies are often paid by the hour. New York-based agencies cost up to $600+ per hour while other regions average at $300+ per hour.
One thing to be aware of is that when you pay a “bricks-and-mortar” agency, you’re also paying for their in-house designers, their marketing, their utility bills, and their office rent, among others.
If you still want an outstanding website that gets you a great result, without an expensive ‘bricks-and-mortar’ price tag, you may want to consider hiring an ‘online website agency’ that has a leaner business model and can offer you a better price.
Online website agencies:
Online website agencies can offer custom unique websites designed to boost your results, that aren’t templates AND they operate without the higher fees that ‘bricks-and-mortar’ agencies have to charge to cover their costs.
Online agencies understand deeply that reputation is everything. To stay in business for the long term, they HAVE to be good at what they do. They run online, so they really understand how to get results for you online.
A good online agency will have a structured, effective briefing process to make sure that they understand your business and your requirements. Look for one that asks lots of questions and spends time with you to make sure they understand what you’re looking for.
Expect to answer a detailed questionnaire, and then participate in an online interview process to add more detail. (If your chosen agency doesn’t have lots of questions – think again!)
Benefits of online website agencies:
Hiring an established, successful online website agency has lots of benefits:
- No physical location. Online agencies can draw from a global pool of smart talent. They’re not limited by a talent pool based in a single city.
- Fewer overheads to cover. Since online agencies don’t run big, central offices, they don’t have to worry about paying rent, electricity, water, and the Internet. That means they can deliver great websites at competitive prices.
- Customized, unique AND great value. Online website agencies produce high-performance websites as well as any traditional brick-and-mortar website agency – just more affordably. They work with you to make sure your website is 100% optimized and ready to launch.
- Hands-on approach. Online website agencies are generally smaller, more connected, and more agile than traditional brick-and-mortar website agencies. They choose people who enjoy what they do and care about their client’s results. If they take you on as a client, you know that they’re committed to working with you to deliver a site that you are proud of and that gets you great results.
- They Walk The Walk. Every website agency you speak to will claim to be an expert in online marketing. However, online website agencies have to be experts in online marketing; it’s how they find clients and build their reputation! If you’re going to trust a website agency, trust one that walks the walk!
How much are online website agency services?
You can expect to pay between $5k & $20k depending on how many pages and funnels are required, and if you need an entirely new brand look and feel across your entire online presence.
If you are quoted less than $5k, be careful that you aren’t locked into an ongoing hosting fee. Read the agreement first. It could say that if you stop paying the monthly hosting fee, they have the right to take your website offline.
At Studio1Design.com we provide great results for our clients, without charging a ridiculous price tag, because we operate a lean online business.
We specialize in high-converting websites – designed and built to deliver optimal website performance, not just good looks.
Every page is designed to drive conversions. Each design element has a purpose in communicating your brand and your message.
We also offer logo design and a full Brand Blueprint, which includes a logo design, mood board, and brand direction, plus a comprehensive brand style guide for $5k.
The purpose of the brand style guide is so you can send it to all creatives who work on your brand in the future so that your brand has a congruent look & feel across every marketing touch point.
Read this article to discover why branding is more important than ever in today’s competitive market.
In Summary: Don’t focus on the price; focus on the results you want!
To help you decide which option to go for, ask yourself:
How much value will each option bring to my business and what is the result I want to get out of my website?
If you have decided on an online website agency, we would love to help you if you think we’re a good fit for your business.
So if you’re ready to invest in a website that’s an active, 24/7 marketing machine then book a free consultation with us.
We’ll show you how we will take your website and brand to the next level, so you can have a bigger impact and convert more visitors into action-takers.
No pressure, no obligation – just a friendly conversation about what you want your website to do and whether we can help.
Take a stroll through our latest Design Transformation Portfolio here, and see what “stunning websites that convert” look like in 2024 – then imagine what we could do for your business…
Also, check out our amazing client’s results here.
