DW Tips

All organisations have a budget, and so it's not really surprising that 'affordable website design' is a common Google search term. When considering a new website, there can be a strong and understandable temptation to think of a website as a 'commodity item' and set the budget accordingly.

There are a variety of reasons for this depending on the nature of the organisation, but usually it's to demonstrate to management, a board or trustees that money is being spent wisely. Or maybe you are a startup and money is tight. There are a number of free website builders available and a plethora of companies offering to build a website for less than $1000, so it can be hard to justify spending more.  After all, a website for $1000 sounds like a bargain doesn't it!

Well consider that an average size website could easily take 50 hours to design, build, undertake keyword analysis, write the page copy and meta tags, upload the content, test, launch, set up for Google Analytics, apply 301 re-directs from your current site to avoid 'page not found' errors, etc. etc.

Applying the simple maths of $1000 / 50 hours = $20 per hour, which isn't much above the current NZ minimum wage of $14.25 per hour.

So ask yourself the question; is a company turning around a website at a rate just above minimum wage AND trying to making a profit on the job really going to give your website the love and care required to make it look good, rank well, generate enquiries and be simple to use?  What kind of support will they be offering when things go wrong or you just need help and advice?

Then project forward perhaps 2 - 3 years when you may want to make changes to your site, say to add new functionality, new branding or navigation changes. That’s when you’re likely to find yourself locked into the 'off the shelf theme' your site was built with and making those changes becomes a major headache or just not possible.

Whereas with our website packages; want to change the entire look and feel? - no problem; want to add a blog? - no problem; want to add a shopping cart to sell products online? - no problem; want to integrate with social media? no problem. I could go on, but the reason why we can say this is because:

1. We'll meet with you to take a detailed website design brief before we even start. We'll ask you about your target market and their demographics, your company vision, what success from your website would look like for you in five years time.
2. Our websites are designed and built in a modular fashion by experienced professionals who know what they're doing and care about what they do. This means that adding new features in the future doesn't require a re-build.

Simply put, websites are no different to most other purchases - you get what you pay for.

In the long run, an organisation which thinks about what it wants to get from its website over the next 5 years (be it more sales, more leads, more donations, greater brand awareness or whatever) is likely to spend less over that period if they choose a custom website design from the beginning, rather then buying a cheaper 'off the shelf website' that they later have to ditch and start again.

Image courtesy of tiramisustudio at FreeDigitalPhotos.net