These days a website is critical to effectively marketing your business. What makes a good website? What does a custom website cost to develop and launch? And what’s the difference between a custom site and setting up a site on your own?
A good website should address three key areas:
Content: an effective website has compelling content that provides a call to action that is clear and meaningful to your target audience. What are you trying to get them to do when they visit your site? Buy your product? Call you for a consultation? You need to be clear on what you are trying to accomplish so your site can be set up to call for that action.
Design: There’s an old rule that you only have about four seconds to draw someone into your site. More recent research shows that most web visitors are at your site because they are already looking for something specific, so they may be a little more willing than we used to believe to slog through a site to find that golden nugget of info — but not too patient!
Your site design needs to pull them in, engage them and set the tone for the experience you want them to have. Do not underestimate quality site design. This is what sets apart a ho-hum site and a site that grabs attention.
Search Engine Optimization (SEO): There is really no point in spending the time and money on a new website if the search engines can’t find it and catalog it. Proper SEO begins at the very first step of developing your website. The way a site is programmed/coded makes ALL the difference in how the search engines read it and catalog your information. You can have a great looking site that is invisible to the search engines because of the way it is programmed. Understanding this is key to a website that lands in the top three pages of someone’s search query.
Really, it’s the three reasons above that set custom designed websites apart from the template based sites that people put up on the web when they are in a “do-it-yourself” mode. Yes, it costs less money to put together your own website. But I call that putting good money after bad design. Even cheap is a rip off if it does not accomplish your marketing goals.
Custom designed sites take into account design, content and programming to develop a website that meets marketing goals and can stand up to the intense competition on the web.
Cost
The cost of a custom site depends primarily on what functions you need the site to have. Do you want a shopping cart or ecommerce function? Do you want a blog connected to your site? How important is SEO?
At Canopy Marketing we provide a detailed cost estimate for every project, outlining the goals and metrics of success for each project. We give you multiple options to consider as you plan your web marketing.
A custom website generally starts in the range of $3500. This includes a graphic designer developing an original design for your website. It also includes content development and the programming of a tableless HTML site. And all of our sites include basic SEO practices, which includes submission to the search engines, page descriptions and titles and the coding of content so that it is heirarchal (this means the search engines can tell what information is most important on the page).
So, yes, you can set up a site on your own for less money. And you can probably find a company to develop a site for you for less. But with good website development, you get what you pay for.Will a cookie-cutter template that your purchase on-line address the three areas key to the success of a website? And will a low-priced company offer you original design, assistance with content and attention to SEO?
We understand a quality website is an investment for your company. We’ll make sure you get the return on your investment that you deserve.
