Business Website Design

The recession has left many small businesses strapped for cash and in the red, and still many are spending way too much of their marketing budget on their web design. Not necessary guys.

The flip-side of the coin is that some are not spending a single cent of their website, they're using Facebook, or some other social media site to represent their business (that's fine for some but not for most).

Do You Want To Be 'Poked' Or Sell Something?

Just ask yourself, what looks more professional, a Facebook page with a bunch of uncensored comments (from 'friends') and no real sales funnel, or a nice clean web presence with your companies information and services clearly stated, (without a bunch of 'Wall' comments from people you hardly know, saying pretty much whatever comes into their heads – and they do, lol). That's not a great way to manage your website content or your brand now is it? And when it comes to being 'poked' or making a sale, I know which one I want to spend my precious time on.

Just ask yourself, what looks more professional, a Facebook page with a bunch of uncensored comments (from 'friends') and no real sales funnel, or a nice clean web presence with your companies information and services clearly stated, (without a bunch of 'Wall' comments from people you hardly know, saying pretty much whatever comes into their heads – and they do, lol). That's not a great way to manage your website content or your brand now is it? And when it comes to being 'poked' or making a sale, I know which one I want to spend my precious time on.

So, I just want to establish that 99/100 times a business needs a professional and dedicated website to represent them online if they want their potential customers to take them serious. Period.

So back to the big spenders, the guys and gals that just paid thousands for a website they could have bought for hundreds. These are the people who believe if they don't throw lots of money at their website development that they just won't get a 'good' website. Sorry to bust your bubble Max-a-million, but affordable web design services can now deliver powerful world class websites at a fraction of the cost that people were paying a couple of years ago (but if you want to pay over the odds keep doing what you're doing).

Seriously, content management systems like WordPress and Jamoola are open source software that pack a punch to compare with anything a fancy hot shot web programmer could dream up. Not only that, many of the larger studios are also using these content management systems for the 'good' (A.K.A, expensive) websites they build.

Before Realization Turns To Disbelief:

But wait, you say your fancy website comes with a blog, lets you add images and text, create pages, manage a gallery, add video and even allows you to take payment! So how could these free website development tools do all that? Well they can, and plenty more besides. How about adding search engine optimisation tools, XML sitemaps that tell Google you updated your site, create your own web forms and surveys, collect email address and lots more. There is no end to what can be achieved with these CMS web design tools, and to use them does not cost a single dime.

So what are you paying for when your web designer sets-up an affordable web design for you, if the CMS can do all this?

You're paying for the knowledge of correctly:

• Installing and setting up the site so it's optimised

• Creating initial pages and posts for your site

• Creating custom graphic design banner and color schemes to match your unique branding

• Support for using the CMS and where to get further information and support

• Setting up useful plugins that will help get traffic to your site

• And generally the specialist knowledge it would take you years to develop on your own

So if you're spending nothing on your business website you're either building it yourself or you're using a social media site like Facebook. Maybe okay for the rare exception to just do this, but generally you would benefit from having a professional website.

If you're spending too much because you feel you have to, just know you probably don't. If you think you'll get better service from a large web studio and it's worth paying more for, you could be right or wrong. However, I know lots of freelancers like myself (web design Ireland) that cherish and value their clients, and aim to over deliver and be supportive. The choice is yours, but now at least you have more information to make that decision with.