How Much Does It Cost to Build a Website? A Guide on Web Design Prices

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StrategyDriven Online Marketing and Website Development Article |web design prices |How Much Does it Cost to Build a Website? A Guide on Web Design PricesDespite the fact that we’re all living in a digital world these days, there are still a lot of small businesses out there operating without a website.

In fact, studies have shown that about 50% of small businesses don’t have a website set up at the moment. This is likely having an impact on many of these businesses’ bottom lines by affecting their ability to generate income month in and month out.

One of the reasons why some business owners choose not to invest in a website for their company is because of their perceived web design prices. They’re often under the impression that a website is going to cost too much money to create.

But this couldn’t be further from the truth. If you own a small business, you can get a website up and running without breaking the bank.

Before you take this leap, though, find out some of the factors that will impact how much a website will cost you. It’ll allow you to budget money wisely for creating a website.

Here are some of the things that can lead to web design prices going up or down.

What Is Your Website’s Domain Name Going to Be?

Before you can begin building a website for your business, you’re going to need to invest in a domain name for it. More often than not, your domain name is going to be your business name with “.com” on the end of it.

If this domain name is readily available, it shouldn’t cost you much money at all to snatch it up for your website. But there is a chance that someone might already own the rights to the domain name that you want.

If this turns out to be the case, you can:

  • Come up with a different domain name other than the one that you had in mind
  • Consider paying whoever owns the domain name that you want for the rights to it

Often times, business owners will go with the first option to avoid spending a small fortune on a domain name. But if you really want a domain name, you can make whoever owns it an offer.
Doing this will cost you more than you anticipated to spend. But it’ll be well worth it if you think that the domain name is going to help drive more traffic to your site.

Who Is Going to Host Your Website?

Buying the domain name that you want for your website is going to be the first expense you incur when creating a site for your business. Finding a website hosting service is going to be the expense that comes right behind it.

You’ll need a reliable website hosting service on your side to help you with all your hosting needs when you’re getting a site off the ground. They should have a great reputation for helping host small business sites.

You might have to pay a little extra to work with one of the best website hosting services in the business. But it’ll be worth it once you see the services that they’re able to extend to you while you’re in the process of setting your site up and updating it over time.

Is Your Website Going to Get a Custom Look?

Once you have a domain name for your website and a website hosting service on your side, it’ll be time to get down to business. You’ll be ready to start putting together plans for your actual site.

To do this, you’ll have the option of either:

  • Using a website template to create your site
  • Hiring a web designer to create a custom site from scratch

The first option is hands down, the better option for anyone on a tight budget. You’ll keep your web design prices low by going with a website template.

But the second one is great for those businesses that want to make their websites stand out. You can hire a website development company to bring each and every idea that you have for your site to life.

Who Is Going to Create Your Website?

If you decide that you’re going to hire a website development company to work on a custom site for you, the specific company you hire will affect your web design prices.

If you choose to hire a well-established company with a lot of web design experience, they’re going to charge you more than someone who just started designing websites last week. Consider a bunch of different options when looking for the right website development company.

The company that you bring on board to work on your website should have:

  • Plenty of experience in the website development industry
  • A long list of web design services
  • Lots of examples of sites they’ve developed in the past
  • Fair and affordable prices on the services they offer

It’s not a bad idea to call a handful of website development companies to get quotes for their services. It’ll help you keep your web design prices as low as you can.

How Many Different Pages Are Going to Be on Your Website?

There are some websites out there that have little more than a homepage and maybe an “About Us” page and a “Contact” page. These basic sites are easy to design and won’t cost much money to create.

But many times, businesses need their websites to have more than just those pages. They also need product pages, service pages, blog pages, and more set up. They want to be able to jampack their sites with all the necessary information.

If your website is going to need more than a few pages on it, it’s going to send your web design prices soaring. That’s not to say that you shouldn’t still create those pages. But you should be mindful of the fact that it’s going to impact the final cost of your site.

Is Your Website Going to Have Any Special Features?

With almost 1.8 billion websites on the internet today, you’re going to want to find ways to make your site stand out. That might mean adding a bunch of special features to your site to make it unique.

Some businesses are incorporating things like video into the mix on their websites these days. They’re finding that they’re able to get more traction with customers this way.

Other businesses are adding things like chatbots to their sites so that customers can connect with them in a hurry without picking up the phone. This is making it easier for many businesses to form bonds with their customers.

You don’t have to invest in these kinds of special features. But it’s worth looking into some of them to see how they might improve your site, even if they cause a slight bump in your web design prices.

Will Your Website Need to Have a Store Included on It?

Are you going to sell products and/or services to your customers through your website? If that’s your plan, you’re going to need to create a store that can accept payments from them.

Doing this isn’t anywhere near as complicated as it used to be. You can have a web designer build you a special section on your site where people will be able to order products and services from you.

But this will often come at an additional cost, especially if your web development company has to beef up your site’s security so that you can start taking online orders. You’ll need to make room in your budget for this particular aspect of your site.

Who Is Going to Be in Charge of Updating Your Site?

Once you have your website up and running, updating it is going to be of the utmost importance. If you don’t take the time to update your site, it’s going to take a toll on your site’s search engine optimization and make it hard for people to find it.

If you’re even the least bit web savvy, you should be able to handle updating your site on your own. You can add new content to it every so often to show Google and the other search engines that you’re on top of maintaining it.
But if you don’t have the time, energy, or patience to update your site, that will be another additional cost you’ll have to factor in. You may need to enlist the services of a company that specializes in beefing up the SEO of websites.

Don’t Let Web Design Prices Stop You From Creating a Website

Now that you know some of the factors that affect web design prices, you might feel overwhelmed by the costs associated with setting up a site. Don’t be!

You can get a website started in no time with a small investment on your part. You can then add to it over time as you see fit to make the costs that come along with owning a website more manageable.

A website will help your company do better business from now on. By spending a little bit of money on your site, you can get a great return on your investment.

Learn how to use a website to your advantage by reading through the other articles on our blog.

How to Get Reviews: 3 Ways to Get More Product Reviews

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StrategyDriven Online Marketing and Website Development Article |how to get reviews|How to Get Reviews: 3 Ways to Get More Product ReviewsDoes your company need reviews but you’re not sure how to get them? We’re here to help. Product reviews are important in showing potential customers that you have a community of customers that use your products, increasing brand reliability.

Building a community with your customers through reviews can help them feel they have real-life advice and insight into your products. Many times, product reviews can even answer questions other customers may be having about a product.

Increase your sales and improve your brand reliability with reviews. Keep reading this guide so you can learn how to get reviews today.

1. Make Leaving a Review as Easy as Possible

Like all things Ecommerce, leaving a review comes down to user experience. Making sure that leaving a review is easy and simple will increase your chances of customers leaving them.

A great way to do this is to create a space to leave a review on every product page. Give your site’s visitors an easy way to review, like leaving a rating and brief description.

Make sure you’re also sharing awesome reviews on your site and making them visible to other customers. This original content is also great for upping your SEO rating.

2. Incentivize Customers to Review

Incentivizing your customers with discounts or an entrance into a giveaway is a great way to persuade them to leave a review. A discount can be a great idea if you also want your customers to make another purchase with you. Making a loyalty program is a great idea for returning customers, who can continually make reviews and receive points for doing so.

Mention your incentives and giveaways on social media so that your customers can leave reviews on many platforms, from Facebook to Google as well as your site.

3. Send Follow Up Emails

Another great way to catch your customer’s attention is through email. If your launching a review incentive program or giveaway, send an initial email out to your customer letting them know about this exciting offer. After this initial informative email, set up an automated email that goes out to customers after they receive their products from you.

Try sending an email asking your customers how they like the product, encouraging them to write in a review about a week after their purchase. This makes sure that you give the product enough time to ship, but the product is still fresh in your customer’s mind. This also shows that you care about customer satisfaction.

While all companies hope their reviews are great, it’s impossible to please everyone. If you have bad reviews you’re hoping to get rid of, learn more here.

Tips and Tricks on How to Get Reviews

Reviews are essential to building trust behind your brand and creating a community with your customers. If you need more reviews, keep these tips on how to get reviews in mind today and start implementing them into your marketing plan.

For more advice on business, Ecommerce and more, head to the “Insights” section of our site!

How to Outsource SEO: A Step by Step Guide to Successfully Outsource Your SEO Services!

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StrategyDriven Online Marketing and Website Development Article, How to Outsource SEO: A Step by Step Guide to Successfully Outsource Your SEO Services!

1. Do You Need This Guide?

You may wonder if this guide can be helpful to you. Well, it depends. If you have a digital marketing agency and you want to expand you range of services through SEO and you know that the most cost-effective method to introduce it to outsource SEO to a specialized, then yes, this guide will be very helpful to you and you will get all the information that you may need to know while establishing such a collaboration.

Also if you own a company that has a website, or you are in the leadership of such a company then this guide is also for you and it may help you to make the right decisions. You should already understand that it is much better for your company’s future to let a team of experts take care of your SEO needs instead of building your department. Such an investment will not only be expensive but it will also be very risky.

On the other hand, if you do not make part of the two categories above, then this guide may not offer you valuable information because it especially made to help the types of persons mentioned above to make the right decisions while they outsource SEO.

In this article, you will find explained all the steps you will need to go through until you start a successful collaboration. You will also find a good example of a company to which you can Outsource SEO. You do not need to follow the methods explained in this article to the letter because they are some general steps, and you should adapt your strategy based on your company’s situation.

2. The First and Most Important Step Is to Find an Optimal SEO Company

The SEO market had expanded very much in recent years and because of this, you will be able to find a very large number of SEO agencies. But, a big problem that you can encounter is that because the market is still new the price of these types of services varies greatly. And the worst part is that you will not even be able to deduce the quality of the services based on prices. Meaning, you could pay a lot of many for a low-quality SEO service.

Although there are many famous SEO agencies and you can be sure that they will produce the results that you want, but they also ask for exorbitant prices. You should know that there are SEO agencies that are less famous and much lower prices but they are also able to produce the results that you want.

These agencies that have reasonable prices can reduce their costs and also the price of their services to a very affordable level. There are many reasons through which they can do that. To give two examples would be because they do not spend as much on paid advertising and because they are based in a country that has a weaker economy.

You should start to look for an SEO agency in this type of country because they will not only be able to produce high-quality results at a much lower price, but they also lack the arrogance that these big shot SEO companies have.

If you are not a digital marketing agency, then you can search also for an SEO professional or a team of SEO experts. Are you not sure if this is a good idea? You can find the reasons why you should do it in this moz.com article.

If your site and company are new, then it will be better for you to do your own SEO or look for a freelance SEO expert because that will be much more affordable. But for bigger companies, it is recommended to outsource SEO to an agency because they have a full team of professionals.

3. Double Check Your Choice

After you find a company that fits the criteria that you had set, then it is time to double-check your decision. There are a few steps that you can follow to be sure that everything is all right:

  • Results checking. It is very important to check the results brought by your potential partner before you start working with him. Some professional SEO agencies will present their results on their website and you can see them there. They will also have reviews from their clients presented there. You need to check these reviews and if possible to contact some of their clients and ask them for a sincere opinion about your potential partner.
  • Offer to check. It is very important to check their offers and make sure of two things. One, that, besides their regular packages, they offer custom packages that are based on their clients’ needs. Not all websites will benefit from the same strategy and it is better than if there is a need for customization it should be possible. Two, you should make sure that your potential partner has a money-back guarantee. Not many SEO agencies offer such a guarantee because they do not trust that they will always be able to produce results. But, by offering this type of guarantee you can see the confidence that they have it their skills.
  • Service checking. Although you can get a lot of information from the methods presented above and you could make sure that you have made the right or wrong choice, but if you are still undecided, then you should also try their services yourself. That will be the best way to get a feeling about how long cooperation with your partner would feel right. An important aspect is to make sure that your partner of choice is always up to date with the latest Google algo updates.

4. Start the Partnership

After you have selected an agency with which you want to partner, it is time to get to the next step, which is to find the best way to work together with it. If you are an agency, then there are two ways through which you should implement this partnership.

Your company can openly admit to their clients that they outsource SEO completely, this method will make sure that your clients will know what they are dealing with and the possibility that they will try to make your problems will be nill.

You can get white-label reports and be vague about it while letting the impression that some tasks are indeed outsourced. This is also an alternative because it is not a lie. This method is mostly used if the clients care less about the results that they get and more about other factors.

The choice that you should make depends mostly on your company’s situation, more exactly on your clients. You are the one that knows them better so, you are also the one that needs to make this decision.

A bad alternative would be to market the service as produced by you, but in this case, you risk losing a large number of clients when the truth comes to light, so this method is not advised. If your company is not an agency, then then the best way in which you can cooperate with an SEO agency is by learning the basics of SEO. In this way, you will be able to understand the quality of the results that you will get from the partnership.

If you consider that the information that you acquired in this article is not enough to help you choose a good agency, then you can find even more information on Neilpatel.com

How To Get Started On Your Blogging Journey

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StrategyDriven Online Marketing and Website Development Article, How To Get Started On Your Blogging Journey

Blogging can be many things to many different people. To some, it is a hobby. They can talk happily about the subjects that interest them, and engage with like-minded individuals who also feel a passion for the same topic. For others, blogging is a side-line, a great way of earning money alongside your regular income. Many people, however, can turn their blogs into their full-time jobs and earn a lucrative income from the content that they create. Businesses will also use blogs to fantastic effect as a way of raising awareness of their own brands. It is important to never underestimate the potential of blogging.

If you have ever thought about blogging, you should understand that with the right amount of effort, and with great content,  it is possible to create a successful blog that will be ready by countless people, while generating you a reasonable, if not, substantial income.

But if you don’t know your WordPress, from your Yoast, or your affiliate marketing from your search engine optimization, here is some great advice to get you started on your very own blogging journey.

Pick A Niche

You will have a few decisions to make early on in your life as a blogger. The first one is to decide on the niche that you will write in. You might be able to write confidently and inspiringly in a number of subjects, and if you can do this, and link them all together, you can cover a range of topics on your blog. Generally, readers will have an interest in a specific niche, and if your blog covers too big a range of topics it can get confusing. Stick to the areas that you are the most knowledgable and passionate in. Make sure you pick a subject that you have enough milage in, you will need to write about this on most days for a very long time to come.

Pick Your Platform

There are lots of different blogging platforms out there. Some will host your site on their servers, and in others, such as wordpress.org, you will need to buy for your own hosting from a company such as Bluehost.

Read all about the various platforms that are available and try and understand the differences and what the benefits and limitations of each one are. This is a big decision, and, while it is possible to migrate your blog to a different platform and host at a later date, it is quite a stressful and time-consuming process to carry out.

Creating Great Content

The reason that your readers will visit your site is for your content. You need to regularly create great content. Try and stick to a schedule so that you are posting to a reasonable frequency. Many sites will posts a couple of times a day. You don’t have to post each day, however, if you are going to post six or seven posts all at once, and then not update the site for a month or so, this is not going to do you any favours when it comes to building repeat readerships. If your readers know that they can expect new content on a regular basis, it will keep you fresh in their minds.

Make sure that your posts are of a reasonable length. The bare minimum a blog post should ever be is 300 words, however, longer-form content often fares well, so aim to write posts that are much higher in their word counts.

Include a striking image with your post and a catchy title. You need to bring your readers in any way that you can.

Monetizing Your Content

When you have a reasonably large readership, you should be able to start earning money from your blog. There are many ways that you can do this, though affiliate marketing is one of the most popular. The way that affiliate marketing works is that you will insert a link to a product or service in your blog. This will act as a recommendation to your readers, and, if anyone signs up or buys whatever the link is offering, you can earn a commission.

Remember, if you are using affiliate marketing on your blog, you need to be perfectly clear that you are earning money from the links that you are sharing. Create a disclaimer or disclosure page on your site and make sure and link it on any relevant posts that use this type of affiliate link.

You could also monetize your blog by using adverts, or by selling paid content such as eBooks, or by offering up your services as a consultant in your area of expertise, or as a content writer.

Socializing

Your blog needs readers. You can obtain these by sharing your posts on social media. Create social media profiles and build up a strong following on as many platforms as possible. Engage with your followers and make sure that they are engaging with your content.

Social media promotion is a vital way of generating visitors to your site, and you need to do everything that you can to build up relationships. The bigger your following, the wider your reach.

Search Engine Optimization

An area that all bloggers need to learn about and understand is Search Engine Optimization (SEO). SEO involves getting your website as high in the internet search engine rankings as possible. If you are not in the first few results on any relevant search, then your site won’t be found by people looking at Google.

SEO is a wide subject that covers everything from inserting relevant keywords in the right places in your content, through to building up a web of links between all of your pages. By inserting a link back to relevant content elsewhere on your blog, you will be helping to optimize your website. You should also include links to other sites, and try and get your site linked to from as many external sites as possible.

The Ultimate Guide to Making Small Business Websites: This is What to Do

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StrategyDriven Online Marketing and Website Development Article|small business websites |The Ultimate Guide to Making Small Business Websites: This is What to DoNearly 50% of small businesses reported that they did not have a company website.

With how popular technology is, it is surprising so many companies are unable to be searched online.

If you want to stand out from competitors and grow your business, you must create a website to draw people in and contact you.

Continue reading to discover the steps you need to take to make small business websites so that you have a strong online presence!

1. Get Started With the Basics

The first step to creating small business websites is to start with the basics and create a domain name.

Your domain name will also be the website’s name. You should check with online resources that you have a unique domain name that won’t conflict with another business. You will also need to take care of website hosting.

Website hosting includes your site’s homepage and files. There are many companies for web hosting, and some are free. This usually takes about an hour to complete, unless you can’t come up with a unique name.

GoDaddy, Bluehost, and DreamHost are all popular and trusted sites that businesses use to create their websites.

2. Set up the Format and Style

When readers go to your website, they should be able to quickly find information and understand it.

Formatting your website is important if you want it to flow for readers. Many people put a banner across the top of their site to help organize information. This has become a common tradition and doesn’t fail.

Without different pages and tabs, the website will look like one long list of information that won’t attract customers. You should also consider the style that you want to use too.

Many businesses design the site to match their logos. You should stay professional and use readable fonts. Try to stick with a common theme, so that your customers don’t feel like they are being misled to other sites.

Don’t be afraid to get creative and come up with a unique homepage. Graphic designers can also help your site stand out!

3. Create an Attractive Homepage

Did you know that the average computer user only spends 10-20 seconds looking at a website?

Beyond those 20 seconds, they have likely moved onto another site or lost interest. You must attract your customers and readers from the minute they get to your website.

By staying up to date on trends and using interactive pages, you can get readers to stay on your page for longer and consider your business. You can use high-quality videos and images on your page along with animation to draw in attention.

There are many things that you can do to draw people in, following the same patterns, however, will leave you forgotten like the rest. Try to come up with a unique way to display your business values and team to encourage new buyers.

4. Encourage Contact

If you want customers to consistently use your services or products, you should allow them a place to contact you.
Including a contact page on a website is standard. People use this tab to include emails, addresses, and phone numbers. If you notice that a lot of your customers like to offer feedback, you can even put a comment box on your contact page.

Letting your customers contact you lets them know that they matter. If something goes wrong or there is a defect, they can easily reach out to you, to resolve the issue. Make your contact page welcoming so that people feel comfortable talking to you and asking questions.

Sometimes, companies will include a picture of the person who will be answering your calls or emails. This help people put a face to the name and make your company more memorable. Adding personal touches will draw customers back.

5. Describe the Business

One of the most important things that your website should have is a summary of what your business is or does.
You want to let people know what your business is, immediately after going to the website. Without telling people what your services are, they may become confused and check out another site.

If you take pride in your company’s progress, it can help to include history online. When potential employees and devoted customers go to your site, they will likely want to know more about the company. A brief history is a great way to get your story heard and gain local business.

While describing the purpose of your company, you can present your mission statement and discuss everything you have to offer.

Explaining the progression of the business can be interesting to readers and teach them more about your values and hard work.

6. Display Your Team

Every good business comes with a solid group of employees that work well together.

If you are proud of your team and want to give them a spot on the website, you can do so with an “our team” page. This allows customers the chance to get to know who they are working with so that they can feel more comfortable.
Lawyers and other types of services that involve other people are recommended to include team pages. Offering this recognition to employees can also help make them more satisfied with their job and feel like they make an impact.

A business isn’t run by one person, rather a collective team working towards the same goal.

7. Market and Sell Your Products or Services

Another page that you may need on your website is a store of services page.

If your company sells products, like clothing, shoes, or accessories, you will want to display each item online. You should post clear pictures of products with detailed descriptions and ordering information.

This is where your customers can add items to the cart and try out your products. If your business doesn’t sell products, you can create a service page.

On the services page, you can include information about all of your offers and what you can do for your clients. Even if you can’t give them exact numbers, you can also include estimated prices for each service.

This will be one of your largest money makers in the company. Keep up to date of what your company offers, so that you don’t have to turn customers down.

8. Set up Payment System and Options

More than $158 million was spent online in the final quarter of 2019.

Online shopping has become so popular because it is convenient and accessible at any time. If you want your business to succeed, it is crucial that you set up a payment system online.

If you plan to sell products or services over the internet, online paying can help increase sales. Depending on the needs of your business, you will have to find the right plan for you. Many people have the account set up so that the money goes directly into the business’ bank account.

PayPal, Venmo, and Cash App are all other excellent options that you can accept payment through.

Don’t forget to include discount codes for customers if you are sending them out. To use these codes, they must be able to enter them in while paying.

9. Try It out

Now that you have all of your pages filled in with crucial information, you can test out the site.

This is an important step because it gives you the chance to fix any errors before making it public. Reviewing the site for spelling and grammar errors should be the first step. Editing and accuracy show your customers that you care and want to offer them the best service you can.

You will also want to make sure that all of your images, videos, and animation were uploaded correctly. Not all files are compatible with websites, so you may have to make adjustments along the way.

Testing out your site can also prevent you from having incomplete sections. With how many details there are in making a site, it can be easy to overlook a portion of the site.

Take notes of everything you discover on your test run so that you can make adjustments or continue down the same path!

10. Publish Your Site

You’ve uploaded all of your information, checked it over dozens of times and everything looks good. It’s now time to go live!

Publishing your site will allow access to internet users. Although your website may not be perfect, you can get feedback from customers about the site so that you can make sure it is meeting their standards.

This is an exciting step to creating a website and the beginning of a new chapter. Your business should continue to grow now that you have a strong online presence.

11. Market on Social Media

If you are wanting your new website to be seen by the world, you will have to market it.

After your site is error-free and published, you need to tell other people about it. By posting the site and sharing it on Facebook, Instagram, and Pinterest you can attract new customers. Use these sites to teach people about your company and why they should select your business over others.

An article by Corberry Digital Marketing examines marketing and factors that make a business fail or succeed. Read this to determine if your marketing efforts are working!

Don’t be afraid to find other avenues of marketing. You can also do so by word of mouth and posting ads in local papers.

12. Maintain the Website

If your website is continuing to work and bring in customers, you are likely doing something right.

If you want to continue the business, you will need to maintain your site. The contact information you provided should be accurate, along with employee information too.

When your business has new products or services being launched, they should also be uploaded to the website. Maintaining your site will prevent your site from being outdated and mismanaged.

Websites with blog pages should be having frequent uploads that stay up to date on trends and news. Many people recommend that you put aside a certain amount of time each day to work on your website.

13. Interact With Customers

Successful business owners know that you must interact with your customers if you want to keep them coming back.
You should be interacting with the customers online through your website and social media. Otherwise, your business can become forgotten. When customers comment on your posts or reach out to you in an email, you must respond to them.

Unanswered questions from customers can make them unsatisfied. A caring and conversational business owner can help make them feel comfortable to support your business.

You should always acknowledge what people are saying about your company. You may be able to increase sales if you follow the logical requests that people want.

Create Small Business Websites That Impress Customers

When you own a company, a lot of your business comes from word of mouth and through referrals.

Utilizing this guide can help you create small business websites that give you an online presence. This can help people learn about your company and all of the services that you offer. Most people look at online reviews and sites to determine if they want to support them or not.

To have an impressive website, you should use organization, media, and personal touches. Whatever you can think of to make your company look as unique as it is will help your site.

Be sure to check out our blog for more articles about improving your business with technology!