Planning to Buy a Business Website?
Preparation is key to receiving useful proposals from web developers. Not only will a bit of preparation help you get more detailed propsals, but it is more likely that you will be able to compare the pricing – apples to apples.
A great number of prospective website design clients do very little preparation prior to calling web designers. They tend to search online for a web designer and then start down the list. Some call, others fill out the request for proposal “form” that is commonly found on web designers websites. The website developer will control the interview, or the form will drive the questions. There will be no consistency, conversations will go in different directions, forms are all unique – proposals and pricing will come back to the prospective client as varied as the colours in a rainbow. One of our prospective clients, last year, received three proposals for their new website, prior to choosing eKzact. The client later confided in me that the pricing ranged from $3,500 up to $10,000.00. Presumably these prices were all for the same website.
A lot of small business owners decide to research getting a website, but it seems that the first place a lot of them begin their research is at the top ranking website design company websites. While this may seem a logical place to begin, I would recommend that you begin by developing a simple specification for your website. Do a basic “needs” analysis.
Research Your Competitors
I would strongly suggest that you open a web-browser, go to Google.com and search for your competition. Look for other businesses that are online, and doing what you do. Start a list of “competative websites” for analysis by your prospective web developer. Beside the website address, make note of the following;
- What you like about the site (best practices)
- Are there any components on the site that will help you generate leads for your business?
- Are there any forms on the website that your business should have on it’s website?
- Speak to the general design of the competitors website design (look and feel)… do you like it or not? What do you like?
Do the search again mixing in demographic words like City or Province names. This will return more business websites in your industry, but not necessarily in your immediate area.
The more websites you look at, related to your industry, the better you will be prepared to tell your prospective web designer what your business needs are. A skilled web developer will do some of this research for you, but it is still recommended that you make the effort before starting your project.
Research Websites “in General”
Do another search on Google.com now… use the keywords “nicely designed business websites”, or something similar. Google will return a “result set” of websites for you to surf. I recommend that you look at lots of websites
Make more notes. This time, you are looking at the general website layouts, colour themes and textures. Try to find example websites that have a “look and feel” that appeals to your business sense. Keep in mind that you are developing a website for your business – not for yourself.
Who Is Your Target Visitor?
A business website should appeal to the prospective website visitor – not the business owner. Make note of who your typical client is and what “environment” will appeal to them. For example, if you are developing a website to attract new apprentices into an Iron Workers local, then it is not likely that rosey pinks and reds will appeal to the visitors.
Make notes about the types of images that will help to communicate to your website visitors. Visit a website like Dreamstime and search for images realated to your business and list the image serial numbers as examples for your designer. Don’t buy the images, just use the reference number.
Generation of Leads
Once the visitor arrives at your website, what do you need them to do? Is it important to you that people phone you when they come to your website? Do you want them to complete a survey and then receive a free report about your industry? Do you want the visitor to register? Reqest a proposal?
This is a critially important area for your new website. There is a multitiude of opportunities for a website to become a lead generating tool for your business. A professional website developer will have a lot of different ideas for lead generation – but come prepared with some ideas.
Conclusion
Most professional web development companies will have some strong recommendatios for you. We have the advantage of having designed and developed several websites every months. The more you prepare, prior to asking a web developer for pricing, the better the resulting proposals will be.
A company like eKzact has a full compliment of Internet Consultants, project managers, web designers, programmers, search engine optimizers and online marketers. Visit our business website here…
