Start gathering quotes for business web design – or any professional service, I suppose – and you’ll notice right away that there will be a general range for professional work, along with a few that seem to be a little too good to be true. But, in this tough economy, the choice is clear, right? Isn’t it smart to save a little money where you can get a great deal when it’s offered?

Before I answer that question, let me point out two very important things. The first is that, in web design and almost any other business, you are highly likely to get what you pay for. And secondly, especially in business web design, what you pay for your project isn’t nearly as important as what you get out of it. In other words, a site that seems a bit more expensive now is a steal later if it ends up doubling your profits.

With that being said, the one thing to pay close attention to in any suspiciously low business web design quote is what’s not being listed.

In other words, are you really getting a great deal, or is it that they’re just taking away the “extras” that are most important to your site?

Here are at least five things that should definitely be included in any business web design quote:

A search engine optimization and marketing plan. It doesn’t matter what your site looks like, or what it does, if no one can find it. Make sure it will be accessible on Google, Yahoo, and Bing at a minimum.

Ongoing service and minor updates. What happens if you need to change a page, or find that you left a typo on your homepage? It’s important to pick a business web design team that will still be there when you need them.

Web hosting. Hosting might seem like a minor detail, but it affects your site speed, performance, stability, and even search engine positioning. Make sure you’re getting a competitive rate for high-quality hosting.

Social media links and profiles. Sites like Facebook and Twitter are more important than ever, and your company is going to suffer if you don’t have a presence on each of them.

An ongoing plan to grow your company online. Remember, your website shouldn’t just be an online brochure, but an important part of your marketing and promotion plan. What is your new business web design company doing to help you make it more successful?

We all like to save money, and it’s tempting to go with the rock-bottom business web design quote. Before you do, however, make sure that you aren’t spending less at the expense of your company’s future.

If you want some of the best Calgary web design and online marketing, contact eKzact Solutions for a free consultation today!

Psychologists will tell you that there are large groups of people who feel overwhelmed by “information overload,” or the ever-growing and expanding amount of data that’s available on the Internet. We regularly meet with small business owners who seem to be suffering from a similar effect – one we might call feature overload – where they aren’t sure which of the “must-have” tools and technologies need to be integrated into their next web design.

In other words, they often aren’t sure exactly how new a new business web design actually has to be in order to be an effective marketing tool.

Even though it might run contrary to a lot of thinking within the industry, we’re going to go out on a limb and say for the record that having the latest and greatest features on your business site isn’t always all it’s cracked up to be. Don’t get us wrong, there are definitely some fairly-standard features – like a good content management system, social media integration, search engine optimization, etc. – that can make your company more profitable in a hurry. But there are also a lot of things that just add to time and expense of your business site, make it more complicated for people to use, and generally get in the way of good usability.

Good design is classic. The way we code websites might change, but the basic ideas and information that most customers are looking for has remained fairly constant for thousands of years. In other words, you might use an online video to tell a potential buyer what you would have explained in a brochure 10 years ago, but the focus still needs to be on the right message, rather than on any one specific web design tool.

A good, high-quality business web design can easily last 3 to 5 years before it needs any major changes. If you find that you’re needing to redesign your business website a lot more often than not, it could be that you aren’t investing in quality layouts to start with, or are being too distracted by small changes, rather than concentrating on your most important business goals.

Having a new website for your company can be very exciting, but having one that helps you make more money month after month is usually a lot more rewarding.

To listen to most web design firms, the first thing you should do after upgrading or redesigning your small business website is to upgrade or redesign your small business website again. We say that jokingly, of course, but there’s an element of truth to it – it can easily feel like your site starts to get out dated the second it goes live, and web design companies are certainly happy to take your money when you decide it’s time for a change.

So when should you not decide to get a new small business website? Believe it or not, we can think of a few situations where it’s better to sit tight:

When you can’t afford quality web design work. Take it from a team of experienced professionals: trying to save a bunch of money by working with a bargain-basement web design company is almost always a bad idea. It’s not just that they’ll go through missed deadlines and ignored requirements; the end result will usually leave you wishing you just saved the little bit of money spent.

You can pay for a good site, but not enough of the features you really want. In the same way, the high-quality small business website is almost always an improvement if you have a design that isn’t working for you now. If you could wait just a little longer and get what you really need, though, that might be a better option. The last thing you want to do is spend a bunch of money to get a business site that you’ll want to replace three or six months down the road.

You’re already seeing record profits and sales online, and at a time when other businesses in your industry are struggling. There’s an old adage that you shouldn’t try to fix something that isn’t really broken, and that occasionally applies to small business web design. It’s okay to want to try some new features and keep up with the competition, but if you’re already blowing them out of the water, then be careful about making changes just for the sake of making changes.

More often than not, we meet business owners and marketing managers who are reluctant to make the changes and investments their businesses really need to go to the next level. If you don’t have the budget to do it right, however, or you’re already flying high above the pack, then don’t let anyone rush you into making the wrong decision.

Need one of Calgary’s best web design and online marketing teams working for you? Contact us at eKzact for a free consultation today!