Professional Website Design – What Are You Paying For

You get what you pay for with professional website design – here is a breakdown of the costs.

A professional website design is an investment in your business but not everyone wants to pay for the expertise of a design company. Web design should be seen as an asset to your business and part of your profits with many businesses using their site as their main sales funnel. The cost is easier to justify when it is amortised over a five-year span, generally the time you may require a redesign. But what are you paying for? Here is what you get when you hire a quality design team.

Killer design

If you want a knockout website that has to be built from the ground up rather than a standard template, the commercial reality is that you have to pay for it. The price of the professional website design will differ from company to company and project to project. This will be determined by factors such as the platform (WordPress, Magento etc), the scope of the site (unique styling elements) and complexities of the build (bells and whistles).

Quality assurance

With a specialised web company, you are paying for attention to detail, usability testing and quality assurance. Before the website is sent live, there should be several checks such as cross-browser capability, how the site renders on portable devices, site speed, whether there are any broken links, if forms are working and other technical tests. They will also make sure that all the images and copywriting has been uploaded and checked for typos and errors.

Search Engine Optimisation

As Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) is so important to the success of a website, ideally a professional website design should suggest working hand-in-hand with a SEO expert to help optimise pages before launch. When you hire a full-service agency, they may have an SEO department or an in-house consultant – SEO may be standard in their packages. Alternatively, a design agency may also be able to recommend an SEO company that they work with frequently.

Account management

With a professional website design company, you are also paying for the quality of customer service. You may be assigned a dedicated account manager who is your central point of contact and acts as a liaison between you and the web designer. In your initial consultation you should discuss the level of account management you will receive, whether it will be 24/7 or during business hours and communication channel such as email, telephone, live chat and so forth.

Post-launch support

When you hire an expert design company, post-launch support is critical and it’s best if this is included in the original scope of the project. You can choose to buy a design template or work with a company that doesn’t provide this support but if things do not go to plan in the launch period, it may be prove to be an expensive exercise to ask the company to make additional changes which may be urgent rather than factor this into your initial contract.

Whether you choose to create a website from scratch or use a pre-defined template is ultimately up to you but it is important as a client, that you understand what you are paying for when it comes to quality design. At Web Design Works, we are a full-service agency with a team of talented web designers with SEO experts, SEO copywriters, link building analysts and social media experts at hand. Contact us to find out more about our professional website design packages and services.

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