Category Archives: London Web Design

Web design – pricing and timescales

If you’re a new business on a market for your first website, you’re probably wondering about the cost and how long it will take for the website to be created. This, as it happens, depends on a few factors we will try to explain here to help you answer all the questions and doubt you might have!
Web design berkshire does not have to be a scary topic, as it happens!

Freelancer? Design Studio? Agency?

To get yourself a website, you can hire a freelancer, or alternatively you can get in touch with a design studio or digital agency to do one for you. It all depends on your needs, and of course your budget.

A freelancer will always charge you less than a studio would for web design london, simply because he’s a one man company, unlike the studio or agency where the price of the website needs to cover a few paychecks and probably the rent on their offices.

Studios and agencies are, on the other hand, a better choice when you’re after a complex website, utilising a bespoke CMS engine or eCommerce platform. If that’s the case with you, digital agency should be your choice. The cost will be significantly higher, but you can be sure the end product will be of the highest quality possible and to a professional standard.

For standard websites, a freelancer will not charge you a lot, as they will most likely use open source solutions to cut the cost down. This is really all you need for a small or a start up business.

How long will it take?

Now that’s a very good question! Theoretically, a freelancer being a one man company should take more time to finish a website for you than a team of designers and developers from an agency or a studio, BUT… Truth is, most digital agencies will put your project in a queue, and then even after they start working on it, take a very long time to finish. A freelancer, on the other hand, cannot afford to waste time as he needs to earn a living, not being on a regular paycheck but rather working on a per project basis.

Now that you have a website, how will you be found on the internet?

A lot of people think that once they have a website, they will be automatically found on Google by people interested in their services. And while a well SEO berkshire optimized website might rank well on search engines where there is little to no competition, this is not usually the case.

You will need to consider both SEO london and PPC advertising. Now, PPC is something you can easily do yourself – just sign up for a free Google AdWords account and create some ads for yourself. The beauty of that is that you only pay when someone actually clicks on your ad and visits the site. You can control how much you are willing to pay as well!

SEO, on the other hand, will take some time to be done, as well as cost you a lot, but in the end you get to rank naturally in Google without paying for everu click, which is worth considering.

Summary

So, in conclusion, if time is a factor for you, hir a freelancer. On the other hand, if you need a bespoke system, a design studio or a digital agency should probably be your choice, even if it means the project will take much longer.

Choosing the right website for your needs

With technology moving forward at astonishing pace, the means of advertising and marketing change quickly. It used to be fairly simple, having started your own business you would advertise in Yellow Pages and local newspapers and magazines to reach your potential customers, and you wouldn’t complain for the lack of new orders. Now, with over 75% people looking for potential services or products online, it’s not all that effective anymore. Everyone tells you that you should get yourself a website, but where to start? We will try to explain that in as simple terms as possible!

First of all, there’s a lot of different website solutions out there, with prices ranging from £150 to £2000+, so you might wonder how much it will cost you? The answer is it depends on your needs, and the quality of the website that you are after. So what should you consider when choosing the right web design Berkshire service?

For a small start up business, you can easily go for the budget solution and get yourself a simple £100-£150 website just to keep some basic information online for your potential clients to look at, and maybe a few pictures of your work, and of course contact details. It’s a good starting point, to establish online presence and showcase your work in a simple way.

Moving forward, for already established small to medium businesses, you should consider getting a CMS website. It is basically a Content Management System build under your website, to let you easily amend and add new content, pictures and so on, without any knowledge of programming or professional help. It is also great for SEO Berkshire, which is crucial if you want your business to be found in Google and other search engines, which is really the whole point of having a website! Cost wise, a CMS website will set you back anywhere between £200 to £700, depending on the quality of the design and complexity of the website you require. It is also very flexible, so should you decide later on you’d like to integrate an online shop into your website, it can be easily done with addition of some plugins, the sky is the limit with the CMS!

Lastly, for big businesses that are well established, you should be looking for a fully bespoke solution, both in terms of the design and functionality. Open source CMS engines are great and flexible, but not without their drawbacks, so if you can afford a fully custom made system, by all means go for it! Just make sure it’s provided by professionals, rather than some amateurs who will charge you a fortune just to deliver a faulty and generally bad system.

To summarize, the cost of the website really depends on you, and what your requirements are. There’s no point in spending a fortune on the website if you’re a local handyman, simply because you only need to reach your local people and show them the quality of your work, explain what is it you do, and provide contact details. It goes both ways too – if you are a well established business operating nationwide, getting a cheap website will just drive the potential clients away, as they won’t take you seriously.

Hope this will help you choose the right web design london service for yourself. If you have any questions, or would like to discuss your requirements with professional web designers and developers, please contact us directly!