Are you looking for a new website for your business?

Here’s what you need to know about being a website buyer before you get started.

Please don’t hesitate to reach out to us with any questions you have, we’d be more then happy to help.

Goals

Planning goals for your website is essential.

If you’re going to invest in a website you’ll want to define what success looks like so you know when you get there.

It’s helpful to set SMART goals as it keeps you and your development team on the same page and moving in the same direction.

These are goals that are Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant and Time-bound.

For example: 20% increase in sales in 6 months, 30% increase in memberships this year or reduce admin costs by 15% in 3 months.

These are specific, easily measurable, definitely achievable, relevant to the business and time-bound.

Unlike: get more sales, grow my mailing list or increase website conversions.

These aren’t helpful to anyone.

With this in mind, what are the top 5 business needs of your new website?

Budget

There is a lot of uncertainty in the web industry around what things should cost.

After you receive a few quotes for your website project you’ll likely see that they vary in price drastically.

This is because there isn’t much standarisation in the web industry because you can receive quotes from anyone.

From a freelancer who’s looking to build their first few websites to fill their portfolio to a web design agency with over 10 years experience.

This is why you likely have no real idea of what things should really cost.

Recent data shows the average 2024 website costs in Australia can vary significantly:

If you’re a small business owner or start-up simply looking to get online then this usually requires far less functionality and can be relatively cheap.

If your website requires eCommerce functionality however (allowing you to sell products online) then this can affect the price significantly. Speak to our experienced eCommerce designers who will be able to advise you.

However, keep in mind that your website is an investment.

With clear goals you can expect your website price to be well worth it and eventually offset by the additional revenue it brings in for your business.

Content

Content is everything we engage with on a website, including text, images, videos and more.

Visitors of your website will be looking to consume content that helps them find an answer to their question or to help solve a problem.

Your websites content is the single most important part of the entire project and determines the overall strategy, design and user experience of the website.

If this is your businesses first website then you likely won’t have much content to work with yet.

That’s fine, you just have a little more to consider.

You’ll likely have three options when working with an agency:

  1. You’ll provide all the content yourself
  2. You’ll collaborate with a copywriter on the content
  3. The agency will handle all the content for you

While all of these options can be effective there are pros and cons to each.

If you choose to provide all the content yourself this will be the least expensive option and you know your business better then anyone.

Understanding your business and being an effective copywriter are two very different things however.

If you were to collaborate with a copywriter on your websites content then this can provide you with the best of both worlds, an understanding of your business and the skills of a copywriter.

This will obviously cost more however as you’ll be working with a professional and you’ll also want to make sure you work well together so you don’t end up arguing over every sentence.

If you decide to have the agency handle all the content for you this obviously means far less work for you and you know that the output will be the best it can be for search engines and customer conversion.

The downside is that this will obviously be the most expensive option along with the threat of losing authenticity due to a stranger writing the content for your business.

Traffic

Once your website is live you still have the small problem of attracting visitors.

Every day there are around 7.5 million blog posts published worldwide and with over 1.6 billion websites online right now how do you attract attention to yours?

While that does sound pretty much impossible you’ve got to remember you’re not looking for everything’s attention, just your ideal visitor’s.

When you can identify exactly who your ideal target audience is then effective strategies to target them and grow your online visitors start to emerge.

If you decide to go it alone or to work with a digital marketing team you’ll always need a strategy, no matter what.

Some of the most common ways to drive traffic to your website include Search Engine Optimisation (SEO), Social Media and Paid Advertising.

If your website doesn’t attract any visitors then it likely won’t produce any value for your business.

While building your website it’s important to consider how people will find it among all the others out there.

Ongoing

Launching your website is just the beginning, continuous effort is required to ensure its ongoing success.

There are ongoing tasks that require attention in order to ensure your websites future success.

You may want to handle this yourself or you can rely on a professional to save you time and likely achieve a better result.

You’ll always want to have a focus on your websites security along with site maintenance and updates.

If your website is left alone it will become vulnerable to security risks that can allow it to get hacked or infected with viruses.

Something else you’ll want in the future is content changes.

Your business will need to change and evolve to stay ahead of its competition and your website will need to as well.

It’s a good idea to maintain a relationship with the web developers who built your website originally because they’ll always be best suited to make those changes for you.

Other ongoing costs include domain names, website hosting and other software licenses that you’ll want to keep an eye on.

The worst thing you can do to your website is launch and then forget about it.

Just like ongoing maintenance to your home or car, it’s crucial you maintain routine care of your website to ensures its ongoing success.

Partner

Building a website is a partnership between you and the developer.

Like any relationship this requires trust so you’ll want to make sure you’re comfortable working with them before you invest your time and money.

Your websites success hinges on a successful relationship between you and the developer.

Some things you’ll want to consider is your developers location, if they freelance or work with a team and what their previous reviews and work look like.

Is it important to you that they’re local so that you can meet face-to-face to work on this or are you comfortable working with someone remote.

For example, our team is based here in Brisbane and we work with many of our clients face-to-face while also working with others who are all around Australia.

Would you like to work with a team on this project or are you happy to work one-on-one with a freelancer?

Lastly, you’ll want to check their reviews and portfolio to see what they’re like to work with and if you like their previous websites.

Spend some time getting to know your development team, you’ll want to feel confident in your choice before you commit to anything.

Congratulations

Awesome, now you’re informed and ready to start working on your very own website!

If you have any questions about this article or would like to learn more about our Brisbane web design team please don’t hesitate to reach out.

If you’d like to learn more about each phase in a web design project, check out this article.

To your success,
Jackson