There are digital agencies that offer cheap, or more politically correctly, really “affordable” web designs that cost as little as just under $1,000. It may seem like a bargain, but you get what you pay for like everything else in life. A website is a company’s online storefront; it shouldn’t look cheap, bland, or dated. I was looking for self-storage businesses in Kelowna. Out of the three I found, one had a cheap-looking website. My exact thought was, if a self-storage business cheaped out on its website, what are the chances it also cheaped out on its storage facilities and services? Naturally, I chose one of its competitors. In this article, we discuss the differences between a cheap website and a properly designed one and why quality websites cost more to build. Alternatively, check out this article to get an idea of the costs associated with having a website.
Design
What separates a business from the rest are called differentiators. That’s marketing 101. To make enough money building cheap websites, a company must achieve a fast turnaround using pre-built templates and fill in the blanks. As a result, little to no thoughts ever go into the design of these websites. Every one of them looks identical with horrible layouts and formatting. That’s just bad branding and marketing in general. You can usually spot a cheap website just by looking at it:
- Does it look cheap?
- Does it show the brand identity?
- Are the layout and formatting carefully thought out and easy to consume?
- Are there uneven white spaces between contents?
- Is the copywriting convincing?
- Do the images used tell a story and engage users?
Attention to Details
How much you pay for a website ultimately determines how qualified your web designer is and how much time will be spent on building your site. Anyone can build a website using a drag-and-drop site builder, but web design is all about details that amateur web designers cannot see or deal with. Even professional web designers need time to perfect a website. A website is not just a cluster of text and buttons. It needs images and sometimes videos to help tell the story. If you are unable to provide usable images, they need to be purchased. Not only do quality stock photos cost money, but it also is not uncommon for web designers to spend hours sifting through thousands of stock images to find the perfect ones to use.
Quality
Building a website is not the same as it used to be anymore. With consumers spending approximately 70% of their Internet time on mobile devices of different screen sizes, it takes at least 3 times longer to design and test websites than it used to properly. This is why cheap websites look cheap because there is not enough money and time spent on design and testing.
Beyond Web Design
There is so much more than professional web designers do than just designing websites. There are overheads associated with project management, communications, copywriting, search engine optimization, and the list goes on. These things affect how smoothly your web project would go and ultimately determines how much financial return your website will bring post-launch.
Summary
The bottom line is that good websites just don’t come cheap because they are built with time, resources, and, most importantly, craftsmanship. Cheap websites are cheap-looking. They turn away customers and end up costing businesses money. At Project Pi, we don’t build cheap websites. We design quality websites, and we make them affordable by offering payment options. So if you’re in the market for a new website, contact us to see how we can help you grow your business. We are local to Kelowna, British Columbia, and Regina, Saskatchewan, but we can work on your project remotely.
