“Don’t tell them it’s for a wedding, otherwise they’ll charge you A LOT more.”

I imagine that’s what it must feel like if you work for a larger company. You may think to yourself, ‘Are these guys going to charge me more just because we’re a large business or are well known?’

And you know what, you’re right. We do charge more to larger companies. And by larger, I’m talking turnover of a million+.

Our web design packages start from £4497(+VAT), with the average being around £7,000 – £9,000(+VAT). For large companies, this jumps to £20,000+(+VAT).

But it’s not for the reasons you might think. We don’t sit there rubbing our hands together with glee and pound signs in our eyes when we see you coming. There are genuine reasons why we charge more to larger companies.

In the interest of honesty and transparency and all that malarky, we’ve listed these below.

1. There’s a lot more communication with you

When we work with larger organisations, generally there are more people involved in the process. Yes, we communicate with one, designated person, but this one person has to get input and feedback from the different teams within the organisation.

Often, we’ll have video calls with the different teams to go through what they need from the website, or feedback on the designs, or any particular questions. Each team has it’s own priority. For example, people who work in finance want something different from the website to the people who work in HR.

So, why would this cost more money? Essentially, it takes A LOT longer.

There’s a lot more communication needed when we deal with larger companies. And this isn’t a bad thing. The level of communication with many different members of staff is what will lead a website that serves the company, the individual teams within the company and the customer.

A typical website design project will take us 3 months. With larger organisations, it takes us 6-9 months. When we take on a website design project for a larger organisation, we have to schedule in time in diary, and we take on fewer clients around that time.

The reason we charge more is that you get more of our dedicated time.

2. You need more page designs

All our websites are built from scratch, and we follow a particular process.

The first thing we do is research. We spend time with you figuring out what you need from your website, understanding your brand, your customers, the issues you have with your current website etc.

Once we’ve been through this discovery phase we create a wireframe of the homepage. Once that’s been approved we then design your homepage, and finally, once that’s been approved we move on to building the homepage. We follow this process with every single page on your website that needs an original design.

Larger organisations tend to need a lot more page designs. Not just a homepage, about page and a single service page. Larger organisations sometimes need 10/15/20+ page designs. This is because they tend to offer a wide range of services for a wide range of sectors. This means more time has to go into the project, which is why it costs more.

3. Your website has to serve lots of different people

For larger organisations, a website redesign is not just a way to generate more leads and sales. A website is also a way to make business processes easier and more streamlined. Each team within a large organisation generally has a ‘wish list’ of things they want from a website.

For example, HR might want to make the process of attracting new candidates to the organisation easier. Administrative staff might want the website to do some of the heavy lifting in terms of administrative tasks. The sales team may want an online portal for potential customers to view videos, submit documents, view proposals, etc.

Because each team wants something different from the website, websites for larger organisations usually have more functionality. This all adds to the cost.

4. There’s a lot more integrations/software development

Similar to number three, larger organisations need their website to integrate with lots of different software, for example, relationship management software, apps, internal communication software etc.

We sometimes have to work with software developers too, assisting them in connecting the software to the website.

This all takes extra time.

5. We provide you with a lot more training

One of the main reasons larger companies come to us for a website is, well, they’ve been treated pretty badly before. We’re under no illusion that we’re a pretty unusual choice for a large company – who can have their pick of fancy agencies with big offices, teams of staff and one of those coffee machines we’re super jealous of. Whereas we work from home with our cats, a kettle and a tub of Nescafe Gold Blend.

But all the same, we do attract some large companies and one of the reasons why is because we give them access to the entire website. We don’t force them into contracts where we update their websites for them at an obscene cost. Because, quite frankly, that would bore the hell out of us.

But that does mean we have to provide extra training upfront. A lot of different people in the organisation need to know how to update or access different parts of the website. Marketing wants to delve into the blog, administrative staff want to know how to create intelligent contact forms that send information to specific people in the company, HR wants to see the CVs of potential candidates etc. All that needs explaining.

FYI – Don’t worry, backups mean you can’t break the website. There’s very little you can do to break a website if it’s backed up correctly.

6. There’s often consulting too

Once larger organisations have invested £20/30/40,000 on a website, they often want to know how to get the most out of it too. Makes sense.

So, we often consult on things like SEO, copywriting and content marketing during the project and after it’s live. This all adds to the cost of the website.

7. There’s a lot more content

Larger organisations usually have mammoth websites. There are often thousands of pages, some which need to be culled. This needs to be done carefully and strategically. We don’t want to lose any traffic when the new website is launched, which is why setting up appropriate redirects is important.

The majority of the pages though will need migrating over to the new website. And you may think, ‘oh, this can be done automatically, right?’ Yes and no. If it’s WordPress to WordPress redesign, there is some software that helps you pull over the content from one site to another BUT every single page still needs checking. In our experience, this is never perfect. There’s always missing images or incorrect URLs. This all needs to be fully checked and corrected before the website goes live.

If the original site is not on WordPress then the content will need to be moved over manually, and this is a huge part of the extra cost.

8. We have to consider your ROI

Charging 5k for a website to a company that turns over millions quite frankly does not make sense.  We charge more because you’ll get a lot more in return.

In Conclusion

So there you are. These are the reasons why we charge more for large business/public sector websites. If you work for a large business or public sector company, I hope that’s put your mind at ease. If you’d like more help with choosing a web designer, you can also download our free, totally unbiased, website buyer’s guide below. Of if you have any questions, feel free to ask us on our contact page.

P.s. Do you bid for projects?

We also get asked this a lot. Typically, the answer is no. Although we have done. The reason we generally don’t do it is that it takes up a lot of our time.

Lyndsay Cambridge

Owner at Jammy Digital, Digital Marketing Specialist and Writer of Young-Adult Fiction.

jammydigital.com

The post Why we charge large businesses & public sector organisations more for website redesign appeared first on Content Marketing & SEO Agency | Get More Sales From Your Website.

The decision to have our first website professionally designed cost us our business. And we don’t want anyone else to make the mistakes we made!

Unfortunately, we’re not unique. Many business owners we speak to have had a bad experience with a web design agency.

So here’s what we did (or didn’t do) and what you should do instead.

Our first business

About 8-9 years ago, we both had full-time jobs and a dream to live the entrepreneurial lifestyle.

So we started a business on the side.

We spent all our spare time (mainly evenings and weekends) building our online business – selling cushions and home furnishing on eBay and at the odd local event. Yes, Martin was actually a pretty good cushion salesman.

It wasn’t easy, especially when we were both working full time, but we loved it. So when the time felt right, we decided to take things one step further and invest in a professionally-designed website.

We had big plans.

We wanted our own online shop that people could buy from, no matter where they were in the world.

Hiring a web designer

Decision made, we didn’t waste any time. Instead of asking around for recommendations from friends and family, we looked at a few local businesses and hired the web designer with the best-looking website.

We paid £1,400 for the job (which at the time was all the money we had in the world), and he built an all-singing-all-dancing online shop that would make us millionaires.

Financially, this was a real struggle for us. With money tied up in stock sitting idle in our spare room, we had put everything we had into this one investment.

It wasn’t a great position to be in. But we were young and excited and we had a vision!

Can you blame us?

But things went horribly wrong.

The mistakes we made with our first website

1. We didn’t do enough research before hiring a web designer

Hiring the web design agency with the glossiest website is a mistake we see a lot of people make.

Don’t get us wrong – we hired a nice guy, and we enjoyed the process of working with him. But had we done our homework, we probably would have gone with someone else.

Why? Because he wasn’t the right fit. We needed a cheap website that showed us

2. We chose the wrong platform (Content management system) for our needs

At the time, we didn’t even know you could build a website on different platforms!

And unsurprisingly, (considering we had skipped the research part of the process) we found ourselves with a website built on OpenCart – a platform we found really hard to get to grips with.

Little things, like organising postage, for example, felt really complicated. And we had to spend a lot of time and effort learning things to just get it to work for us.

Plus, we hadn’t realised we didn’t have the experience or expertise to be able to update our own website. And teaching us how to update and optimise our newly-built website wasn’t something our web designer offered.

But the real point is – we didn’t ask! And we didn’t ask because we didn’t know we’d need training and support!

Also, as we later found out (when we eventually heard about this thing called search engine optimisation) that OpenCart isn’t the best when it comes to SEO. (And that’s a big part of why we now only build websites on WordPress!).

So in hindsight, we would have definitely hired a different agency to build us a website on a platform that was right for us.

But we hadn’t done our homework, so we didn’t know!

3. We adopted a build-it-and-they-will-come mindset

Big mistake.

We thought we had it all figured out.

We’d just need to throw money at this amazing web designer with the glossy-looking website, and people from all over the world would flock to our website.

We’d make lots of money.

The end.

Except that’s not how it works at all.

People didn’t come.

Because we didn’t realise that once your website is made, you need to start driving traffic to it.

And unfortunately, with our capital tied up in stock and our savings used up for the website, we had nothing left. We didn’t have another penny to invest.

When we eventually asked our web designer to help us with SEO, his monthly quote was completely out of our reach.

Plus, it’s only after our website was built that we realised our business was operating in a very competitive niche/.

We were selling products that were available on big websites, like Amazon and eBay (and probably thousands of others). And we had no way of differentiating ourselves – we hadn’t given our visitors any reason to buy from us!

Not to mention that competing on price against the biggest online giants on the market meant we had no profit margin. And that just wasn’t sustainable, especially when we had exposed ourselves financially in such a big way.

And that’s when the realisation hit us.

We were not going to be millionaires and live on a beach, sipping cocktails after all.

Not while selling cushions online anyway.

4. We thought building a website was the end goal

We hadn’t realised how much work it would take to build AND grow a website.

And we made the mistake of thinking that the website was everything – the end goal. Instead, we should have seen it as the beginning of our business.

Your website is the heart of your business.

But you’ve got to pump blood to it.

And that’s web traffic.

Once your website is live, how are you going to market yourself? Because your website is really just the starting point, and we didn’t know that!

5. We got too excited about our business

We loved our business so much that we put our heart and soul into it – we went to the extent of naming our cushions! To tell you the truth, we were so enthusiastic about our products that we wrongly assumed the whole world would be!

The bottom line is that we had fun with it, and we were really excited. But it meant we let our hearts rule our heads, even when it came to big business decisions like hiring a web designer!

6. We obsessed over the details

Instead of looking at the bigger picture, we focused on the details – literally down the colour and size of each button!

But with no website visitors, the details were pretty useless.

So what should you do instead?

1. Download our Website Buyer’s Guide

We learnt so much from this experience that we vowed we’d help other people avoid all the traps we fell into.

So we created our Website Buyer’s Guide, for anyone who is thinking of getting a new website or having their re-designed. You can download for free here. It’s our gift to you to help you avoid the costly mistakes we made.

2. Do your research before you buy

Find out what platform is right for your needs before you buy.

Consider things like:

• Is the platform easy to optimise for search? Will I need help with this or is it something I can do by myself?
• Will I be able to update and maintain my website once it’s live? Who will make changes and how?
• Will I need training and support? And if so, who will provide that help?

3. If you’re brand new in business, DIY your website

There are times when hiring a web designer is the right choice. But there are times and situations where it definitely isn’t.

If you’re brand new in business and haven’t tested the viability of your idea and model yet, you should DIY your own website. All you need at the start might be something like Shopify or a WordPress template.

And if you’re struggling, try to find someone who will help you move forward one step at the time, much like we do in our membership, Make Your Mark Online.

If you want to find out more about why you shouldn’t hire a web designer when you’re brand new in business, listen to our podcast episode: Should you DIY your website?

And when your business is established and you have regular customers and clients, by all means, consider hiring a web designer if that’s the right move for you.

4. Focus on driving traffic to your website

Once your website is live, that’s when the real work starts. Because even if your website looks amazing, you can’t convert traffic if you don’t have any!

So get the blood to the heart.

And you do this by:

• Creating and executing a content marketing strategy.
• Optimising your website for SEO.
• Engaging in social media marketing and/or email marketing.

If you want to convert traffic, you have to drive that traffic in first! And if you’re unsure about how to start, keep things simple. Think about what your buyers might want. Write helpful blog posts and promote the heck out of them.

5. Don’t invest in something you can’t afford

If you have to put your last pennies into something (a website or anything else), it’s probably not the right time to invest. We really struggled financially as a result of hiring a web designer at the wrong time for our business.

And eventually, this decision cost us our business.

So when making business decisions, and especially big buying decisions, try to use your head instead of your heart!

Would you like our help as you create your own website?  

So there you have it – the honest mistakes we made on our first website. If you enjoyed this blog post, you can also listen to our podcast episode 9 – Why our website failed miserably.

We learnt a lot from the experience, and that’s what led us to where we are today. We understand what you’re going through at the very early stages of your business, and we can help you avoid the mistakes we made.

If you want to find out more about the ways we help, check out our membership Make Your Mark Online, where we can support you in creating a website you can be proud of.

Martin & Lyndsay

The post 6 Mistakes To Avoid When Hiring a Web Designer (and What To Do Instead) appeared first on Content Marketing & SEO Agency | Get More Sales From Your Website.

And we find this really sad because we have friends who are great web designers and who are constantly looking at ways to improve their clients’ websites. Yet, so many business owners have horrible experiences with web design. Does it mean the industry is full of ‘bad agencies’?

Probably not.

It’s more to do with the fact that business owners struggle to find the right web design agency for their needs. 

And sadly, that’s why this industry has such a bad reputation. It’s easy to hire an agency because of their ‘wow factor’. We make buying decisions based on their glossy website and fancy offices.

But what if the big agency with the comfy chairs and the shiny coffee machine isn’t the right fit for your business?

Why we aren’t right for some people

Not all web designers are clear about who their ideal clients are, and that doesn’t help consumers who are looking to make an informed choice and pick an agency that works for them!

That’s why we’re so passionate about using our copy and our content to spell out who we’re right for and who we’re not right for. Take this blog post – 10 Reasons We’re Not the Right Fit For You, as an example.

We’re probably a ‘bad agency’ for some people. If someone isn’t prepared to work on their website once it’s live and expects us to write copy and blog posts, change images for them, etc. then we’re not for them.

Because that’s not what we do.

And that makes us a bad choice for that particular client.

As an agency, we are right for people who are quite proactive, want to learn, don’t mind getting their hands dirty and are happy for us to provide them with remote support through training videos and emails. We’re the perfect agency for some people, and a terrible agency for others.

Why big web design agencies aren’t right for some people

Equally, a big agency with an amazing portfolio who will charge tens of thousands of pounds might not be right for someone with a small local business.

To give you an example, we once spoke to a florist who had her website designed by a big agency who worked with the likes of the BBC and Cadbury. They were industry leaders. And of course, this lady’s website turned out to be amazing (and very expensive!).

But in hindsight, she told us she’d have rather hired a freelance web designer because all she needed was a great-looking website that ranked her locally for her keywords. And the agency she hired didn’t help with that – they were almost too big for her business and her needs.

If you’re a small business (with a smaller budget), you’re better off hiring a web designer who cares about your business and will take the time to ask you exactly what you want to achieve with your website.

So, if you’re in the market for a new website or a website re-design, how do you know which web design agency is right for you?

How to Find the Right Agency For You

1. Be clear on what you need from your website

First of all, what kind of support do you expect from a web design agency? Do you want to work with a big fancy agency or a local freelancer?

Both are fine. There’s no right or wrong here – as long as you understand the differences between the various options and the pros and cons of each.

So start by identifying what’s important to you, for example,

• Do you want to rank highly in search results? Then you need an agency with SEO knowledge.
• Are you a luxury brand, and do you need your website to be all about the design? Then find an agency that fits the bill for that, with previous experience of dealing with luxury designers
• Are you a total technophobe and would find it helpful to have lots of face-to-face time with a web designer? A local freelancer might be best for you.

If you want some help in identifying your needs when it comes to creating or re-designing your website, download our FREE Website Buyer’s Guide. It’s an impartial guide that we created to help you find a web designer that’s right for you.

And if you want to hear about the time when we made a bad buying decision by hiring a designer who wasn’t right for us, listen to our podcast episode: Why our first website failed miserably!

But what other signs should you watch out for before you go ahead and hire a web design agency?

2. Stay clear of web agencies with a bad website

This sounds quite obvious, but an agency with a bad website probably won’t be right for you!

So don’t hire them! Even if you’re friends or if someone you know recommended them to you because they are friends! (Or even family!). If their website isn’t great, chances are they won’t know how to design a great one for you.

3. Make sure you are given access to the backend of your website

You need to have access to the backend of your website.

So before you hire anyone, make sure that the agency gives you full access to the backend (or Content Management System) of your website.

Even if you’re not yet sure how to navigate your way around it, you can always learn. And having access will definitely work better (and be cheaper) for you in the long run. You just don’t want to be in a situation where your web designer quotes you a ridiculous amount of money whenever you have to make a tiny change to your website!

If that happens, you’ll be angry. And you’d have a right to be!

4. Watch out for the web designers who use a lot of jargon

So you’ve been researching web design agencies, and their websites are full of talk about HTML, CSS, and PHP.

Great.

You conclude that having a website is technical and confusing, so you’re better off just handing it all over to these guys who sound like they know what they’re talking about.

Stay. Away. From. them.

They might (or might not) know how to build websites. But their copy is telling something else – they have no respect for you. Because they choose to ‘explain’ things in a way that makes no sense to you!

And you know what?

There’s no need to use jargony language at all – we don’t do it! Just have a look at our website, we’re not writing to impress our peers or confuse you, we try to explain things in a way that’s easy to understand.

We have no interest in wasting precious space on our website using words that mean nothing to our prospective clients. For us, it’s a missed opportunity to connect with our visitors and tell them exactly who we’re right for and who we’re not right for.

5. Beware of those who don’t want to show their face

Have you ever noticed how a lot of businesses seem to hide behind their website and never show their face? We call them hermits. And we feel so passionate about this that we even wrote a blog post a while ago called Show us your face.

We always recommend to website owners that you use professional images of yourself on your website as it helps you to build trust and authority with your audience. You can read more about this in our blog post What is the B.R.A.N.D. website framework.

Think about it. As a consumer, don’t you find it difficult to make a buying decision when you can’t see the person you’re going to be working with?

We find this very off-putting. Why hide? What’s so bad about being able to put a face to a name?

Of course, not having photos of themselves on their website doesn’t mean a web designer isn’t good. Maybe, just like a lot of business owners out there, they’re a bit shy about putting photos of themselves on their website. That’s all.

Just beware of this and do some more research to make sure you’re clear on who you’re hiring for the job.

6. Big or small doesn’t matter, as long as they meet your needs

Equally, we’ve seen plenty of examples of people who started their business from their kitchen table (nothing wrong with that!) who then went on to plaster their websites with stock images of shiny offices and big teams – essentially making themselves look much bigger than what they are.

There’s no need for that. And most people are genuine and honest about who they are and who they’re not, but not everyone is, so just be careful.

If you need a huge company or even just a team, don’t get caught out by one guy in his basement trying to be all things!

7. Stay away from obscure Content Management Systems

What will your web designer build your website on?

You may have heard of WordPress, Magento, Shopify, or Joomla, for example. These are common Content Management Systems.

So if the web designers you’re thinking of hiring use a specialist and obscure Content Management System you haven’t heard of before, do some more research! You don’t want to be in a situation where you’re fully reliant on your agency to support you.

The reason why we only use WordPress is that it’s the most popular and well-trusted Content Mangement System. If you need help with something and for some reason, we’re not immediately available, you can still find answers and resources on the internet. But if your website is built on a rare platform, you may struggle with that!

8. Avoid a web designer with a questionable portfolio

One of the first things we suggest you do when researching web designers is to look at their portfolio to get a sense for:

• what level they’re working at,
• what kind of websites they’re designing,
• and what kind of industries they specialise in.

A word of warning on this though.

If the web designers you’re considering tick a lot of boxes, but you’re not convinced about their portfolio, get in touch and ask them for more examples of their work.

We know from personal experience that keeping your portfolio up to date is time-consuming – we have a lot of websites we’ve built over the last few months that don’t feature on our site because we haven’t had time to add them. So do reach out to a prospective web designer if you want to see more of their work – they’ll be happy to oblige.

9. Watch out for web designers who don’t offer a discovery phase

If an agency or a freelancer doesn’t factor in how they’re going to find out more about:

• your business,
• your target audience,
• what you want to achieve from your website,
• and what kind of goals you have for your business,

stay well clear!

We have what we call a ‘discovery phase’ where we delve into all our new clients’ businesses. We get to know a lot about them during this process, and it’s the only way we get to design a great website for somebody.

So if a web designer doesn’t offer this service, consider this a warning sign that they aren’t invested in your business.

The price you pay will have a lot to do with this too. The agency you hire for £500 might not even know what a discovery phase is. And in a way, that’s understandable – the price tag doesn’t cover for that! But the agency that charges £5,000+ should get to know you as a vital element to the web design process.

10. Be wary of the agency that doesn’t put their prices on their website

We are huge believers in putting prices on your website.

Yes, projects and requirements vary and so do prices. That’s why we use a minimum package price on our websitethat our potential clients can use as an indicator. We even publicly write about the process we use to come up with our prices! Head over to our blog post Why We’re Increasing Our Web Design Prices to find out more.

But a lot of web designers won’t display prices on their website.

And while that’s not in itself an indicator of a bad web designer, you’ll want to get a quote quite early on in your research. The worst thing any business can do is to make you jump through hoops to find out their prices. What happens when you find out that the price is way over your budget? What a waste of your time (and theirs)!

So stay away from anyone who’s putting pressure on you to have several discovery calls before they give you a quote! They’re probably trying to make you feel so invested in the process that you won’t be able to say no to them. It’s an old-school sales technique that no longer works. And frankly, it shows that the other person doesn’t respect your time.

So how exactly do you find someone who’s right for you?

We’ve given you a lot of pointers to avoid picking the wrong web design agency for your needs. But how do you find one that is good for you?

Ultimately, and above everything else we’ve mentioned, look for someone who:

• cares about helping you move your business forward,
• you can trust and connect with,
• you see yourself having a good working relationship with.

We find this always happens with our clients. We get so close to their business that we end up getting to know them really well. And that’s both a pleasure and an honour.

Would you like us to help you with your website?

We are passionate about helping business owners build and grow successful websites. We also understand that people might have questions and concerns as they get into this process for the first time. Or maybe because they’ve had an awful experience in the past!

• That’s why we don’t use code or jargon.
• That’s why we are open and honest about the type of web agency we are.
• We are transparent about the type of clients that are right for us and those who aren’t.
• And that’s why we publish our prices on our website.

We want people to be able to make informed decisions.

So if you’re looking for a web design agency who cares about your needs and your business, and you think we may be right for you, get in touch!

Martin & Lyndsay

The post How to Avoid Hiring a Bad Web Design Agency appeared first on Content Marketing & SEO Agency | Get More Sales From Your Website.

When you hire us to build your website, the cost of the project may change from what we initially agreed.

Doesn’t seem fair, does it?

I hear you, and we hate doing it, but occasionally we simply HAVE to.

Truth be told, most projects go as expected and 90% of the time, the price we quote at the start of the project, is the final price.

But that still leaves 10% of our clients who end up paying more.

In this post, I want to explain why this might happen and how you can prevent it.

The cost of a website

We do our best to be as transparent as possible with our prices, and we even display our fees clearly on our website to avoid confusion.

To give you an idea of how much we charge, most of the websites we build cost between £3495–£5497 but some websites cost upwards of 10K–15K.

It depends entirely on what you need and how much time it will take.

Information gathering

Before we start working on the project, we do our best to gather as much information as possible so we can fully understand your requirements before we give you a quote.

We’ll ask you about:

• The website features you want
• Your design preferences
• What pages you want on the site
• How much advice will you need
• How many people will be working on the project
• What you want to accomplish with your new website
• And much more

The reason we spend time asking these questions at the start of the website project is because each answer you give can dramatically change the amount of work involved.

The more we know, the more accurate the proposal.

Now that you understand a little more about how we price website projects let’s discuss the elephant in the room.

If we spend so much time working out a specific price for your individual needs, why should this change?

Below, I’ve broken down the main reasons why this might happen.

1. Extra features & services

This one is to be expected. Adding extra features or services to the original package will understandably, increase the price.

Obviously, things will alter slightly throughout the build, and you may change your mind and want to tweak some bits. That’s ok. We always try to be as flexible as we can be.

However, we will have to charge for some things. Let’s say you start the web design process wanting a standard website to advertise your freelance services. But later down the line, you decide you also want an online shopping page to sell some physical products. This will need to be charged separately as it’s something we didn’t include in the original package and it takes more time.

Or let’s say you want us to set up a booking calendar for you so you can take online appointments, we may need additional tools for this, and it will take more time for us to configure. If this is the case, we’ll have to charge more.

The same also goes for:

• Additional pages you want to design
• Landing pages installing
• Email integration
• Changes to page layouts
• Extra support, e.g. online coaching from us

Essentially, anything that you didn’t agree at the start of the project could increase the final price.

2. Changing the schedule

Before we build your website, we try to establish how long the process might take. Most of our projects take between 12-16 weeks from start to finish, but this isn’t set in stone.

Every project is different and based on your requirements, it might be sooner than this, or it may take longer. Either way, we’ll give you a good indication of the time scale at the start of the process.

Once we’ve got started on the project, we’ll work with you to set a launch date for your new website. We’ll book it in the calendar, and we’ll schedule our other projects around yours. This way we can ensure we have a good amount of time to complete your website and get everything finished ready for launch day.

However, if we do agree on a launch date and you decide to change it, it may alter the final price.

Let’s just say, you want to bring the launch date forward and go live sooner than we initially agreed. This generally means we’ll have to re-arrange our calendar and block out some extra time to complete your website. If this is the case, we’ll generally have to charge more.

Alternatively, if we set a date to go live and then we have to move the date back due to delays on your end, this can sometimes change the final price of the project. In our experience, when a project is delayed we’ve found that this leads to more amendments later down the line and more work on our part.

3. Design Changes after approval

Before we build your website, we try to take every precaution to get your website exactly how you want it.

After our initial research and discovery phase, we’ll move on to the design stage. This means we’ll design all of your core pages on photoshop before we build them.

Once we’re happy with the designs, we’ll send them to you so you can see them too. You can then tell us what you like, what you don’t like and what you want to change, delete or add.

We’ll make another round of changes based on your suggestions. Once you’re happy and you approve the designs, we move on and get those pages built.

This design stage is your opportunity to tell us if you want to make any changes so that we can make them before we code anything at all.

If you change your mind AFTER we’ve started building your site, we may have to charge extra as this will take more time to rebuild some elements.

This doesn’t mean you can’t make some changes. Understandably, there will be some tweaks you might want to make, and if they’re small, that’s usually ok.

However, it’s always best to make sure you’re happy before we build anything to avoid any extra fees later down the line.

How to make sure the price STAYS the same price

If you are on a budget and you want to make sure the final price is what we agreed at the start of the process, then take the time to plan your project as much as possible before hiring us.

Download our website buyers guide and go through it step by step, making notes along the way.

This will ensure you are fully aware of what you might need to consider before we have our initial consultation.

We created the website buyers guide to protect you when hiring a web design agency. It will also help you get a better idea of how much budget you should allow and what features you might need.

Summary

Hopefully, you now have a better understanding of why the price might change throughout the website build.

No, we don’t charge for every little thing. There are some larger agencies especially, who charge for extremely small amendments. We are pretty fair and understanding. But, we may have to charge if it takes us a lot more time.

Martin Huntbach

Web designer & marketer for small businesses. Martin is an experienced search engine and web design specialist, with over a decade of experience working with large corporations to small businesses.

jammydigital.com

The post Why the cost of your website might increase during the build? appeared first on Content Marketing & SEO Agency | Get More Sales From Your Website.

You’re ready to get the ball rolling and kick off the new project.

Just one more question…

How long will it take?

It’s one of the most common questions we get asked.

In this blog post, I’ll be breaking it down so you get a clear understanding of when your new website can go live.

So, how long does it take us to build your new website?

The short answer is websites that we build take, on average, 8-12 weeks.

The long answer is, it depends…

In all honesty, there are two parts to this question

How long will it take us?
How long will it take you?

That’s right, in some cases, the length of time it takes US is not the right question to ask.

More often than not, websites tend to take longer due to things outside our control.

Additional website features

For us to give you an approximate amount of time, we’ll need to understand exactly what you need from the new website. What extra features might you need that aren’t included in the core package?

Understandably, the more features you want us to build into your website the more time it will take.

What extra features add time to the website?

These are just a few examples of the kind of features that will add time to your website.

• A shop – we design your shop from scratch which needs your approval, plus we transfer all your products, including descriptions, images, stock levels etc.
• Specific page designs – such as a bespoke design for your about page or speaker page
• Portfolio – we’ll need to design this from scratch
• Website content – we can write your content for you if you wish
• Landing pages – we can either integrate Thrive Themes or design your pages from scratch. The costs vary but either way, this takes time
• Features like a booking calendar, email marketing integration, video library etc.

We understand that you want your website to be perfect and some, or all, of these features might be needed. Be aware that the more features you have, the longer it will take to complete the project.

Based on your requirements, we’ll always make you aware upfront how long we think it will take to get your website live.

Top tip

Be very specific at the start of the process with exactly what you need. Knowing all the information upfront will allow us to build this into the package and give you an accurate timescale. Changing things, later on, will delay the project further.

How many people are involved

This is something we’ve noticed over the years, the number of people involved in the project WILL impact the timescale of the project. It’s just a fact.

Dealing with one person will be quicker as there is only one person giving feedback and making decisions. On the other hand, if there are more people working on the project, they’ll generate more ideas and opinions. This is a great thing, as you get a wider range of perspectives and ideas. However, it does take more time.

Top tip

If you are part a team who is working on the project in-house, try to have one key person who will act as the contact and liaise with us throughout the process. Dealing with multiple people from your company might cause information to missed and feedback to be different.

Try to get your team to agree with feedback and suggestions before sending them over to us. In the past, we’ve been sent information from multiple team members with dramatically different suggestions, which has delayed the project.

How long does it take for you to get back to us

You want your website to be perfect (we do too). This is why you might take your time getting feedback to us.

While working on your website, we’ll send you some video updates, screenshots and emails. We’ll ask you questions, and we might need you to give us some feedback so that we can move on to the next phase of the project.

The time it takes for you to give us feedback can dramatically affect the timescale, and in some cases, it can halt the process entirely.

In the past, we’ve waited two months for someone to tell us they were happy with their homepage design.

Top tip

It’s important that you take some time before offering feedback on designs, sleep on it and take another look the next day. It’s surprising how much your opinions might change the next time you look. However, if it’s taking longer than a few days to hear back from you, this will delay the process.

Waiting for stuff from you

During the web design process, we’ll need some things from you to allow us to complete the website.

This could include;

• The copy for your website pages
• Images for the different pages
• Contact information
• Videos that you want to include
• Your logo in the correct file format
• Product information and pricing (for online shops)
• Staff timetables (for booking calendar)
• Event information (for selling tickets)
• Login information (e.g. your website, Mailchimp, Stripe)

In the past, we’ve been waiting 12-18 months to get content from clients. Meanwhile, your website project has completely stalled.

Top tip

Try to be extremely organised and proactive with this task. The quicker you get this done, the fresher it is in your mind, and it will keep the project on track. When it comes to getting the information together, use one main tool for storing all the documentation such as a Google Drive or Dropbox folder.

We do offer website copy as a service. If this is something you’re struggling with, then we can build this into the website package.

We are constantly testing new methods to make this process easier too, and we’ll have more information about this coming soon.

Things change dramatically throughout the process

The benefit of our process is that you get to see all page designs before they’re built. Nothing is done without your prior approval. That way you can have a look, make some notes, give feedback and we’ll make amendments.

Once you’re happy, we can then build the website based on those designs.

There are bound to be changes you’ll want to make, and that’s completely fine, but these are usually small tweaks that don’t impact the overall structure of the site.

If we agree on a design and later down the line things change dramatically, this will, understandably, extend the process, and in most cases, the cost of the website.

Top Tip

Before starting the project, make sure you are fully aware of what you want. This includes…

• The features of your website
• Your key messaging
• The key products and services you want to promote
• Your brand and style
• Your target audience

If you haven’t already, check out our website buyers guide for extra help on this.

The more preparation you do, the better the starting platform for us to build you a high-impact website.

Much like the previous point, it’s always best to take some extra time before giving feedback on the initial designs. It’s important that we have included all the features you need at this stage to avoid adding more time to the project later on.

Website timescale examples

Below, I’ve given some examples of how your project might look depending on your requirements

10-week example – Core package

• One person involved
• 2-3 unique pages designs
• Feedback within 1-2 days
• Three online meetings
• You already have content for the new website

16-week example – Core package + Additional features

• Two people involved, for example, an extra designer
• 3-6 unique pages designs
• Feedback within a week
• 3-5 online meetings
• 3-5 additional features, for example, a video library, booking facility, email marketing integration
• You might need to create new content and send images for the new site

26 week example – Bespoke package + 3+ staff

• 3-5 people involved
• 6+ unique page designs
• Feedback within two weeks
• 6+ online meetings
• 5+ additional features, e.g. video library, booking facility, online shop, email marketing integration, event calendar
• New content pages

Summary

As you can see, the timescale of your web design project depends on many factors, and it can change dramatically during the process.

There’s no clear answer to how long it will take. It could take eight weeks if we have everything we need upfront or it could also take 18 months+ if we’re still waiting for things from you.

At least now you have some handy tips to keep the timeline as short as possible so we can your new website live sooner.

Plus, we’re always super excited about getting your website on our portfolio, so it’s our best interest to keep you on track.

Over to you

Do you have any top tips you want to add? Maybe a productivity hack or a team management tool? We’d love to hear from you, so please leave a comment below.

Martin Huntbach

Web designer & marketer for small businesses. Martin is an experienced search engine and web design specialist, with over a decade of experience working with large corporations to small businesses.

jammydigital.com

The post How long will it take to build your website? appeared first on Content Marketing & SEO Agency | Get More Sales From Your Website.

“Can we pay you to make amendments to our website?”

In most cases, the answer is, no.

Unless we’ve built the website, we DON’T take on clients to make ongoing changes or odd jobs.

Please note, this post DOESN’T apply to you if we’ve built your website and we will certainly help you with ongoing changes if you need them.

Honestly, we hate turning customers away. We always feel terrible about it.

Up until recently, we’ve tried to help as many customers as we can, but we’ve now made the decision to focus entirely on building websites from start to finish.

In this post, I wanted to explain why we made this decision.

1. Every website is built differently

No two websites are built the same, even if they’re both built using WordPress they can be created using entirely different methods and frameworks. This makes it very time consuming for us to get to know your website and make quick changes.

You might want to pay an hourly fee for the work to be done, but it could take a few hours just to get to know your website before we even think about tweaking things.

Not to mention that most WordPress websites use child themes and 3rd party plugins that can change as time goes on. If these aren’t kept up to date, it can have severe consequences on your website. This could cause even more headaches and slow the process down even further.

When we build websites from start to finish, we use the same method every time. We use a framework and tools that we trust, and we wouldn’t use anything else. We know what to expect and can make changes easily.

Chances are, your site is not built this way, which is why we can’t begin to know how much time it might take, and how much we might charge.

2. We want to focus on what we do best

We specialise in full website redesigns, and we love every minute of it. The process we use to create websites has proven to work over and over again.

However, this process takes up all of our time, and we can’t stop doing this to make website amendments.

All of our time is spent either:

• Speaking to existing and potential clients
• Planning out projects and schedules
• Sketching grid layouts to come up with page designs
• Designing websites with tools like Photoshop or Illustrator
• Coding websites to make it look like the designs
• Migrating existing content onto the new site
• Moving physical products onto the new website
• Transferring over your SEO settings

As you can see, there’s a lot of work to do, and we want to make sure we don’t let our process suffer.

We love to take a website that may not be performing well and redesign it piece by piece to bring it back to life. We need to focus 100% on this for us to be effective.

3. There are only two of us

Let’s be honest, there are only two of us and how me and Lyndsay spend our time is very important. Building websites takes on average 2–3 months and every website is unique and comes with a different set of challenges. We have to plan our projects months in advance to make sure we build high performing websites and keep to deadlines.

If we were to take on small, random jobs for additional clients, it just couldn’t work. Our schedule would be put on hold, and our web design projects would be delayed. Even if we plan it in months ahead, we would still have to rearrange other projects around yours.

This simply isn’t feasible and we would never want our core services (e.g. full website design.) to be affected.

4. We might not agree with your suggested amendments

This is a tough one. We try to be as helpful as we can and we always share our knowledge and experience with our clients when they ask.

Occasionally, we’ll get asked to make website amendments that we DON’T think are a good idea. Certain changes may impact your website in a negative way, and user experience or SEO may suffer.

Other companies may say “no problem, whatever you want” and then make the changes.

We can’t do this, we’d rather explain why it’s a bad idea and then come up with other suggestions that might work better. We would hate for you to hire us to make changes and then leave with a worse-off website.

Unfortunately, this takes more time for me to explain and then implement the changes we agree. All the while, we’re not working on our main projects.

We still offer advice, of course. If you need some direction on what to change on your website, then check out our website critique page. We’ll review your website and tell you how to improve it.

Summary

Ultimately, it comes down to time. If we had more time in the day, we’d happily help everyone.

At this point, we want to focus 100% on creating epic websites from start to finish. We love getting fantastic results for our clients, and if this means we lose a bit of extra money here and there, that’s ok.

Building stronger relationships with fewer clients is our goal with Jammy Digital and we’d love to work with you in the future.

Over to you

Hopefully, now you’ll understand why we don’t take on more clients for ad hoc amendments. If you do need some help and advice, why not join our Facebook group… Website Tips for non techies. We’re a lovely bunch and we’ll help where can.

Martin Huntbach

Web designer & marketer for small businesses. Martin is an experienced search engine and web design specialist, with over a decade of experience working with large corporations to small businesses.

jammydigital.com

The post Why we DON’T do ad hoc website amendments appeared first on Content Marketing & SEO Agency | Get More Sales From Your Website.

Thinking about the colours, the styles, the layout, the endless possibilities.

It’s understandable that you would want to jump into it feet first and hire an agency quickly to build your new website.

Before you do, I wanted to make you aware of a few hurdles you might face.

I’ve been running a web design business for over five years, and I’ve noticed a number of frustrations and problems with other web design companies.

I’ve made an effort to listen to what people say so I can understand their frustrations, that way I don’t make the same mistakes with my business.

What are the main problems you might face when hiring a web design agency?

1. They don’t put their prices on their website

Most web design companies don’t display any pricing information on their website. They expect you to call them up or fill out an online form to be able to find out what they might charge. This is pretty frustrating.

You might have a budget in mind, it might be high, it might be low but if you can’t find any information on their website you could spend hours contacting a number of companies and explaining what you want, only to find that they are way out of your price range.

Obviously, websites are not all built the same, they have many different features, and the price for one can be completely different for another. However, wouldn’t it be easier for everyone if they gave you some indication at least without having to contact them. Even if they said “starting at £5,000” if you only had a budget of £1,000 you would know they are not the right company for you.

What we do instead

Like many other companies, the price for our web design packages varies depending on what you want. But we know that most of the websites we build cost between £3K–£5K. This is why we clearly state this information on our website. There are rare occasions that we might charge outside of this range, but at least you know what kind of figure we’re likely to quote.

We’ve also written a number of blog posts about our pricing structure and what you get for your money. We allow you to compare our service with other companies in your own time. You get to see our entire process from start to finish and make your own decision.

2. They might use a lot of jargon

Website design is a technical skill, and it can get pretty complicated at times. Web design companies like to use lots of jargon, some of which ends up on their website.

Phrases like CSS, HTML5 and PHP may sound impressive, but they don’t mean anything to ordinary business owners looking to hire a web designer for their new website.

It’s more likely going to confuse you and leave you with more questions.

What we do instead

We know that your website needs to look good, work well and deliver traffic and customers. You shouldn’t need to worry about the technical aspects of how it’s built. You just want results.

We understand that what we do may seem complex. It can be, but it doesn’t have to be complicated for you. We do our best to eliminate the fancy jargon when speaking to you about your project via Skype, email and phone and make things easy to understand.

We also created a jargon buster on our website which will help you understand all the fancy lingo that techie folk like to use.

3. They might not understand SEO

Search engine optimisation or SEO will play a big part in the success of your website. It’s about how well your website follows the guidelines that Google set.

Some web design companies focus entirely on DESIGN. They tend to focus on making your website look good and leave the SEO stuff to you.

That’s ok if you know what you’re doing but wouldn’t it be good if your web designer at least thought about search engines while building your website.

After all, you could have the best-looking website in the world but if nobody can find you on Google then what’s the point.

What we do instead

We have an extensive knowledge of SEO and have been lucky enough to work with hundreds of clients over the years. We teach SEO, run workshops and offer 1-2-1 private coaching.

We build every website with SEO in mind, everything we do will have some impact on your search engine rankings. This is why we take our time throughout the design process. We think about website content, page layout, menu structure, technical SEO, page speed and much more.

Yes, we STILL design great looking websites, but we also build search engine friendly websites too.

4. You don’t get the support you need when you go live

Another major problem with web design companies is the level of support you get from them once your website has gone live.

It’s only natural that you’ll have a few questions once your new site is live and you’d expect to be able to contact your web designer for a little support.

Unfortunately, this isn’t always the case. Some agencies feel that once your website is live, you are now on your own. They may even try and charge you hourly for any additional support time, every email or phone call.

It’s sad, but it happens.

What we do instead

We love helping clients with their website. Especially after you launch. There may be the odd tech question you want to ask, or maybe you want some advice about blogging. We are always happy to help.

Depending on the level of support you need, we may suggest taking out a maintenance package with us, but this is optional.

Some of our web design packages include a 1-2-1 coaching session once the website is live so we can help you make the most of your new website.

We also send you a series of video tutorials showing you how to update your website yourself without having to speak to us.

Whatever you need we are here for you.

5. They don’t take the time to understand your business

A lot of web designers don’t take the time to truly understand your business. They tend to focus on surface-level information, e.g. how many pages do you need, what do you sell, how can people get in touch.

By only focusing on the basics, they will miss some really important information that could lead to you getting more enquires and sales later down the road.

To design a high performing website your web design company should understand:

• Your target market
• The features of the products/services you offer
• The benefits of these products/services
• What makes you different from your competitors
• Your future goals for the business
• Any much more

Without gathering this information, it’s pretty much impossible to create a website that’s good enough to do what you want it to.

What we do instead

Before we start building your website, we arrange a video call so we can gather as much information as we can. This usually lasts for an hour.

Once we have done this, we’ll send you a questionnaire to fill out where we ask more questions about your business. This will allow us to get a clearer understanding and set an action plan for moving forward.

Once we have all this, we’ll then do our own research into your competitors and your target audience and come up with a plan to designing a website that truly works for you.

Summary

As you can see, there are many key issues you will want to look out for when approaching web design companies about your new website.

Be very careful to do your research before hiring a web design agency for your new project.

Over to you

Have you ever hired a web design agency? What were the problems that you faced? I’d love to you hear from you, so please leave a comment below.

Martin Huntbach

Web designer & marketer for small businesses. Martin is an experienced search engine and web design specialist, with over a decade of experience working with large corporations to small businesses.

jammydigital.com

The post 5 common problems with web design companies appeared first on Content Marketing & SEO Agency | Get More Sales From Your Website.

You know you need to hire a web design agency to create your new site, but you’re not sure where to start.

You could work with a small agency like us, or you could hire a big agency with a fancy office.

But what’s the REAL difference?

I’ll be honest; I would never class us as “cheap”. We charge between £3K–£5K for a website, which is significantly more expensive than WIX and your bog-standard local web designer. People often ask why we are more expensive. You can find out why we’re more expensive by reading this blog post.

That being said, we have ALSO been asked this question too…

“Why are you so much cheaper than larger agencies?”

You may be thinking:

• Are they cheaper because they’re not as good?
• Do they have the right skills?
• Can they handle my project?

How much do larger agencies charge for web design?

Many of our clients have been quoted 5K-10K for a basic website and upwards of 15K-20K for a website needing additional features. Comparatively, we usually charge between 3K-5K on average.

What’s the difference between us and them?

In this post, I’ll explain exactly what you will (and won’t) receive from us when it comes to getting a new website. And why I think we’re cheaper than other agencies.

1. No big fancy office

We work from home.

We make no bones about it. We love working from home. There’s no traffic for one thing, and my wife and I each have an office with all the space we require.

But many website design agencies rent spaces. Depending on the agency, some of these spaces can be extra fancy, complete with cool bean bag chairs and coffee machines.

After a brief search on Rightmove, renting a decent space, suitable for meeting clients, could set me back £2000 per month. That cost, along with public indemnity insurance, furniture and heating/gas costs, would need to passed onto you, the client.

With the exception of the slightly higher utility bills from using the kettle 18 times a day, there’s very little extra cost from me working from home.

Working with us:

• Overhead costs are lower, and these savings are passed onto you

Working with a larger agency:

• You get that ‘red carpet’ experience
• Bean bag chairs!

Understandably, some people are put off by this. They like the idea of a big agency who can roll out the red carpet for them in the style of a dedicated office space. And I get it, I really do. Having a website designed is exciting, and a fancy office adds to that experience.

But a lot of our clients, most of which live over 3 hours drive away, don’t really care that we work from home. They just want a good product.

Which brings us nicely onto our next point….

2. We don’t do in-person meetings

“Will you come and meet us?”

99% of the time, the answer to this question is no.

It’s not that we don’t want to see you. We love communicating with clients. And personally, finding out about you and your business is the favourite part of my job.

But we still won’t come and meet you. Instead, we communicate via video call, phone, emails and recorded videos.

Why do we do only communicate online?

How does this make the cost cheaper for you?

It’s true, the cost of travel isn’t much. Travel from Manchester to Edinburgh for two people is £150.00 (ish). A hotel is about £100.00.

So you’re probably thinking, ‘well £250.00 out of the three grand you’re charging for the website isn’t bad, right?’

And you’d be right.

The biggest issue for us is time. Say we did that two or three times a month. We could lose 4-6 days out of each month travelling and in meetings. It’s just not feasible.

Time is money, unfortunately. And the more time we spend dedicated to travelling for your project, the more we’d have to charge and the longer the project would take.

We’d have significantly fewer clients, which means we would have to charge a smaller pool of clients more for each project.

Plus, we’ve found a whole host of benefits when communicating online compared with face-to-face.

Working with us:

• You get to see your website and the progress as we go along. There’s not just one meeting and then a brand new website, we have a few video calls throughout the process.
• We’ll send you training videos which will last forever. If you want to update your website at 8 pm on a Friday night and you forget how to do something, you don’t have to wait until Monday to find out!
• You have time to formulate feedback – you’re not put on the spot as you may be in a face-to-face scenario
• Cheaper overall costs, which are then passed onto you.

Working with a larger agency:

• Sometimes it’s easier to explain what you want face-to-face, but we find a video call is always good for that too! Especially with our screen-sharing software.
• Free coffee – we can’t give you a frappuccino through the computer screen, but we are hoping technology catches up soon!

3. We don’t have lots of staff

A lot of agencies have project managers, a sales team and administrators as well as web designers and graphic designers, etc. This varies from agency-to-agency, however, comparatively we’re very small.

The obvious reason our projects are cheaper than other agencies is because we don’t  pay for a team of staff.

As well as the research and design, we also do all the admin, accounting (alongside an accountant), marketing and brew-making between the two of us.

This means we have to carefully plan-in each project, and a single web project usually spans over two months.

Working with us:

• You speak directly to the person designing your website – Martin. There isn’t a number of people you must go through in order to talk design.
• You don’t have to explain your point to numerous people
• You get to speak to the people at the top! We make all the decisions – there’s no waiting around for things to be signed off by managers
• We’ll never put you on hold with crappy background music
• You don’t get lost amongst so many different projects
• And the biggie…it’s cheaper

Working with a larger agency:

• It may take them less time to design a website – our websites take a minimum of two months to create (from research to launch).
• As long as you have the budget, larger agencies tend to be able to work with anyone. Whereas we work with fewer clients who we can truly help
• If you don’t like your account manager personally, you can usually request another one.

4. We provide one main service

We offer one service: Bespoke WordPress website design.

Don’t get us wrong; this service encompasses a lot of different things. We think about the whole process your user must go through, and how best to get them to do exactly what you want them to!

We don’t just design, there’s so much that goes on in the background, such as email marketing integration, online payments integration, and crafting attractive copy to increase click through rates, for example.

But, we still only offer one product.

Why does this save you money?

Firstly, this saves you costs because we don’t have to spend time and money learning and keeping up-to-date with many different things.

The second reason is that we don’t bundle in lots of services under one roof like many integrated digital agencies.

We’ve had to learn this the hard way.

In the beginning, we offered too many products and stretched ourselves way too thin.

However, a larger agency doesn’t have this problem. So you may find that many of these items are bundled into a large package, which of course, increases the cost, but can be a good thing depending on what you need.

Working with us:

• Highly in depth knowledge and skill about one particular subject – how to turn your visitors into customers using a bespoke WordPress website.
• Staff training costs are low
• No added extras bundled into our packages

Working with a larger agency:

• Can usually handle all of your marketing and branding under one roof
• No need to go to multiple suppliers – such as a web designer, logo designer and copywriter
• Your marketing and branding is consistent as it’s all completed in one place

5. We hate suits

There. We said it. We hate them.

We don’t wear them, and we don’t expect you to pay for them.

Summary

In some ways, we’re quite a low key agency.

We’ve created a business that we love, and it never feels like we’re working (except when we’re filling in a tax return). We don’t have any ambitions of becoming a huge agency complete with a team of staff and a fancy office.

That’s ultimately why we’re cheaper than some others out there. However, that’s not to say we’re the right agency for you.

It’s not just about the cost.

There are advantages and disadvantages to working with us over other agencies, and we hope we’ve made this a little clearer for you! Our aim has always been to minimise the small agency disadvantages as much as we can.

Over to you

So, have you ever worked with a smaller, cheaper agency? What did you like about it? Or perhaps you prefer larger agencies with a strong presence and name? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below!

Martin Huntbach

Web designer & marketer for small businesses. Martin is an experienced search engine and web design specialist, with over a decade of experience working with large corporations to small businesses.

jammydigital.com

The post Why Are We So Cheap? Working with us vs a Larger Agency appeared first on Content Marketing & SEO Agency | Get More Sales From Your Website.

It’s a tough question. But if you’re looking for a new website for your business then this article should certainly help.

I’ve decided to put together a list of the top ten agencies in Manchester who specialise in website design.

And in case you’re wondering; the answer is…

NO!

We didn’t include ourselves in the list below. That would be a bit weird. But if you like, you can…

Get A Quote Here or call 0161 410 1990

What I wanted to do instead was to take a completely unbiased approach when writing this article.

We understand that not everyone is going to hire us to build their website and that’s fine. My goal is to only work with companies who we can truly help.

Just because we are not the right fit for you doesn’t mean we can’t help you choose someone else.

How we came up with the list

Obviously this is my personal opinion based on many years experience in the industry but we did take a few things into account before including them in the list below.

• How good is their agency website
• How good are their client’s websites
• Their online customer reviews
• User experience of their site
• Branding and overall style

We’ve also included a short description of our favourite project for each web design agency.

1. Soap Media

There’s no doubt about it, Soap Media are a hugely impressive agency, specialising in all things web and digital. In their ten years+ in business, they’ve worked with Pontins and Booths, to most recently, the AA.

Favourite Project

I’ve always been a fan of Blackpool Grand Theatre, so I was intrigued when they launched their new website. Soap Media was their agency of choice and they built them a fantastic website. It’s bold, clean, vibrant and, most importantly so easy to navigate. Managing how the user flows through your website is tricky. Soap Media got it spot on.

Google Reviews:
4.9 stars (7 reviews)

2. Shape/Made by Shape

Made by Shape are based in Atherton, just outside of Manchester. They’re well known for web design and in particular, e-commerce websites. They have a team of around nine staff, an impressive portfolio of work and a hugely helpful blog which they update regularly.

Favourite Project

An e-commerce website for Rachel Bates Interiors caught my eye. The great thing about this site is that it doesn’t look like an e-commerce site. With over 17,000 products this site offers a lot of functionality but with a beautiful, delicate design.

Google Reviews:
5 star (11 reviews)

3. Supremo

Supremo are a team of three but don’t let their size fool you. The hallmark of any good agency isn’t the number of staff it has, it’s what they produce; and Supremo produce some great work.

Favourite Project

I love the Jam PR website. Supremo are right when they say “this site certainly doesn’t look like your bog-standard PR agency site”. It’s unique and quirky, and I love the illustrations which just give the site a real sense of character.

Google Reviews:
5 star (4 reviews)

4. Carbon Creative

Carbon Creative lead from the front when it comes to being green. They’re mindful of their environment, and even plant a new tree for every new client they take on. They’ve done some real creative and innovative work, particularly for charities and public sector organisations.

Favourite Project

The Joseph Chamberlain Sixth Form College website. Sometimes, you have to speak to many different audiences through one website. This can be difficult. But Carbon Creative have achieved it with this project. They designed a site that appeals to prospective and current students; as well as staff, parents and carers.

Google Reviews:
5 star (1 review)

5. Creative Spark

Creative Spark are a tight-knit team who’ve worked with some jaw-dropping clients such as Virgin Money and The Ministry of Sound. They’re hugely active on their blog and also social media, offering helpful advice and opinion pieces that give you a real insight into how this agency operates. Their work speaks for itself–hugely creative and original stuff.

Favourite Project

Okay, maybe I’m a little biased with this one. I am a huge Manchester City fan, after all. However, the Manchester City, Cityzens site, is a membership website packed with functionality. It makes you feel part of a community, allowing you to engage with fans from all across the world. It’s enough to get you singing Blue Moon.

Google Reviews:
5 Star (3 reviews)

Need A New Website? – Get A Quote Here

6. Urban Soul

Urban Soul are a digital agency based in Rochdale with an impressive client history, including Interflora and Leeds Council. They particularly specialise in web design and print media.

Favourite Project

I really liked IDEM Living. Urban Soul designed the logo, which is a colourful sketch that really fits in with IDEM Living’s brand. The website is clean, easy-to-use and most importantly fun!

Google Reviews:
5 star (10 reviews)

7. 22 Group

22 Group are a creative agency who have a particular specialism in brand development and management. They’re a highly creative agency, producing some exciting work. They’ve worked with the NHS, New Look and Santander.

Favourite Project

Meyers Family Run Estate Agency. 22 Group really ‘get’ branding. They reflected the estate agencies family run values and different approach through some really quirky and original designs, which were then mirrored across their website and marketing material.

Google Reviews:
5 star (1 review)

8. Digital Next

Digital Next was born from two brothers in 2009. It’s grown rapidly in such a short period and they now have over two hundred and fifty staff worldwide. They offer SEO, PPC and web design services as online PR and content marketing.

Favourite Project

Digital Next do some great work in SEO and online PR. But I really liked the website they designed for NCC Home Learning. Again, this is an e-commerce website built using Magento, but one that doesn’t look like an e-commerce site. It’s highly engaging and user-friendly with lots of functionality.

Google Reviews:
5 star (21 review)

9. Candid Sky

“Champions of Search and CRO (conversion rate optimisation)” Candid Sky are not just another web design agency. They also specialise in the technical aspects of websites i.e. development, conversions and search engine marketing. They’ve worked with some pretty big clients such as Sage and Royal Mail.

Favourite Project

The Peninsular Law firm website. This particular website is amazing in so many ways but what I love most is the strong “conversion focused” design. Every inch of this website has been built to increase enquiries. It’s a great looking website but it also does it’s job too.

Google Reviews:
5 star (17 review)

10. Fat Heads Creative Studio

Fat Heads Creative Studio was born in 2007 with a team of two. They offer design services including print and brand identity as well as web design. They are still only a small team but have worked with some big clients including many Schools and Colleges across the UK.

Favourite Project

I really like the Hartlepool College website. It’s fun and interactive. They use a vibrant set of colours that bring the website alive. It has a unique layout that draws your attention and keeps you engaged.

Google Reviews:
5 star (3 review)

Summary

Writing a blog post about 10 OTHER web design companies may seem a little…odd. But as I said earlier, we might not be the right agency for you. If that’s the case, you now have another 10 companies you can choose from who we’d be happy to recommend.

Now What?

If you found this blog post useful, please share it on social media and feel free to link back to it if you think it can help your audience too.

Need A New Website? – Get A Quote Here

Martin Huntbach

Web designer & marketer for small businesses. Martin is an experienced search engine and web design specialist, with over a decade of experience working with large corporations to small businesses.

jammydigital.com

The post Top 10 Best Web Design Companies in Manchester appeared first on Content Marketing & SEO Agency | Get More Sales From Your Website.