What you’re paying for when buying your website

How much does a website cost? Is up there with ‘how long is a piece of string?’ You can get free websites, low cost websites, websites which cost upwards of £20k and everything in-between.

Alongside the monetary cost of a website, there’s also the time investment you’ll need to make. This includes gathering all the content, as well as working with a branding designer, a photographer and a copywriter. These professionals will have their own cost and how much you pay will depend on how experienced they are as well as how detailed the services you sign up to.

You don’t have to sign up to all of these services and I can build your website using stock photos, home-written copy and a brand you already have or have created in Canva. However, if you want to get the best results and make the most of your investment, I recommend working with at least some, if not all, of these professionals. If you need any recommendations, let me know as I have some fabulous ones.

Looking at the website build and what you get when working with me -

I have almost two decades of website design experience and over a decade of building robust, well performing websites. During this time I’ve worked exclusively with small businesses and I understand (and can advise) on the challenges you may be facing and how to best position yourself and your website in a competitive market.

Having build well over 100 websites and won 3 awards for my web design services, I also mentor website designers in how to deliver their services, scale their businesses and have repeat business from happy clients.

Well structured websites are a given when I build your website. With each page being built with a container system you’ll understand and all clearly labelled on the back end,  you’ll know that you’re always working on the right section.

Alongside the structure of the websites, the structure of how we work together is what makes the experience a great one. From our first meeting over Zoom, you’ll know when you can expect to hear from me, in what format and how we’ll measure the website progress. You’ll have a clear date for when the first draft of the website will be ready and when we can expect to go live.

I also have this graphic, which explains the process.

You can have the most beautiful website in the industry but if the search engines don’t know how to index it and no-one can find it, then you’re going to have a problem.

All of our websites are Search Engine Optimised and will have a Google score of between 92 and 100. Pages will be properly marked up and indexed for search engines and I’ll give you advice on how you can push this further once the website is live.

I know website SEO so well, I’ve even written a course on it.

Accessibility is a must for website builds. This means having a website which is easy to navigate regardless of someone’s fine motor control, visual abilities or neurodivergence. Rather than just throwing an Accessibility overlay on a website via a plugin (most of which aren’t compliant with website accessibility standards), each website is built with full accessibility processes as part of the setup. At the simplest this means:

All my websites are, of course, fully responsive so they look great on any device.

All websites come with a personalised website user manual. This is made up of training videos created to show you how to do all the different things on your website so you can be confident in adding images, updating text, adding a page to a menu, creating a form and anything else you’d like to do on it.

There’s also a detailed ‘welcome to your website’ video which shows you where everything on the website is, including things like logos, headers and footers, so you can always find what you’re looking for.

I want you to feel confident with your website and if you feel nervous of logging in for the first (or subsequent) time, then you can book one of my free, 15 minute Zoom calls and I’ll screen share and walk you through the process.

I’m known for building sleek, lightweight websites. And for good reason, this is what your ideal client, as well as search engines, like best. A lightweight website will load quickly, be accessible and can still have an excellent user journey. One of the ways I deliver these results is by using the best software on the market.

You won’t find me building a website using a popular builder then layering it with 10s of plugins just to get it functioning properly. Most of the websites I build have 5 plugins or less meaning there are less opportunities for code to clash, security vulnerabilities and website down-time. Premium website software costs more - the developers don’t do the bundle deals you see on lesser products, but it does mean that your website is robust and usually has a lot more longevity than websites built using lower quality software.

All the websites I build come with a lifetime license for the software, even if you go on to rebuild your website in a few years, you will still be able to use that license.

I want to make sure you have the best website experience. This includes not just building your site and running. When we’re ready to go live, I’ll ask Stu, my technical expert to step in and make sure your hosting and email setup is exactly as you want it to be. You may choose to host with me, or you may like us to upload the website to hosting you already have in place. Or you may like us to recommend hosting, upload the website, setup emails, then hand it over. Whatever you choose, we’ll support you and give you the very best service.

As you can see, a lot goes into a website build and the skillset of the developer, alongside the hidden costs of website design, such as software and hosting.

Lower cost websites are often build using free tools which limit the design, plus the designer may not have much experience in user journeys, SEO or Accessibility. You’re unlikely to have training in how to use the site or support when it comes to updates.

If you are on a strict budget then either scaling down the size of the website  could be a good option, or check out my Simply Sites.

If you’re thinking of having a new website built and would like to talk to me about building it, you can book a free, no-obligation Zoom cal with me, using the button below.