Cost-effective website design focuses on performance
Every small business wants affordable website design. Still, what does “affordable” really mean? Is it:
- As cheap as possible?
- Less than your current disposable cash and/or short-term savings?
- Whatever it takes to create something that will pay for itself, minimise risks and maximize profits, even if that needs finance?
The first definition doesn’t really help at all. The hidden costs of cheap websites generally make them more expensive than professional ones.
Similarly, while startups often prefer to be self-financed (aka “bootstrapped”), just fitting easily into your cash-flow doesn’t guarantee it’ll do the job. A rock may be cheaper than an apple, but that doesn’t make the rock an affordable meal.
There is hardly anything in the world that someone cannot make a little worse and sell a little cheaper, and the people who consider price alone are that person’s lawful prey. … When you pay too little, you sometimes lose everything, because the thing you bought was incapable of doing the thing it was bought to do. The Common Law of Business Balance prohibits paying a little and getting a lot – it can’t be done. — attr. John Ruskin
In fact, the third definition is the smartest. Truly affordable website design pays for itself. Because business web design is an investment, not a cost.
Cost-Effective Always Beats Cheap
The more you invest in cost-effective website design, the more can be done to increase the rate of return. Even better, that return is ongoing, growing over time.
On the other hand, underinvesting increases the risk of failure. That turns a potential investment into a pure cost. Investing slightly too little just maximizes that waste. That’s all too easy to do accidentally if you treat an investment as a cost.
So focusing on cost is not a sound business approach. You need to focus on cost-effectiveness.
In other words, you need the best solution you can get. Whether that includes external finance is still up to you, but you do need to invest enough to minimise the risk of failure.
So What Is Cost-Effective Website Design?
Visual design matters – but so do code quality, hosting and more
Ultimately, website sales depend on how many visitors it gets, and how many of those convert into customers. The quality of design can affect both of those.
Traffic is either paid or unpaid (aka “organic”). So the more free traffic your site earns, the more cost-effective it can be. Here’s the catch, though: “pretty” is not a search ranking factor.
Without high-quality content, hosting and coding, the prettiest visuals are a waste of money. Unfortunately, they are easier to sell and easier to achieve, so real site quality and performance often get overlooked in low-cost web design.
Once you have visitors, effective user experience (“UX”) design can improve the percentage of them that convert into customers. Graphic design can help with that, but it’s far from the only thing that matters.
Still, effective website design involves applying guidelines, best practices and experience, watching website stats and testing. The more of that you can afford, the more effective your site will be.
In short then, cost-effective web design prioritises performance over “pretty”, but neglects neither.
Choosing Cost-Effective Web Design
That’s all very well, but how does that help if finances are tight? How can you identify truly cost-effective website design?
Look at what the designer is talking about. If they focus on looks and don’t talk much about performance, beware. You may well learn the hard way that “pretty” is pretty useless at the bottom of Google.
If they focus on performance first, they’re considering what you really need instead of just trying to make a sale. That’s far more likely to be cost-effective in the long run.
Of course, you don’t have to look far. I’ve specialised in cost-effective web design for small businesses since 2005. So I offer web design solutions to suit all budgets, with payment schedules designed to ease cash flow.