How to choose one of the best website design companies for small business?

No company can work without its own website. But how to choose a small business web design company so that, on the one hand, the Internet resource is developed successfully, and on the other hand, it can be within budget? We will tell you about this.

How to find website design companies for small businesses?

In fact, it is pointless to look for such, because they do not exist a priori. Positioning itself as a small business web design company is nothing more than a marketing ploy. Obviously, this works because businesspersons really somehow think that the size of their business matters.

In reality, neither the annual turnover of the company, nor the number of people in the state matter for a Internet resource developer.

The main tasks that the site of any company should perform are as follows:

1. To attract users.
2. To build trust.
3. To keep visitors on the site by useful information.
4. To motivate to order a service or make a purchase.

And in this regard, there is no difference between the size of the market. Another thing is that not always a small company can afford to order exactly the functionality that would maximally contribute to attracting customers in the future.

Indeed, often small business owners try to limit themselves to extremely modest functionality, trying to keep within the budget. However, this is not the best strategy, because in the future it will reduce the profitability of the business due to an insufficient flow of customers and, as a result, not as large a volume of orders as it could be.

Therefore, at the stage of discussing the functionality, the main question is what indicators the site owner wants to achieve in the future, and based on his plans, the most optimal functionality is determined, but the cost of the work already depends on the selected functionality. Therefore, do not look for Internet resource design companies for small market – look for a company that knows exactly what profitability indicators you can achieve with one or another functionality.

Can the size of a business, in principle, affect the required functionality of the site?

If you ask a businessperson how a small market differs from a large one, he will probably tell you that the difference lies in the annual turnover of funds or the number of employees. This is probably the case from a business point of view.

However, for a website developer, it is fundamentally important not what the company’s turnover or how many employees it has, but what tools the visitor will need to make a choice. The type and structure of the site will depend on this. Well, since the size of the business does not matter, then at least descriptions like a small market web design company sound strange.

Let’s give a simple example: we have a conditional plant with a staff of 1000 people, which produces one single grade of concrete, and a conventional real estate company, with a staff of 10 people. If you believe that a plant needs a site with the richest functionality and a variety of tools, and a small real estate company can do with a minimum of functions, you are deeply mistaken.

Take our conditional concrete plant. The only thing he produces is concrete of a specific brand. Accordingly, the only task of the site of such a plant is simply to inform potential buyers that such a product is on sale.

Either potential buyers need this particular concrete grade or they don’t. Accordingly, neither the size of the site, nor its functionality can in any way affect whether a contract is concluded or not. It follows from what has been said that our “big business” in this particular case may well do with a simple and inexpensive site.

Let’s take now our conditional real estate company. A visitor to the site of such a company will need many things, for example, the ability to filter offers by locality, type of property, its area, cost, and so on. In addition, it is likely that it will be convenient for the visitor to search for desired objects on an interactive map. He will need to study the images of each object, its characteristics, description, and so on.

As you can see, a visitor to the site of a small real estate company will need many times more tools than a visitor to the site of a concrete plant. Therefore, the key role in the development of a Internet resource is not played by the size of the business itself, not by the number of people in the staff and not by the annual turnover, but by the number of tools that the visitor will need.

Should a Internet resource be cheap for a small business and expensive for a large one?

If someone tells you that a small business can get by with a cheap website, and a large one definitely needs an expensive one, you should know that this person is simply incompetent.

The cost of a site is determined not by the size of the business and not by its financial capabilities, but by the functionality that is included in it. The more functionality, the more expensive the site is, because it simply takes more time to develop such functionality.

If two sites have the same functionality, then they will cost exactly the same. And it doesn’t matter that the development of one of them was ordered, for example, by Google with billions of dollars in turnover, and the other – by the owner of a small coffee shop with modest income.

Therefore, the size of your business does not and cannot influence the value of the site in any way. The only thing that matters is the functionality that it would be useful for you to have. Hence the conclusion, you do not need to search for the best Internet resource design companies for small business, you just need to search for the best website design company for any business.

Are templated websites good for small businesses?

If you have a small company and a budget for building a website is limited, you may want to opt for a templated site as they are much cheaper because templates are already developed and there is no need to pay to create an unique design. However, in this matter, it is critically important to take into account the specifics of your business.

Let’s give an example again and compare the Internet resource of an online store and the website of a law firm. Online stores are sites that people visit all the time. Constant visitation creates a certain habit in people. For example, they get used to where the order block is usually located or which side of the product description is.

It is important to consider that the most important thing for the buyer is what product he buys, who is its manufacturer and how high-quality it is. At the same time, people usually have little interest in which store they buy the goods from. Often they don’t remember the name of the store.

Accordingly, the task when developing a website for an online store is to make it the most familiar to most buyers. If you try to create something unique, as different as possible from the sites of other online stores, you will lose. A visitor will not be able to quickly find familiar information or an order form in his usual place, and may well leave such a site. Therefore, fanciful design solutions in such cases are simply unacceptable.

Now let’s take the site of a conditional law firm. Unlike shops, people usually don’t need legal services every day, so they don’t develop any habits. And this means that this is just the case when an unusual design solution can distinguish a site from many others and induce a visitor to place an order on your site. Unfortunately, the specialists of many firms positioning themselves as Internet resource design companies for small market are not even aware of such nuances.

From all that has been said, we can conclude that in some cases template sites are good and even necessary, in other cases unique design solutions are required.

How does website design affect the cost of its promotion?

There is no doubt that you want your site to be visited by as many potential customers as possible. This can be done in two ways: by means of contextual advertising and by means of SEO optimization.

SEO is the kind of optimization that makes your website more relevant in the eyes of search engines.

Let’s say there are several thousand Internet resource of companies providing the same legal services. When a user starts looking for a company that would provide him a service, the search engine will give him all these sites, but in a specific order. Some will be on the top lines, and some on the hundredth pages. And it is quite obvious that a potential client will order the service on the site which is at the top of the rating.

The first way is simple, does not require initially significant costs, but is too expensive in the long run, since it requires significant monthly costs. The second way is much more difficult, longer, requires bigger start-up investments, but it is cheap in the future.

Many so-called small business web design companies do not pay any attention to this issue at all, and in fact it is critically important, because it directly affects the future profitability of the company. Therefore, if you need a Internet resource, start with the question of the ratio of the cost of design with the subsequent costs of website promotion.

Which sites do search engines like more?

Let’s say right away: search engines love “big” sites with an abundance of relevant information (texts, images, videos, maps, etc.). The more relevant and interesting information is on the site, the better its internal structure is optimized, the higher it will be in the ranking of similar sites.

This leads to an important conclusion: small one-page business card sites will never land at the top, and bulky portals with thousands of pages will almost always occupy the top positions. And this is exactly what should be considered in the first place.

Which site should you choose for your small business?

Let’s go back to the example of our concrete factory and real estate company. There are not so many factories that produce concrete, so for the site of such a plant there is no particular need to pay significant attention to its promotion. But there are a great many real estate companies. And on what position your site will be, the number of orders will directly depend, and therefore, the company’s income.

From the foregoing, we can conclude that if you want to minimize the costs of promoting your site, you will need an initially large and sufficiently functional site.

Yes, of course, this will require initially bigger investments in its development. But on the other hand, these investments will be more than offset by significantly better positions in the ranking of sites, which will allow you to bypass many competitors, and in addition, save significant funds on advertising.

What’s the bottom line?

So, let’s summarize. If you are a small business owner and need to develop a website, do not look for the best website design companies for small market, as there are none.

Look for a company that:

1. Has an idea of ​​the niche in which you do business, and is able to offer those functional solutions that will best promote conversion in your area.
2. Understands the specifics of Internet resource promotion and is able to initially offer an optimal solution to reduce your subsequent costs.
3. Does not focus on your income and does not try to charge more money for his work simply because the income of your business is large.

By following these simple guidelines, you can avoid many unpleasant situations associated with the functioning of the site.