Currently, the number of websites that cover cyberspace is estimated at more than 1,300 million. Be it personal blogs, online stores, information channels and corporate sites, the Internet has become the ideal showcase for any company. However, not all of us have professional web design knowledge , which is why it is common to go to web development companies to obtain that presence. But how do I choose the most suitable solution for my business? From The Social Media Family we want to help you , so throughout this post we will address the main aspects to take into account when requesting a quote for a website, what should it include and what aspects should we keep in mind to achieve online success
PROFESSIONAL WEB DESIGN WITH WORDPRESS AND OTHER CMS
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The first thing we must decide is what type of website we want. As we have previously commented, each company has specific needs and a limited budget to carry them out, hence knowing how to size the project is key to not suffer its consequences in the future. In this sense, from The Social Media Family we recommend not to invest more than 40% of the budget in professional web design, leaving the other 60% free to invest in marketing strategies (perhaps you will find it interesting to read our post on digital marketing trends in 2018 to inspire you)
From there, we have several options, whether we want to create simple web pages or other more complex ones based on WordPress web design :
SIMPLE WEBSITES
In this section we will recommend the following solutions:
Google My Business. For the simplest websites, it is the ideal solution: from the tab of a business published in Google My Business works as a creator of simple web pages , adaptable to mobile devices (responsive) and offering visitors relevant information on the activity of the company (hours, address, services offered). In addition, Google has recently implemented the option to customize the domain of said website . If you have questions about how this web application works , we recommend that you read our step-by-step tutorial on Google My Business .
Blogger . Although it was conceived as a blogger, the solution acquired by Google in 2004 has evolved and allows creating functional websites for SMEs. Its free nature, together with the possibility of including our own domain, make Blogger a more than worthy alternative for those most empty pockets.
Other solutions . Apart from those already mentioned, there are many solutions on the market such as WordPress.com, Wix or Shopify, which will allow you to have a website at a competitive price (with its limitations, yes).
CREATE PROFESSIONAL WEBSITE
In this section, we must mention two alternatives: those who choose to completely program their website and those who opt for any of the CMS (Content Management System) available in the market, WordPress being the standard bearer of the latter, with about 29% of the total websites developed under this programming language (60% of the total CMS – Joomla, Magento, Drupal, Prestashop …).
At this point, many wonder how to make a web page in WordPress , if it is simple or on the contrary it is advisable to hire the services of a web developer or a web design company. The answer, unfortunately, is not easy, since it will depend on the expertise as a web programmer of those who undertake such a project: WordPress was born as a way to democratize the creation of web pages , making its code public to whoever wanted to modify it.
In addition, its structure based on web templates , plugins and pages is intuitive for those who venture to program web pages. However, creating a website with WordPress is still an activity in which technical complications may arise, or simply the need to modify the code of the plugins and templates that make up our space, so our advice as a design agency website for those companies looking for a professional web design is that they delegate this activity to qualified professionals to avoid gaps in the project.
HOSTING
If we have finally chosen to obtain a professional web design , the first thing we must do is hire a hosting (also known as web or server hosting ), which will be the place of cyberspace that our site will occupy. Hiring a hosting is not an easy task, due to the abundant offer on the market, although we will try to offer some aspects to keep in mind to make this process as simple as possible:
WORDPRESS HOSTING
Assuming that we have finally opted for this technological solution, it is important to validate that the provider has specialized products in this CMS, since an expert WordPress customer service will be key when solving any technical incident that may arise. In the same way, if we choose another programming language, we must follow the same recommendations.
24/7 CUSTOMER SUPPORT IN SPANISH
Another fundamental element when hiring a hosting , since neither hackers nor server crashes have office hours. A technical service available in our language (Spanish) will be of great help in managing our online presence.
QUANTITY IS NOT SYNONYMOUS WITH QUALITY
It is not necessary to obsess over the number of gigabytes of space that they offer us, but the quality of them: it is recommended to always demand SSD disks, as well as quality processors like Intel on our servers.
From The Social Media Family we work with several providers, although we recommend Unelink , a serious Spanish company with excellent value for money.
WEB TEMPLATES
The next step in our process of enjoying a professional web design is to select the template that best suits our needs. As you can imagine, web programming has evolved a lot in recent years, especially as a result of the proliferation of CMS such as WordPress or Prestashop: one of the main advantages of this type of solution is the possibility of implementing specialized web templates in our business sector. which also automatically adapt to mobile devices (remember that more than 70% of current web traffic comes from smartphones and tablets).
What is the price of a WordPress template ? In general terms, it will depend on the functionalities you have, since a template for landing pages is not the same as a template that includes a booking engine, for example. The average is usually around US $ 50, and the ideal place to buy a WordPress template is ThemeForest , the largest marketplace worldwide with more than 400,000 items available (if you don’t find what you need, you have a problem …).
WEB CONTENT
We have a hosting in which we have installed WordPress, and in this, in turn, a template. Now it is time to generate quality web content , which allows us to differentiate ourselves from our competition while offering the visitor of our site the information they require. In WordPress we will find two fundamental types of content: pages and posts. A page is nothing more than a way to categorize information as sections, such as the elements of a navigation menu (who we are, services, contact, blog …); on the other hand, the post is the unit on which blogs are built, those news sections of our corporate website that will allow us to generate fresh and recurring content in the eyes of search engines.
When publishing our web content , it is important to consider the following aspects:
It must be original . Never copy third-party content, as you are exposed to a penalty from search engines
It must have the proper extension . It is important that those pages of special importance to you have more than 5000 characters of text. As for the posts, a reasonable length would be between 1000 and 2000.
It should be regularly updated. An original and updated content is the basis of any web positioning strategy
If you still have doubts about the importance of content, we recommend you take a look at our post on content marketing statistics.
WEB LAYOUT
We come to the last step of any self-respecting professional web design process : capturing the content we have created in our WordPress web design, a process that is closely linked to the web template we have chosen for our project. In this sense, plugins such as visual composer will open up endless possibilities to enrich the layout of our pages and posts, thus facilitating legibility for the web user who visits us.
It is important to highlight that until the appearance of CMS, web layout was somewhat tedious, executed from code programming and reserved for those who knew the lides of web programming . However, the most curious thing is that it continues to be done in the same way, although the user, instead of seeing code, sees buttons that execute their will.
EXAMPLES OF WEB PAGES
To better understand what the result of a professional web design project may be, you may be interested in reviewing some of the website design work that we have carried out from The Social Media Family since 2010: e-commerce for SMEs , corporate websites or aimed at public administration events , among others.
WEB MAINTENANCE
Before reaching the section that interests you the most (finding out how much a website costs ) it is important that we stop for a moment to talk about web maintenance , a service generally offered by the web design company or web developer that you have hired to carry carry out your project. But what does the web maintenance service consist of ? In general, it is a kind of “flat rate” that we subscribe with our provider and that allows us to outsource the management of our website.
A very common mistake is to think that the web design work ends when it is put online: it is from that moment when a monitoring job begins, thanks to which everything continues to work as it was proposed from the first day. Templates, plugins and even WordPress itself are constantly being updated, so it is essential to have a team of professionals at our side who know when and how to carry out these maintenance tasks.
How much does a web maintenance service cost ? Another difficult question to answer, since managing an online store is not the same as a corporate site that is hardly updated. However, as our goal is to offer a reference for those interested in hiring a professional web design, we can encrypt it from € 100 per month. If this option does not convince you, keep in mind that if at any time you need the services of a web developer to perform any maintenance task (servers, backups, plugins and templates updates, migrations …) it will price you in based on a price per hour of service, which usually does not drop below € 60.
BUDGET WEBSITE
Budget website, website price, how much does a website cost, how much does it cost to make a website, web design prices… all these expressions refer to the big question: how much should I dedicate to web development of my digital marketing budget. To answer this concern, we will first list the factors involved in an online project:
Domain, hosting and templates. Are they included, or should they be paid separately? In general (except for the contracted hosting plan) we are not talking about high amounts (about 120 euros the first year; between 60-80 the following), but it is still a point to consider
Open Source (CMS) or Proprietary Code . A project developed on a CMS like WordPress is usually cheaper than a custom-made product with proprietary code. Keep this in mind before making a decision
If it is an online store or a corporate website. An ecommerce tends to be more expensive than an informational website. If you are interested in how to optimize your online store , do not miss our post on the subject
The languages in which the web is translated . A powerful multi-language plugin in WordPress like WPML is not cheap, at the same time that you have to dedicate time and resources to each language (please, never use the free web translation options: your image would not recover from such nonsense).
Who provides the images and texts . Virtually any self-respecting web developer or web design agency will provide you with this service. However, keep in mind that the dedication of hours will go up, and therefore the final bill.
The functionalities that we want to implement . The beauty of creating web pages in WordPress resides in the infinite possibilities that the ecosystem of plugin developers that operate on the platform allows us, with which we can cover any of our needs … although sometimes we have to scratch our pockets for it.
Whether or not it includes an initial setup . Have you been registered in the Google Search Console? Have they correctly configured the functionalities of Google Analytics? Have they optimized SEO friendly texts and images ? It is advisable to pay a little more but have all possible measurement tools at our fingertips
After so many variables (some of us will have even forgotten), you will be clear that a professional web design involves work and technical knowledge that in many occasions are not within our reach, which is why it is appropriate to hire the services of a web page company to such a need. As a reference (and only as a reference), keep in mind that creating a corporate website can cost you around 1,000 euros, while if what you want to know is how much does an online store cost, you should scratch your pocket a little more (2,000 euros onwards ). Anyway, if you are interested in requesting a quote for a website Do not hesitate to contact us
