This is one of the most common (and very understandable) questions teams want to know before they embark on a new website project.  We wish could could give you an instant answer, but to be honest, it really does depend.

It’s very similar to finding a building… is someone looking to live in a one bedroom single family home in a small town in the country?  Or does a company need warehousing and a retail storefront?  We would never expect to pay the same one-time and ongoing costs for these two buildings.  But because the web industry is not as easy for outsiders to understand as real estate, this is not as easy to realize.

The main variables in a website project are design and functionality.  They are to a website what location is to real estate.  On one end of the design spectrum, you can have a single page site based off a template.  And on the other end you can have a completely custom design that conforms to struct branding and style guidelines in order to match your presence in print or other digital artifacts.  That could encompass fine details like exact font selection, behavior of hovering the mouse over an element, and closely guarded determination of what design differences there are from desktop to tablet to mobile phone.

For functionality, here are some examples of different things site owners may want their site to do:

• Get found…
  • Increase the number of people who find you on search engines.
  • Increase the number of people who find you through Google images.
  • Increase visitors to your website by showing up on Google Maps.
  • Increase the number of visitors from Google by listing all the businesses in your industry.
• Measuring success…
  • Measure the success of your website to make sure you are getting a return on investment.
  • Keep track of how people use your website so you can continue to improve over time.
  • Make it easy for your customers to tell you what they think of your website.
• Marketing…
  • Encourage new guests to book your accommodation by sharing the happy stories of your other guests on your website.
  • Encourage new customers to buy from you by sharing positive reviews from your other happy customers.
  • Increase the number of warm leads from your website.
  • Show ads on Facebook to people who have previously visited your website.
• Content management…
  • Easily update your website in the future.
  • Easily share documents and product manuals with your customers.
  • Slowly release information to your students so you don’t overwhelm them with too much at once.
  • Build anticipation before you launch your website.
  • Keep your writers and editors super organised and on the same page.
  • Eliminate the same questions being asked over and over again by different customers.
  • Allow customers to answer their own questions before they contact you.
  • Keep visitors on your website longer by linking to other relevant pages on your website.
  • Answer customer queries from the beach or your boat.
  • Educate your customers about your products and services before they choose to buy.
• E-commerce…
  • Remind customers who don’t complete their purchase to come back to your website and finish their order.
  • Allow clients to review their photographs before placing an order.
  • Encourage your customers to make a purchase by showing them when your special offer expires.
  • Allow your customers to buy gift vouchers for their friends.
  • Allow your customers to see your prices in their local currency.
  • Allow regular customers to save their favorite order for next time.
  • Easily collect additional information from your customers when they buy. EG: for custom engraving.
  • Show different prices to your retailers and your wholesalers.
  • Increase sales by selling products and services online.
• Events…
  • Eliminate going back and forth to find the right time with clients who want an appointment.
  • Sell more tickets to your events.
• Design…
  • Make your blog look beautiful on any computer, iPad or smart phone.
  • Make it easy for your website visitors to go back and forth to find what they are looking for.
  • Make it easy for your visitors to navigate your website on their smart phones.
  • Keep your website fast for your visitors even if you use lots of images.
  • Show your customers how much they will save by choosing you.
  • Allow your customers to easily find the physical location of your business.
• Social…
  • Easily offer prizes to encourage your customers to share your website with their friends.
  • Build a community by allowing your customers to interact with each other “Facebook style” on your website.
  • Build a community by allowing your customers to ask each other questions on your website.
  • Reward customers who refer their friends.
• Under the hood…
  • Easily fix your website in the unlikely event you get hacked or something goes wrong.
  • Make sure people filling in your contact forms are real humans and not nasty spam robots.
  • Allow visitors to view multiple photos of a property easily and quickly.
  • Attract more qualified applicants and save time recruiting your next team member.

You may be wondering where to begin?

We can help.  If you suspect that you “don’t know what you don’t know”, you can have us do a project discovery session for you (see our Services page for more details).  Or you can jump right in to our project inquiry interview.