Is a $499 website design good enough?
By Michael Rassel
When I was employed as a lead artist and producer at Viewpoint Corporation in New York City, a $49,900 website was fairly common. Working on high profile web media presentations for companies like Sony, Nike, IBM, Hewlett Packard, etc., and the average project bid exceeded $25K , I would never have thought that a $499 website was financially feasable.
But as an independent contractor that cators to small business within a single metropolitan locale, I found that the price for a basic business quality website tends to average around $2500. In my travels across Sarasota, FL, and after talking with various Sarasota small business owners, it seems that many cannot justify the expense for $1000 website, much less a $2500 web site.
So I took it upon myself to seize the opportunity and create a productized website package that would look better and outperform your typical small business web site, for a fraction of the cost.
This website’s superior value will be characterized by the following:
- Very affordable, in comparison to the median priced small business website.
- A quality web design template with professional, expensive looking visual graphics.
- Content management software so the client can edit content and add web pages themselves.
- Built in search engine optimization.
- Functionality a small business website needs, ie; Blog, Shopping Cart, Contact Form, etc.
The product offering would provide a turn key website with all the functionality a small business needs, effectively equaling or besting the average business website at a fraction of the price.
$499 is the lowest possible price I can produce this product for, while maintaining the integrity of a business quality website. The Razworks.com/blog website is built upon the same $499 website framework, as are hundreds of thousands of Web 2.0 websites across the world. The blog and content management software used is WordPress, the Internt’s most popular web content publishing software platform. WordPress has a sophisticated content management system that empowers the website owner to edit content, create new web pages, add new images, publish blog posts, etc. Because the small business owner can add much of the content on their own time, I can deliver their website for much less than the average median price. Every time a web page needs text updated or an image needs to be added, the client no longer needs to call the web design company and pay them to do it. With the do-it-yourself web page editor, the business owner can update the web site themselves and save.
Typical issues that limit the effectiveness of a business website:
- One of the most common problems I see with small business websites is a poor visual design.
Research shows that most web consumers will mentally judge your website on visual appeal first. If the web visitor feels that your website’s visual design is unappealing, they may click off to the next site without ever viewing your content. That’s why using professional graphics to produce an appealing visual web design should be a prerequesite. With over ten years of professional experience, Razworks designs custom web graphics that create an appealing a uniquely professional look and feel. - The code is not Web 2.0 compliant or has errors that may prevent the increase of search engine ranking results. Search engines like Google validate the code of a home page before it ranks the website. If the code does not pass a WC3 validation scan, Google may have difficulty ranking your website for search engine results.
- The content text copy is not effectively keyword optimized. Search engine optimized copywriting is one of the major factors that will effect how Google ranks your website on search engine results pages. Selecting effective keywords and frequently posting content on your website that uses these keywords will help improve your web site search engine rankings.
- No Blog? As far as Google is concerned, “Content is King”. That is why blogs have recently become so popular. Blogs allow website owners and users to publish their own content, whenever, and sometimes from where ever they want. Publishing blog weekly or daily can help increase your search engine results rankings, especially if you blog about your keyword products or services and use your search engine keywords often in your blogs.
- Lack of modern functionality. With the percentage of consumers purchasing products and services online is continuously increasing. Having an e-commerce shopping cart on your website gives you an advantage over a website that does not have one, and vice versa. A modestly stocked shopping cart with keyword optimized text descriptions can also help improve search engine rankings.
- Active media that interferes with the website performance, validation and/or search engine optimization. With the adoption of Web 2.0 standards, many web applications and media formats can cause problems with your web site. For example, there is an open source a Web 2.0 embed code for Adobe Flash, as the Adobe generated embed code fails WC3 validation. Some Java applications can fail validation and impede web site performance.
So what does this all mean for small businesses? Is a $499 web site good enough?
Typically…No! But Razworks $499 Template Web Site is provides small business owners with an exceptional value.
When you order a Razworks $499 Template Website, you are getting quality similar or better than that of competing websites costing 3 to four times the price.
