How to Find the Best Website Re-designer Within Your Budget?
There comes a time when websites can do with a design makeover. Learn how to find the best website re-designer within your budget.
There comes a time when even the best of websites can do with a design makeover. As a business owner, you may have invested a significant amount of your marketing budget on the original design, and it must have given you a good return on investment. In this article, you’ll learn how to find the best website re-designer within your budget.
However, with technology growing by leaps and bounds, consumer behavior being so dynamic, and the markets in a constant state of flux, you need every resource available to you at peak performance.
Website redesign is a long-term project that requires planning, strategy, and creativity. It is filled with challenges, frustration, amazingly creative breakthroughs, and a sense of achievement at the end of a project.
Though you’ve journeyed through this process earlier, there are plenty of new variables to take into account. These may include skill sets, hourly rates, customized templates to be used, etc., that can impact cost, time is taken, final look and feel, etc.
How Do You Know You Need A Website Redesign?
Results Not In Sync With Expectations: When your website fails to do its job as a marketing tool, the conversion rates are too low, the bounce rate is too high, it’s time to think of a makeover. Perhaps a complete overhaul may not be required, so you could look at the weaker sections and fix the problems there.
Brand Identity Change: If you’ve changed your logo or visuals, incorporated a new suite of products or services, or your company has been recognized/awarded, your website should reflect these changes. This means your marketing goals may also undergo a subtle difference. A website redesign can fix these issues.
Old-fashioned Look and Feel: Websites created even three years ago may have an out-of-date look and feel to them. They may not incorporate new design trends or appeal to new target audiences. Though you don’t want to be a slave to fashion, reflecting modern design is a way of showing that your business is in step with the present day. Follow social media for real-time feedback on your website.
Find Website Re-designer: Other Factors To Consider
Not Optimized: Websites created earlier may not be fully responsive to the different platforms that customers access them from. You need a consistent look and feel across other devices, or you’re going to lose customers. If the site isn’t SEO optimized, it won’t have a high ranking on search engine pages. Advanced content management systems (CMS) can boost your search engine page rankings.
Speed: More than 40% of visitors tend to abandon a website when it takes more than 3 seconds to upload. If your website has a slow upload speed, it’s time for a makeover.
Security:Â is a huge concern, as small businesses are as vulnerable to hackers and malware as are large ones. Your customers need to feel that their data is safe, and a redesign can put in the latest protection.
How to Find the Best Website Re-designer Within Your Budget
It’s essential to scope out the market to understand the average cost of a redesign. The fees can vary widely across different designers, the complexity of the task, experience, and skills, etc.
Find Website Re-designer: Define your redesign goals
Before you talk to the designer or design company, spend some time figuring out and documenting your reasons for the redesign. This makes it easier to communicate your ideas to the designer. You must include what you hope to accomplish from the design, target audience, and the time-frame.
Get estimates from a few companies
Don’t blindly assign the job to your previous designer or a niece or nephew who’s just launched a design firm. Shortlist a few likely candidates and set up meetings with them separately to get a clear idea of their skills, portfolio, rates, and communication style.
Pricing Factors
Based on the nature/extent of the job, time estimates, size of the website, designer’s assessment of the complexity, whether they plan to customize or use templates, developers and agencies have different price bands. In general, current prices range from about $500 for a free WordPress design to $100,000 for a fully customized product. These prices may not include support, hosting, or marketing services.
Find Website Re-designer: Features That Impact Pricing
Some factors must always be considered while setting your budget. These include the number of unique page templates required, the amount of customization needed, managing content, content audit/strategy/production, content migration, and optimization. If yours is a large project, it will certainly use up more time, and there are greater chances of errors and back-and-forth. Try to negotiate a fixed pricing scheme of payment for larger projects.
Experience and Skills:
Don’t underestimate the value of a well-established, reputed web design company. They may come at a price, but in the long run, you could end up with a much more streamlined. Professional-looking product. Working with expert designers means that they have systems in place and are more likely to respect deadlines and budgets. If you’re in a contract with hourly billing, an experienced designer is more likely to produce more skilled and practical work. In general, it’s a good plan to pay professional designers on an hourly basis, but at a fixed rate for less experienced designers.
Find Website Re-designer: What To Watch Out For?
- Set your budget if you have financial limitations, but negotiate. This way, only those who feel they can match this requirement will apply for the job.
- Avoid designs that are with dizzy animations, videos that don’t say much. These are not just annoying; they also impact your upload speed.
- Expect to pay more for good quality, unique content because that’s what makes your website memorable. Creates strong backlinks, and a buzz on social media.
- Do your due diligence as a customer because that’s what you are when you purchase a redesign project.
- Ask about post-launch support. It’s great to have a fantastic website. But if your design company doesn’t help you out when there’s a problem, you’re in trouble.
What you need is a site that reflects your products, values, and brand. So, grows with your business, keeps your customers/visitors informed with up-to-date. Authentic, accurate, and reliable information, and generates healthy and sturdy leads.