The saying goes that you get what you pay for and I use this as a rule of thumb for most things. Web design though… I’m just not sure about. We at Mega Website Design understand that good design and a quality site does take time and time equals money, but how much time and how much money are we really talking about? Web designers can price projects based on an hourly rate, or a flat-out fixed cost… and it’s these costing variables which can change dramatically, but what exactly is it to make the price vary from one designer/developer to the other?

As a customer, you need to think about what you’re paying for. If you are looking for a website that can take your business to the next level then surely you need to put in as much as you’re expecting to get out? I don’t mean you need to put in large amounts of money, I mean you really need to think  about how you want your website to work for you. Are you expecting an online store? An social place for you and your customers to hang out? Are you looking to generate leads for your business or sell more goods? Whatever it is, you need to be sure that you know exactly what you’re expecting… if you’re not even sure of what you want your website to do how can you expect your web designer to deliver it?

I’m deviating from the point a little. Web design quotes are a must. Ask around and get as many quotes as possible and you will see they may range from £200 for a complete site all the way to £3,000 for the same project to be completed. The difference in costing can be based on what the developer/designer/web expert charges per hour (£20, £50 or £,100), what experience they have and their current work load. This doesn’t mean that the lower end quotes will produce bad quality work, far from it, it means that you would be paying more for the experience, the expertise and the fact that you will get a web site that is worth the money. A fresh out of college freelance designer would have no chance when charging what the established design houses in London do as the experience won’t have been gained. Then again, London design houses have high overheads. Even the more expensive work can come from designers and developers who are unable to deliver, yet still charge big money.

On the other hand, quality web design can be had at affordable prices by professionals who have the needed experience. These professionals understand the value of delivering quality goods at an affordable price – just look at their portfolios for examples. The key to this is keeping the customer happy by offering solutions that are attractive to all parties.

If your keyword choices are sensible i.e. do not try and rank on the first page of Google for a search term that has 2 million searches a month, you should be able to rank highly and get focused, targeted traffic to your site. Targeted traffic has the potential to bring you in sales and income, and because it is highly focused for whatever area of business you’re targeting you are more likely to see benefits.

Something I always preach:

If you are targeting a very niche, specific and low competition keyword with only 115 searches a month, you are likely to see quicker results in SERP’s (search engine results pages) than you would if you attempted to target a high competition keyword with lots of searches. These 115 potential customers are looking for exactly what you offer, therefore being no. 1 in Google for a number of lower competition keywords could prove more beneficial then being 5th for one keyword with 4 times as many searches.

It’s always good to remember a high search volume USUALLY is accompanied by higher competition, which means it will take longer to rank highly (based on your budget) and the ROI might not be there.

It is possible to practice SEO for small businesses, and it can have fantastic results… when done properly with focused keyword targets.