Professional website development is a subject that you should not enter without having prior knowledge, many companies today want to show that creating a website is easy but it really is not so, so in this article we will explain every detail.
Currently, the number of websites that occupy 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, hence 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 Marcelo Design X we want to help you, that is why throughout this post we will address the main aspects to take into account when requesting a budget for a website, what it should include and what aspects we must keep in mind to achieve online success
Professional website development with WordPress and other CMS
The first thing we will have to decide is what type of website we want. As we have commented previously, each company has specific needs and a limited budget to carry them out, hence knowing how to size the project is key so as not to suffer its consequences in the future. In this sense, from Marcelo Design X we recommend not investing more than 40% of the budget in professional web design, leaving the other 60% freed to invest in marketing strategies.
From there, we have several options, whether we want to create simple or more complex web pages based on WordPress web design:
Simple web pages
In this section we will recommend the following solutions:
Google My Business. For the simplest websites it is the ideal solution: from a business file published in Google My Business, it works as a creator of simple web pages, adaptable to mobile devices (responsive) and offering the visitor relevant information about the activity of the company (hours, address, services offered). In addition, recently Google has implemented the option to customize the domain of said web page. 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 blog creator, 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 emptier 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 fully program their website and those who opt for one of the CMS (Content Management System) available in the market, being WordPress the standard bearer of the latter, with about 29% of the total number of websites developed under this programming language (60% of the total CMS – Joomla, Magento, Drupal, Prestashop…).
At this point, many wonder how to make a website 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 simple, since it will depend on the expertise as a web programmer of whoever tackles such a project: WordPress was born as a way to democratize the creation of web pages, making its code public for those who want 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 web for those companies looking for a professional web design is to 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 hosting or server), 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 in the market, although we will try to offer some aspects to take into account so that this process is 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
Another fundamental element when hiring a hosting, since neither hackers nor server crashes have office hours. A technical service available in your language will be of great help when managing our online presence.
Quantity is not synonymous with quality
We should not obsess over the number of gigabytes of space they offer us, but rather their quality: it is advisable to always demand SSD disks, as well as quality processors such as Intel in our servers.
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 in the world with more than 400,000 available elements (if you can’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 comes the turn of generating quality web content, which allows us to differentiate ourselves from our competition while offering the visitor to our site the information they demand. 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 content from third parties, as you expose yourself to a penalty from search engines
It must be of the appropriate length. It is important that those pages of special importance to you have from 5000 characters of text. As for the posts, a reasonable length would be between 1000 and 2000.
It must be updated regularly. 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 arrive at the last step of any self-respecting professional web design process: translate the content that we have created into our WordPress web design, a process that is closely linked to the web template that 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 the readability of the web user who visits us.
It is important to note that until the appearance of CMS, web layout was somewhat tedious, executed from code programming and reserved for those who knew the issues of web programming. However, the most curious thing is that it is still done in the same way, although the user, instead of seeing code, sees buttons that execute his will.
Examples of web pages
To better understand what the result of a professional web design project can be, you may be interested in reviewing some of the websites that we have developed since 2019 in our portfolio. These websites in our portfolio are e-commerce websites for SMEs, corporate websites, institutional websites and among others.
Web maintenance
Before reaching the section that interests you the most (find out how much a web page 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 the web developer that you have hired to carry carry out your project. But what is the web maintenance service? In general terms, 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 web page design work ends when it goes online: it is from that moment when a monitoring work begins, thanks to which everything continues to work as it was planned from day one. Templates, plugins and even WordPress itself are constantly being updated, so it is essential to have a team of professionals by our side who know when and how to carry out these maintenance tasks.
How much does a web maintenance service cost? Another question that is difficult to answer, since it is not the same to manage an online store than a corporate site that is barely 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, updating plugins and templates, migrations …) it will charge you in based on a price per hour of service, which does not usually go below €60.
Budget website
Web page budget, web page price, how much does a web page cost, how much does it cost to make a web page, web design prices … all these expressions refer to the big question: how much should I spend on web development from my digital marketing budget. To answer this question, we will first list the factors involved in an online project:
Domain, hosting and templates. Are they included, or do they have to 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 take into account
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. Take this into account 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 website is translated. A powerful multi-language plugin in WordPress like WPML is not economical, 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. Practically 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 lies 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 configuration. Has your website been registered in Google Search Console? Have you configured the Google Analytics functionalities correctly? Have you optimized SEO friendly texts and images? It is advisable to pay a little more but have all the possible measurement tools at our fingertips
After so many variables (some of which we have even forgotten), it will be clear to you that a professional web design involves work and technical knowledge that in many cases are not within our reach, hence it is appropriate to hire the services of a web page company to such need. As a reference (and just for 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 an online store costs, you should scratch your pocket a little more (2,000 euros onwards ). In any case, if you are interested in requesting a quote for a website, do not hesitate to contact us.
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