When organisations need new websites, budget is of course one of the first considerations. But cheap corporate web design services can be very appealing, this route may cost you more than anticipated. A bargain website might sound like a great way to get the job done for less, however your business website is not the place where you should be scrimping. Not if you want to increase your conversions, sales and revenue.
The reason that some corporate web design services offer very cheap prices is because they are usually created by web designers who are looking for a quick buck. Instead of creating a high quality website that is customised to your exact needs, they may outsource the work overseas, use generic design templates, or ignore a number of important considerations. You can easily end up with a website that isn’t scalable, is hard to find in Google, and has limited traffic, and you may be left to struggle alone with poor ongoing support.
These are only some of the problems we see first hand with cheap corporate web design services, but let’s take a look at some of the issues, so you have a better understanding of why investing in your website is key to your success.
1. Potential customers won’t stay on your site for very long
A low quality web site is easy to spot (even if subconsciously), and shoppers aren’t slow in picking them out from the crowd. Poor navigation and menu systems, a lack of quality content, and a design that lacks appeal with too much text, vague calls-to-action, and extremely slow load times, sends visitors charging in the opposite direction very quickly.
This all comes down to the structure of your website, which simply isn’t a high priority for many of the corporate web design services at the low end of the market.
2. Difficult to update and optimise your website’s performance
Since cheap websites are usually built by unskilled designers, they’re often not optimised for performance, and the foundational code lacks a good internal structure. This makes updating your website difficult and if you want to add new features, you can be blowing in the wind.
The quick fix to increase functionality is to ask a developer to add additional features, which results in a system that becomes bulky, slow and patchy. The real solution is to avoid cheap corporate web design services and invest your money in a quality design that can grow with you, as your business expands. Start with the end in mind.
3. Your website won’t have an edge on the competition
Not standing out from the crowd is the death knell of a website, and with a generic template and no customized features, your cheap website will end up costing you much more money in the long run. Who can blame shoppers when your competition has a contemporary, fast, user-friendly website that gives them exactly what they need?
4. Your website is more likely to be hacked
Cheap websites are typically less secure, simply because the developers don’t adhere to the industry’s security best practices. Hacking is a significantly more common occurrence on cheap websites, often resulting in customer’s private data being breached, followed by a significant loss in sales and in the reputation of the business.
Your site may even be completely taken over by hackers, locking you out entirely. This could be catastrophic for your business, but easily avoided if you invest in high quality corporate web design services. Spend a little more today and save yourself a packet in the long run.
5. You won’t have the level of support you need
Sometimes when a cheap website has been delivered, the designers no longer want to know you. They’re happy to take your money and move onto the next job; they don’t feel any responsibility to their customers and provide limited (if any) ongoing support. Emails requesting help may not even be answered at all, leaving you in a position where you need to pay someone else to fix your site.
While not all cheap websites are terrible, unfortunately, many are. It can be a case of pot luck as to whether you’ll get the right outcome, because comparing quotes can be very difficult, so many businesses simply choose the lowest price. Therefore it’s vital that you perform a full analysis to compare quotes, shop around, and ask about the above items before choosing a developer for your website project.