Before you waste money going with an expensive design agency, or feel like you are saving money going with a free builder like Wix or Weebly or GoDaddy – ask yourself if you know what should be included in a web design package?
We have launched over 500 websites and want to help you ask the right questions when you are deciding how to launch your website online and be found by customers on Google.
Questions you need answers for:
- How does google find me?
- What will I look like on a mobile phone?
- Who will write all my content and design my graphics?
- Will my site be fast?
- Have you done sites like mine before?
- ALSO – will you help me grow and learn after we launch?
Here are our tips on 5 things you MUST HAVE in your web design package:
We get asked all the time, “What should be included in a web design package?” Depending who you speak to, whether it’s a web design agency, digital marketing company, or somebody designing websites in their basement, you will get all different answers to that question.
At Launch Kits, we want to share with you five things that we include in every web design package. We believe these things should always be included. If you are a small business owner or entrepreneur and your goal is to be found online by Google and by potential customers by name search, then you need to talk to different companies to decide what the best go-live solution is for you. Make sure whoever you work with includes these five things.
If you don’t have all of these five things, it’s kind of like trying to bake a loaf of bread and forgetting the yeast. It ain’t going rise. It’s got it all, but not enough to actually be enjoyed by people, friends, family, and community.
So let’s get into the five things that every web design package needs. Here at Launch Kits, I’ll make it easy for you. I’m just going to use our what’s included page to walk through what is necessary.
Every web design package needs to include:
1. Google Business Profile
Your website set up needs to include Google business profile setup, optimization, and connection. It’s important to double checking the details that are displayed on Google before someone even get to your website.
You may think a web design package doesn’t need to include that because that’s not on your website. If you don’t do that part right, and you are eligible for a local map pack or Google business profile listing, users won’t find your website. Because when you look for local search, Google’s going to show local search results in that map pack first. And your website is going to be just on an organic list down below fighting for a spot between listing sites.
So you need to have a web design package that includes a Google business profile set up, optimization, and double check connection to your website. That comes in every Launch Kit.
2. Mobile Friendly
Number two, every web design package has to be mobile friendly. Some people still today are buying websites from web design agencies or digital marketing agencies that are building in static code and upcharging just to have mobile friendly websites. Mobile friendly, or responsive, websites will adjust and be dynamic and custom, whether you’re on a tablet or mobile device such as an iPhone or Android device.
Your web design company should be able to even tweak and adjust what size fonts, what backgrounds, what colors, whether the button is on the left or the right, whether you show a video or not all based on the platform that the viewer is on. Your web design package has to be mobile, responsive and mobile friendly.
3. Expert Content Design
Number three, every web design package has to include content design by experts. Content creation cannot just depend on you as a business owner saying your answers to question. Your web design company has to be experts in looking at content, making sure that H1 or “header one” tags are correct and not just based on an opinion, but based on research.
There is one page on your website that you can write all by yourself and that’s the “About” page that talks about you, your history, your passion, your impact, and so on. You can write that because there’s not a lot of what we call “search engine optimization” (or SEO) power in that, but it is the second and third most visited page on most websites because buyers and consumers are making decisions now based on connection to brands and the people behind them.
So even though you might not be found for “cool millennial that started a business cutting lawns near me”, when I look for a lawn mowing company, whether I choose to work with you or not, has some to do with the brand, the mission, and the vision behind the company. Because let’s be honest, consumers of services and products have many options now to serve themselves and so there has to be something that makes you unique. So you can write an “about” page all by yourself, but you need expert content, writers and designers to be working on that page.
Some companies upcharge $750 to write content per page. (That’s an actual number I just saw on a website cost estimator just the other day). Make sure that your web design package includes the company helping you research and write out real content that Google likes, customers will understand, and that resonates with your brand.
4. Speed Optimization
Number four, every website package needs to include speed optimization. What I mean by that is your hosting has to be on high speed dedicated servers, whether they’re private servers or cloud-based servers, you need high speed, secure servers that are going to handle your website. It’s important that your website can handle the Google page speed insight test scores that help you rank better.
You need speed optimization on your website. If you’re just loading up iPhone photos on your website, that is a bad decision. Your website needs to have tools like WP Rocket or Imagify that will take content and minimize it and adjust it for the different platforms and speed demands that the user has. Make sure your web design package includes ways to optimize the speed on your website, because that is key.
5. Proven Model
The last thing, the fifth thing that every web design package needs to have is a proven model.
What that means is, if you go to a company and they just jump out on the whiteboard and take everybody’s ideas and they come up with some creative website that has no proof behind the methodology or the design, then you’re wasting your money.
A web design package needs to be based on what’s proven to work in your industry. So when you look at what you’re including, when you get your web design quote, you need to make sure that there’s proof that they have done this before in your industry and that you’re starting with what they already know will work.
For example, if you are a roofer, looking for a roofing website, the danger is if you just hire is that you just hire someone and you forget to say, “Hey, have you designed roofing websites before? What kind of past success have you had? Can I see some of the previous roofing websites you’ve designed? What do you know works for customers in my industry, looking for my services?”
You should be able to ask your web design company if they have worked in your industry before, what expertise are they bringing to the table to help you. Make sure that it’s a proven framework, a proven model behind the dollars that you are investing for that product.
Bonus Tip: Support and Training
The bonus thing I’m going tell you that every web design package needs is you need someone to support you and to train you and to help you.
There are horror stories we hear where somebody’s web designer went M.I.A. and now they don’t know how to log in, update, fix a security issue or renew a domain or connect an email. You need to have ongoing support from your people.
If it’s an online company you hire, that just is totally digital, like Wix Weebly, Squarespace, or GoDaddy – good luck waiting in line on chat features or having someone clearly understand the problems you’re having. Sometimes you have good experiences or sometimes their horror experiences.
Make sure the web design company is someone that you know and trust so you never get locked out. You should have all the access. Nobody should hold you hostage to jumping on a support ticket or finding an old email or an old file.
Everything that you have paid for you should have full access to. So that would be my kind of extra tip – making sure that you are both in it for the long haul. Because you are not going anywhere, make sure your web design company isn’t either.
Launch Kits Includes The Essentials!
I hope these five and a bonus tip will help you make the right decision when choosing a web design company to help you launch and be found online. Get Started! We’d love to help you launch smart.
