Episode 18: Affordable Websites Brisbane
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[00:00:00] Saul: Hi everybody, and welcome to the Web Design Brisbane Podcast. This is episode number 18. And today's episode is entitled Affordable Websites Brisbane. My name is Saul Edmonds, and as usual, I'm joined by the lovely Gillian Smith.
[00:00:13] Gillian: Good morning. So it looks like being a nice day today.
[00:00:15] Saul: Oh, beautiful day. Lovely. We are the co-founders and creative directors of Roundhouse, the creative agency, a local business with a passion for helping a client grow. Over to you, Gill.
[00:00:25] Gillian: Okay, well, today, we'll talk about affordable website design services in Brisbane, Queensland, we have what you need to know about affordable website solutions that will grow your business. If you're looking for a budget friendly website that ticks all the boxes, we've got you covered with useful tips and advice for totally affordable websites that will deliver big without breaking the bank. So let's get started. Yes, okay, everyone likes to save money. But in particular, with regard to your business website, you don't want to compromise on quality. The key advice here is to simplify it goals. So what features should an affordable business website include? So we've got a checklist here of elements that you want to ensure that are within your small business website when you start that project? So first of all, you want to ensure that the website is really an online showcase for your business, your products and your services, what have you got to say, Saul?
[00:01:23] Saul: That's right. So it's still, regardless, instead of say, if you, if you wanted an affordable website, and for whatever reason you came to the realization, it was going to be a particular price, your content was two or three times. The size of what you might be able to afford, you can still actually quite effectively, if need be, scale some of that information down, and sometimes the end resolve is also that you work out a more optimal way to show which can actually have a positive, it can actually be a positive to all depending on what that is, if you've got a purely informational side, it's not really that hard, you can clarify things very, very simply, which, like we just said, can actually be an advantage Really?
[00:02:23] Gillian: Okay, well, that brings us to the next point, which is you want to make sure that your website is tailored to meet the needs of your audience, it needs to be customer centric.
[00:02:32] Saul: Yeah, that's right. So by customer centric, what do we actually mean by that, that you in terms of the copy that you have, all your styles, and the visuals, but if we're talking specifically about the copy that's going to be on there, it's still speaking to your audience. In order to work out how to do that, you first need to know your audience know your audience, you have to identify who they are. And if that's mainly a group of people, but it's also broad, then it might be a little bit a more generic in flavour, but still working that out.
[00:03:13] Gillian: I guess everyone needs a target market,
[00:03:15] Saul: Yeah, and you still have to have a plan, even if you're going to be writing it if you're not going to hire somebody to write a copy for you. Which is of course, extra cost involved.
[00:03:28] Gillian: I guess, that brings us to the next point, which is strategic design. So do you need to be strategic when you're thinking about your website,
[00:03:34] Saul: you should always be strategic in anything with this anything that relates to your business, because ultimately, first of all, it's going to save you a bit of time to if you've got some sort of plan in place for how you're going to approach you, at least you've got something to refer back to as you start to roll out how you're going to implement that into your but the look and feel how, how that is aligned with your brand. If you've got one already, or if you need to do that. But unless you can refer back to something and say, Are we still on track?
[00:04:15] Gillian: Okay, well, the next key recommendation addresses branding. So you want to make sure that there's a consistency in branding across your website.
[00:04:22] Saul: Yeah, that's right. So that comes like, if we're talking just about the visual elements, that can just be down to the colours, the fonts that you use, a largely a largely overlooked element of that, which has a very subtle, but important part are the fonts that you actually use. Fortunately, these days, we've got a lot of great options for web fonts that don't have to be in the form of images that they're real fonts that you can use on your website.
[00:04:57] Gillian: That can be by search engines.
[00:04:59] Saul: Yeah, and they can be buried by search engines with actual text, which is an important adds a little extra layer of uniqueness to your side. And all those pieces of the puzzle with Greg clear layout and visual appeal, really do the trick.
[00:05:19] Gillian: So to make sure that your website really delivers You also want to make sure that you have call to action selection.
[00:05:26] Saul: Yeah, exactly. You want to tell people what you want them to do.
[00:05:28] Gillian: So a clear call to action could be a button. Yeah, that says yeah, let's get started. Click here.
[00:05:35] Saul: Yeah, learn more, a range of different things that don’t necessarily think of calls to action, as they don't have to be overly salesy. It's not necessarily about that. It's about encouraging people to interact with your side.
[00:05:52] Gillian: Interact people. Can now another key element of an effective website, whatever your budget is fast loading pages, speed is important, isn't it, Saul?
[00:06:02] Saul: Yeah, it is. So that comes down to the images that you use how well those images are optimized for the web, despite the fact that we've got great fast internet these days, it doesn't mean that you shouldn't have really well optimized images, not with losing quality so that doesn't look any good. But you can quite easily have both these days, even with quite large images, like full screen images,
[00:06:28] Gillian: Fast landing pages are for your customers, and also for Google.
[00:06:32] Saul: Yeah, for Google, too. It because Google is using methods that it's using to simulate what means I trusted site, and part of that is that it's going to be a good experience for users. So it's trying to try to simulate that. Therefore a user might therefore, fast loading side is part of a good experience for user therefore..
[00:07:07] Gillian: So Google usually to deliver customer service there by referencing fast loading sites
[00:07:11] Saul: In their own Google, sure it is. Yes.
[00:07:13] Gillian: Okay, this one is really important, you have to make sure that your new business website is mobile and tablet friendly, friendly.
[00:07:20] Saul: Yeah. Fortunately, really all sides with the exception of some people who use old methods to build sites, but virtually any site that you have built these days is a responsive site, meaning that it's going to be mobile and tablet friendly, and it'll adapt to the screen that you're looking at it on.
[00:07:44] Gillian: And also to make sure your website really delivers, it needs to be optimized for search engines for SEO.
[00:07:51] Saul: Yeah. So being optimized means that you take a range of criteria that Google gives to web designers to tell them what you should be doing, ideally, a range of little rules that you should be doing to have well optimized site so it's not only about the wording and the terms that you use to create a good match with people who are searching for your services. But it's also about how to actually build and things like fast loading pages, if it's mobile friendly, and so forth.
[00:08:27] Gillian: And then in that you never create content for Google. Okay. It must always be that secondary, you have to always create your content for your target user.
[00:08:35] Saul: Yeah, that's right.
[00:08:36] Gillian: Serve them first. Okay. And another final tip here is to make sure that your website is built on an easy to use content management system.
[00:08:44] Saul: Yeah, that's right. So everybody, you'll find this even if you've got a content management system, people don't necessarily always want to change the content on this site. Even though it's a great idea to do that, and to have a blog, there's a lot of advantages to that, which will speak about no doubt in some other podcasts. But to have it there in the first place, is really handy, makes quick changes that need to be made easy, and you can add on other features and other elements to it also, very easily as it grows.
[00:09:23] Gillian: What content management systems do you find that you generally work with?
[00:09:28] Saul: We work generally with WordPress, and then WooCommerce as the e commerce component of WordPress, and then also Squarespace. And then were required, will build custom content management systems and websites where either of those two platforms don't allow us to do that for some reason, but most of the time, it would be a WordPress website because of the range of options and flexibility that it gives us design and development wise, for clients.
[00:10:06] Gillian: Okay, well, I guess at the end of the day, what we're trying to say here is that you want to make sure that any affordable website solution that you go with has to be strategic. Yeah. And a strategic website is really going to deliver the real world results we all want.
[00:10:20] Saul: Yeah. So and an affordable side still doesn't necessarily mean it's going to be have no features or no future growth. It just means that you could rethink how you're going to do that in this initial stage. But it still has options for it to grow in the future as your business grows, as well. And that's it for today. Guys, thank you so much yet again, for listening. Before we go. Please don't forget to rate review and subscribe to this podcast would love to hear your feedback. Also, if you'd like to read the transcript of this episode, please visit our website at roundhouse.cc/web-design. We were on a journey to help local Brisbane businesses grow their opportunities online and exceed their goals. Thanks for listening and we'll see you tomorrow. Bye.