As of July 2024, there were 194 million active websites out of the 1.1 billion websites worldwide. Are all of them good? Absolutely not.
So many businesses struggle to design a good website. And the thing is, the blueprint is out there. Google it, and you’ll see countless articles telling people what makes a good website. So, where are businesses going wrong? Well, in the case of small businesses, it’s in multiple places – they don’t have it easy.
In the UK, the average website design can cost between £100 (very basic and average) and £3,000 or more. Let’s be real – even the latter of the lower end is unaffordable for small businesses. If it’s an agency, they can charge between £15,000 and £30,000, with complex designs costing up to £75,000 or more. Do you think a small business has that budget to spend on a website design? £100? Yes. Thousands? Probably not.
Still, that’s not the only website design woes small businesses face. Read on to find out more.
Limited Budget
We might as well stick with the topic of limited budget as we’d argue for most small businesses, it’s the only challenge. The bigger the budget, the better the website design.
Still, we know so many companies that charge ££££ for website design and deliver a simple WordPress theme (no offence, WordPress, it can be good) with some branding slapped across it. We’re talking businesses here and not Jayne, a mom of three who wants to start a home blog. Now, we’re big fans of WordPress. The simplicity of WordPress is perfect, and it does mean that some people can do it themselves – and often feel that what they receive from businesses can be achieved on their own, especially if it feels like they’ve been using templates.
The issue? Basic websites and templates lack professionalism, business-friendly features, and general quality.
Solution: Set a reasonable budget and look for local, reasonably priced services like our web design services in Oxford. And by reasonable budget, we mean you don’t need to spend £50k+, but there’s an expectation that you will have to pay more than £100 for a great website design. Local businesses focusing on quality over churning out website designs for big bucks deliver high-quality websites.
Designing a Responsive, Easy-to-Use Website
As of 2024, 60.67% of all website traffic is from mobile devices, 92.3% of people using the internet consider accessing it through their smartphone, and by 2025, 1 billion people will have 5G connections.
Responsiveness – whether a website loads the same on all devices – is therefore essential.
A lack of responsiveness isolates so many internet users – 60.67% of them, apparently. A responsive website should automatically adjust its layout and appearance to mobiles. Any device and screen size, for that matter.
Websites that load slowly, are haphazardly organised and which are bulky in their mobile structure are boring, complicated, and simply frustrating browsing experiences – there’s nothing easy to use about them.
Solution: A responsive website focuses on the user experience – browsing should be the same on all devices. Design should focus on setting responsive breakpoints in the media query range, using a CSS grid layout, responsive images and text, and testing it. If it doesn’t work, try again. Does that sound like jargon? Any decent website developer should know how to make a website responsive for you.
Designing With SEO in Mind
SEO starts in web design. Studies found that 4 in 5 people use search engines for queries – and as a small business, the chances are high that people aren’t searching specifically for your brand name. They’re searching for ‘Chinese takeaways near me’ or ‘Winter jumpers’ – they’re searching for keywords, and the relevant keywords for your website/products must be scattered throughout your website if you want to appear in search results.
And, an interesting fact: ‘Open now near me’ searches have increased by over 400%. It’s about knowing what people want to search for and making your business appear in the search engine page results.
There’s so much more to it than that, which may seem like jargon…again.
Solution: Did it sound like jargon? Most small businesses outsource their SEO, but we’d advise finding a website developer specialising in SEO. If you do wait until afterwards, the average small business spends between £500 and £2,000 per month on SEO.
You would think people know what they’re doing by now, but there are so many errors small businesses make when designing a website. Our advice is to pick high-quality web design services and you can’t go too far wrong.
Web design challenges you need help with? Contact us.
