Brett Barron, Dialogs

My firm has been in the business of building websites for almost 30 years. We’ve built for big brands like 7-Eleven, Pizza Hut and British Petroleum as well as for small businesses like Plustar, Tri Global Energy and Continental Batteries. We’ve also built SaaS engines for startups like WondrHealth (NaturallySlim), PsychHub and BrokersBridge. 

We often encounter folks who really don’t know where to start when considering a website for their business venture. This article is intended as a primer to level any knowledge gaps about building a small business website.

Identifying goals for your website

Websites differ in functionality and purpose and can be built many different ways but, fundamentally, a website is simply a way of publishing information to be shared with others over the internet. Your business has or should have a website too. But why are you creating a website, and how should you go about it?

Consider just a few websites you already know:

• Facebook has a website to bombard you with advertising. 
• Amazon has a website to sell you all the things you used to buy from your neighborhood stores. 
• Small businesses and professionals have websites for two primary reasons: to establish legitimacy and to (hopefully) be found. 

Setting aside purely informational websites such as government sites, virtually every website exists to grow revenue in some way or another and should generate a return on investment. 

Why are you building yours?

Question #1: how should my website grow revenue for me?

If you’ve done this before, then you may have specific expectations for how the website you are contemplating will increase revenue. Go into the process keeping those expectations in mind. If you don’t know or hadn’t considered it, then stop and read this Forbes article: Why Every Business Needs a Website. The first four items – ‘Credibility’, ‘Brand’, ‘Leads’ and ‘Organic Traffic’ – are table stakes but the size and nature of your business determines how you tactically accommodate them. 

For example, if your service is washing residential windows, a clean but simple website with a few testimonials goes a long way toward establishing that you are, in fact, a business with an address and/or phone number. Custom logos and flashy design won’t likely drive more revenue and may be unnecessary. If you are a national retail brand, on the other hand, then you have a style guide and you’ll likely expect to pay for custom graphic design work and talented copywriters to create a competitive digital offering. Constructed properly, any website can grow Leads and Organic Traffic, but expect to budget more if these are specific drivers.

The next two items in the Forbes list, ‘Customer Service’ and ‘Updates and Announcements’ for smaller businesses may be nothing more than individual pages with key information that your customers can conveniently access on-line. If your business has a catalog of products, these website components likely merit Content Management, search/filtering functionality and likely a custom B2B or B2C portal.  

‘Digital Marketing’ can mean many things. At the very least, your website should clearly identify who you are, what you do and why someone should want to do business with you. If you have a budget for digital advertising, your website should support easy configuration of landing pages to convert traffic sent to the site. If you intend to sell products/services from your site, you need ecommerce capabilities.  

Question #2: how much can I do myself or with internal resources?

The perfect website for you is the one that meets your specific business needs. You are the expert on your business so the more involved you, or your staff, are in the process, the better the outcome. 

The do-it-yourself option

If you are working with a limited budget, you may need to do most or all of the work yourself. There’s never been a better time to do this as the tools to create websites continue to improve and require fewer niche skills than ever before. If you’re a 1-10 employee business with under $500,000 annual revenue, you probably should build your website yourself using one of several recommended website builders. Before you start, you should read this Forbes article Small Business Marketing in 2024 to clarify your purpose and understand the path to an ROI. Firms like Dialogs can help you with pieces of the effort as you require.

The “done with you” and “done for you” options

If you are a larger business, minimally, you should be involved in initial planning with outside professionals to make sure they are aligned with your vision. You should also closely monitor progress on a weekly basis to make sure all efforts are justified and the level of work matches expectations. 

Regardless of the size of your business, you or members of your team may have some or many of the skills involved in the building of a website. This is an opportunity to reduce out-of-pocket costs, but be aware of the significant time commitment of having staff contribute work. Hired professionals do this every day and should be very efficient. Your staff may take longer to get the same quantity of work done.  Some of the elements of website development that you may contribute:

• Marketing strategy and tactics (digital advertising, content marketing, etc.)
• Marketing-driven copywriting
• Graphic design (for elements of a templated website or complete design of a custom website)
• Photography and image optimization for web
• Content entry/management (placing copy and images on web pages, blog articles, news updates, etc.)
• HTML/CSS basics (even website builders may require some tweaking to get the professional look you’re seeking)
• Search Engine Optimization (on-page elements that improve your ranking)
• Video preparation for web or youtube

Question #3: how much should I budget for my website?

A website is a marketing investment in your business that should deliver a ROI. In 2024, there are many excellent ways to publish a website, far more than just a decade ago. Unless you are selling into the upscale market or are an established brand, you likely shouldn’t be paying for “custom” web design; there are numerous web design templates available that can be configured (often mislabeled as ‘customized’) with your unique colors and, when assembled properly will provide the necessary credibility and brand support. 

Similarly, if you are a small business with a small to medium size catalog of products you want to sell from your website, Shopify is the obvious choice; you do not need custom development as you might have in the past.

Established brands reasonably require more attention to design detail than smaller businesses. The primary websites of most national brands feature custom designed layouts and embellishments that dovetail with print collateral and broadcast advertising. However, a quick, “throw away” landing page for even a national brand can be constructed with many current website builders using drag-and-drop elements and still be polished enough to meet requirements.

Making a decision on your website project

So, how much should you, specifically, budget for a website? Spend no more than will generate a return on your investment. The good news is that in 2024 there are polished, professional options at just about any budget. 

Here are our recommendations according to your website budget:

•  < $5,000
  Toward the lower end of this range, you will need to do most (if not all) of the work yourself. It is wise to reserve at least a small budget to solicit the help of experts.  
• Use a website builder [link] with stock photography [link]
• Implement ecommerce through Shopify [link]
• Optional assistance from outside professionals such as Dialogs [link]
• Marketing advice and direction
• Assistance with your selected website builder
• Technical assistance with launch and maintenance
• Configuration of Google Analytics and Search Console (aka, Webmaster Tools)
• < $10,000 (in addition to items above)
  At this range, you can expect to outsource small websites entirely to an outside firm or build more extensive websites by marshaling in-house staff to enter content for individual pages. A website builder with simple content management tools still offers the best leverage.
• Outside professionals manage more of the work, including one or more of the following:
• Increased marketing strategy consulting
• Custom designed homepage and an additional layout for interior pages
• Copywriting 
• Photography optimization for web
• Plug-in code integration with 3rd party services such as HubSpot 
• < $25,000 (in addition to items above)
  A bigger budget allows for enhancements to page complexity and more extensive use of photography or video.
• Increased participation from outside professionals allowing for items like:
• More custom designs or design elements
• Animations 
• Increased number of pages
• Enhanced page functionality (e.g. Content Managed photo galleries, knowledge bases etc.)
• Integrations with external services
• < $50,000
  This rages allows for more flexibility in custom design and quantity of content.  
• Outside professionals can additionally provide:
• Limited B2B or B2C customer portals
• Custom eCommerce solutions where Shopify no longer meets the need
• Deep API integrations with one or more 3rd party system
• $50,000 +
  This is the starting point for more involved web properties. Heavily designed websites with extensive animations and more than a few dozen pages start here, as do complex web B2B and B2C portals, SaaS solutions and business process web applications. This is also the budget range that allows for mobile app development.

Conclusion

We’ve compiled this outline to help make better decisions about how to invest in your website and what to expect as you go through the process.  The smaller your budget, the more you should expect to do yourself—and with an abundance of tools available, your options are always getting better.  With larger budgets (and/or for more established brands), you can rely on experts who live and breathe those specialized web development and related functions. We've published a convenient tool to illustrate the factors that determine the cost of a website. We encourage you to take a look.

Depending on where you fit in this spectrum, you may not need Dialogs at all.  When you do need an expert, let’s chat.  In the time we’ve been building professional websites, we’ve pretty much seen it all.  If you’ve got a new question that you’re struggling to answer, bring it to us!