When Dreams & Budget Collide: How to Maximize a Web Design Budget

When it comes to getting a new website, it’s nearly inevitable – our eyes become bigger than our wallets. There is always a balancing act we have to play, between need and want, and between need and can afford. But thankfully, the good folks here at Ascent are champions when it comes to stretching a dollar. Here are some of our best recommendations to help you get the most out of your website budget so that you don’t have to choose between affordable and awesome.

1. Reduce Quantity – without sacrificing quality

Maximize a tight budget by sharpening your focus to pinpoint the “must have” pages & features on a site. Often, a site can be just as effective with 1 strong page with clean, well-crafted content & a clear call-to-action as it would be with 109 pages of copy. If budget is tight, focus! Shave off content & functions that you don’t really need, and it’ll save hundreds if not thousands on content editing, images, etc. trade it in for a clear, well-crafted, product/service specific landing page.

2. Write & edit your own content.

Copywriting is expensive. There’s a reason for that, of course – great content is critical to the site, and great writers are hard to come by. But if budget is an issue, consider taking on the challenge to write & edit your content yourself.

Write the content to be as engaging as you can, not overly “sales-y,” and try to avoid it reading like a series of 8th grade Facebook statuses. You want to be “on brand” – write in the voice and tone your company takes on in all its communications… not the way you’d write an email to a friend, talk in conversation, etc. Keep the style of writing professional so that the content enhances your company’s credibility. If you can maintain a consistent tone and “feel” to the writing, your content will hold up just fine, and you’ll save a small fortune.

3. Find great plugins that provide the functionality you need.

Don’t reinvent the wheel when it comes to web functionality. You can save a substantial portion of a developer’s time if you use existing tools to accomplish your functionality. One of the reasons we’re such ardent supporters of WordPress here at Ascent is because of the incredible and ever-expanding library of quality plugins that we can access to accomplish even sophisticated functions. If something just like what you need already exists, use it. If an existing plugin gets you 90% of the way there, sacrifice the 10% and use it.

Now, we’re not recommending that you use a canned design, mind you – custom design is crucial to your unique identity, so using a “cookie cutter” design is never a sacrifice you should make. But avoiding completely custom, created-from-scratch web development, when possible, can be a big score for your bottom line.

4. Source your own photos.

A good DSLR camera in the hands of a hobbyist can go a long way. You’ll save on expensive stock image fees, and you’ll save on professional photography. Will there be a drop off in quality? Yes. But creatively framed, well-lit original photography will help set your site apart, regardless of who is behind the lens. And it’ll give your company character, authenticity, and soul – which stock photos can never provide.

…And a few don’ts…

Here are a few common cost-cutting measures that are criminally insane.

1) Don’t perpetuate a logo that belongs in design purgatory.

Saving a few bucks to keep the logo you drew on your napkin, or that was created in MS Paint on an IBM 386 is not worth it. We’re so serious about this one that we simply won’t accept a project from a company in logo-denial. It feels a little too much like selling your soul to take a client’s money to create a fantastic design, only to slap an abominable logo on top.

If a designer is telling you “you need to update your logo,” he/she is politely informing you that your logo is one of the worst they’ve ever seen. Spring for one you can be proud of. It doesn’t have to break the bank, and you’ll reap lasting rewards from the new & improved look.

2) Don’t offshore, or use your neighbor’s nephew, a college student, day laborer, or those dirt-cheap “do it yourself” website systems.

Don’t skimp on professionalism. Building an attractive, effective, ROI-generating website isn’t easy. Not everyone can do it. I can promise that the person you’re thinking of using to do it can’t do it. They can try. But the adage is true: you get what you pay for. And many, many times – so many times it makes us cringe – we end up getting brought in to salvage a bad situation where someone hired ___, and ___ couldn’t handle the job and hung them out to dry. Use the cheapo solution now, and you’re virtually guaranteed to waste money. There are unfortunately an awful lot of clowns in this business. Don’t hire one.

3) Don’t juggle/rotate developers based on cost

Put 1 cook in the kitchen. Having a few different freelancers, consultants or agencies doing development, copywriting, or SEO on the same site will always cost more in the long run. It leads to waste & confusion at best, and at worst it can lead to catastrophic website breakdowns. Get a developer you trust at a rate you can handle, and be monogamous!

The bottom line: work with a trustworthy agency partner who’s in it for your success

No matter what your budget or need, you absolutely must work with people who care too much about your success to try to squeeze every penny out of you, leave you in the cold, or give you bad advice. When an agency and client view one another as a partnership, they’ll be able to work together to find the best solutions within a set budget. And we’d like to humbly submit ourselves for your consideration.