Web Design Q&A

This question made me smile! 
When you visit a website, you automatically rate it - it's fast, it's slow, it's easy to buy, it's a nightmare paying for something or it's a breeze, it looks good, it looks bad etc. It's all about the experience.

A Ux or Ui designer will tell you these things and more. But so will a good web designer/technologist - we jsut don't use Geekspeak.

I often think that a lot of terminology we have to deal with is useless geek-speak, and that's how I feel about these terms, Ux and Ui. It sounds important, but really, if your website isn't a smooth and pleasant experience then you'll know all about it and so will your visitors - without the geek-speak!

Let me enlarge on this. Color is important - very, very important for its pscyhological effects on a website visitor. And yet we don't have 'Cx designers' as a separate entity  - we expect our designers to have that expertise and to design something that is optimised for readers and buyers, that won't stress their eyes or put them off. The same is true IMO of Ux and Ui - ease of use is a non-negoriable reality.

When we (or any other competent agency) are designing a site, we put all of our experience into it - the experience and knowledge of artists, web technologists and business managers such as myself. We do not expect customers to go chasing Ui, Ux, Cx, Bx or any other x factors. 

Some people will be offended by this opinion. But by profession I'm an engineer and business manager. When i was describing high-tech products and systems to customers I stayed away from technical terms and spoke about benefits. I do the same with my own business.


 

Here are some tips for optimising your site on Weebly
 

1. Make sure your meta titles and descriptions are descriptive and on point.
2. Submit your sitemap to Google Search Console
3. Write good content that will drive traffic.
4. Don't use the meta keywords section on the backend. Google doesn't take these into consideratin anymore.
5. Make sure you have a really good internal linking system in place. This will help search engine move through the site a lot easier.

SEO for Weebly is a bit harder than other Content Management Systems like Wordpress because of the limitiations it has. CMS like Wordpress has access to a lot of different plugins which can help the performance whereas Weebly is a bit more limited. 

In saying that, as long as the theme code is clean, you've done all the neccessary research to find where your target market is, and you create a site that is visually appealing with good content, you should do well.

Would love to hear your thoughts @Meng Lin 

I suggest you take read of "Hooked" by Nir Eyal - while the subject is broader that websites, it gives very useful insight into how you create a product/service where people keep coming back for more.

If you're interested, I wrote a quick review of the book. https://www.briandorricott.com.au/have-you-been-hooked/

I think that overall many clients are unwilling to give designers and/or design agencies the freedom to create something genuinely interesting and unique.

It has been a staple in my professional design career to run into clients that have no design experience, but feel they are perfectly qualified to judge or dictate design. These same clients wouldn't argue with a lawyer, plumber or mechanic, but designers are not respected as a profession in many parts of the world. This perception needs to change.

The best way is to limit who you work with as a client. Remind them they came to you and you want their business to succeed. Sometimes you need to work a client up in phases of what they consider "risk". Innovation and design are both tricky business.

The other issue is many junior or hobbyist designers do not understand how to correctly structure information to create easily consumable content. The structure of the information is just as important (if not more sometimes) than the visual aesthetic.

A common problem for many website designers is that they provide one off transactions for clients.  

For clients on the other hand, a website is a simply a marketing tool which won't provide any value unless people find it.  

If I were a web designer I would find like minded partners that can provide these crucial complimentary services and take a commission.  This should build an ongoing revenue, keep the web designer involved with clients journey through online marketing, provide additional revenue opportunities & with the right SEO, PPC & Social Media partners you should receive referring work back through for web design work.

Providing complete solutions should allow for better margins & better conversion from leads into sale.  It might take a little bit of effort to establish, but you might have 100+ clients that can be referred through your soon to be created network.  That sounds like untapped opportunity.

More than qualifications I look for genuine, happy customer reviews and a good portfolio of work with a design style that I like.

Website design for a small business can cost anywhere from $1,000 to upwards of $75,000. In larger enterprise sites and startups, it can cost as much as $150,000. Most firms will offer a small landing page for around $1000 to $2000. 

If you want to have a typical website that involves multiple pages, a small contact form, and more, then you will need to spend around $5,000 to $15,000. Online store websites and e-commerce sites usually start at around $20,000 simply because they need a lot more integrations. 

It's hard to nail down website design costs on one simple thing. The more pages, integrations, and features you want in it, the more you will have to pay. Moreover, it also depends on who's actually making the page. If you have a major name making the page, they may choose to charge a premium price. 

Australia's web design industry is booming right now, so demand's up. However that doesn't mean that you should have to pay an arm and a leg for it. Most small business owners will pay between $5,000 to $15,000 for their websites, with some paying as little as $1,000 for a single-page site that gives details on a store.

Here's a general run-through of what you should expect for Aussie web design costs:

• Super small, simple websites might cost as little as $1,000 to $5,000 to make. These will often have between 1 to 5 small pages without too many features. 
• A standard business website will have around 7 pages and a handful of features. These can cost between $5,000 to $15,000. 
• If you want to have an e-commerce site, then you should expect prices to begin at $8,500. The price for an e-commerce store can quickly balloon depending on what features you want. It's not uncommon for e-commerce sites to cost over $25,000. 
• Extremely involved, custom-tailored sites for major enterprises will cost as much as $30,000 to upwards of $150,000. This often will include heavy SEO works well as other major developments.

Hi Heidi,

If you're selling online then you will probably have an automated email that goes out to your customer on purchase. You can customise the message to send them a direct link to your Google Review page or back to Facebook page, or in other words, make it really easy for them to give a review in the first place.     

The second part of having them automatically displayed on your website is (as the other contributors have mentioned), going to come down to a 3rd party tool or plugin. I'm using Repuso, which I like for the fact that you can configure feeds from multiple sources.

Feel free to give it a try.

https://repuso.com?via=mark91