Want to know how much a new home improvement installer web design should cost, but can’t find a straight answer online?
Perhaps you need to optimise your site for mobile use with a responsive design to cover all bases. Maybe your home improvement company is undergoing a rebrand, or your current website just isn’t generating you enough leads and sales and you feel you’d benefit from a more inbound approach.
But wherever you look, you get a different answer – or only half an answer – about the price.
I can understand your frustrations, especially if you’re a small business with a tight budget and need to know exactly how much of an investment you’re going to make.
Which is why I’ve put together the following guide to give you a better idea of:
- How much a home improvement website should really cost
- Whether you need a new website for successful home improvement marketing
- A brief introduction to growth driven design (and the cost involved)
- 7 questions to ask before hiring a web developer
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The average cost of a website
Let’s get right down to business, shall we?
A professional home improvement company website could cost you anything between £5k and £20k – I know, that’s a huge margin, and I’m going to explain why in a minute.
But first, I’d say the average you can expect to pay for a good website with a decent amount of features and functionality, is around £10k.
I’m going to break this down a bit more for you.
Determining your costs
The cost of a website will really come down to the size of the project, the technical specifications and features, and the amount of research and development it takes beforehand.
Most web design companies charge per day, and the average daily cost is around £450 – £500. So, if your website takes a month to complete, that’s easily £9,000 – £10,000.
Obviously, if the designer had a good head-start on the project, with most of the research already done for them – or if you had a small team working on the design – the cost would be less.
What else can affect cost?
There are so many factors that can affect the cost of a new web design for your home improvement business – for example, if you want a customer-centric design, there may be a lot of extra research on buyer personas.
Your website should not only be as customer-centric as possible, but also have clear flow paths that show potential customers where to go throughout their buyer’s journey, so that they can always find the right information, at the right time.
You may already have a good idea of what you want from your new site, but if one or two of your features are particularly tricky, or you decide you wanted extra features, this may mean the project runs over budget and becomes more expensive.
To give you the best idea of cost and time involved, I’d recommend sitting down with your designer and discussing all of the ideas you have, to first determine what is possible, and which features may cost you extra.
Ways to save on budget
Budget already getting out of hand? There are ways you can save your designer some time, (and you, money!).
It’s a good idea to have as much of your research together for the designer as possible, so that less time goes into the research and development stage of the project.
Think of your website as a big jigsaw puzzle, with all your pieces having to fit together as smoothly as possible. You should at least have a good idea of the content your website will have, or even better, have it already written.
This is because it’s much more effective to design the website around your content, rather than having to squeeze your content around the website – occasionally, my designer has even had to rework previous designs because the client waited until afterwards to write their content, and it just didn’t work well.
Testing and optimising
Not all home improvement companies like to hear this part, but building a website is only half the battle – you have to keep testing and optimising in order to see which approach works best; this is called A/B testing.
Software such as Hubspot allows you to monitor and analyse the behaviour of your website visitors, so you can see how well they are responding to various elements and words or phrases on your website.
A/B testing and analysing is vitally important for inbound, and you need to make sure your CTAs, offers, and phrasing, are getting you the best results.
In most cases, doing this will cost you more time and money, but it will ensure you’re getting the most value out of your new web design.
Do you need a new web design for successful marketing?
Still unsure whether a new website is really what your home improvement marketing campaign needs? You’re right to be.
Undertaking home improvement – or inbound – marketing the right way can require a big investment and it’s easy to see why the idea of paying for a new website on top of everything else could be a nightmare.
Over the years, this has been a major concern for many businesses I’ve worked with, especially when budget is limited.
However, you can stop worrying right now. The good news is, you DON’T need a new website for your home improvement marketing efforts to be successful.
Below, I’m going to tell you why you might be able to keep your existing website, along with a new approach to website design you might be interested in.
Why keep your existing website?
The truth is, I very rarely recommend changing an existing website at the start of a new home improvement marketing campaign, and there’s very good reason for this.
When it comes to your website, it’s true that a new design may look impressive, but if you haven’t optimised it for home improvement – or inbound – marketing, it most likely will not perform any better than your current one.
In fact, you’ll probably encounter exactly the same old problems as you had before.
The real difference comes from website optimisation: essentially finding out exactly what visitors need from your website, and then providing it.
In the past, we’ve managed to build very successful inbound marketing campaigns for our clients using their existing websites. One client in particular managed to increase his sales by 187% – with very minimal changes to his current set-up.
This did mean we were limited to his old design, but it just proves that inbound marketing can still be successful without having to make any changes to your website’s layout at all.
The only time I’d recommend scrapping your old website and starting again from scratch is if you’re currently getting no traffic or conversions whatsoever.
How to optimise your website
The first step is to gather data on what’s actually working on your website, and what isn’t. After all, a new design may look nicer, but it won’t solve your problems if the content and navigation is vague or confusing for visitors.
You can gather lots of helpful data by using tools such as Google Analytics and heat maps – the latter of which will tell you exactly how customers are behaving on each page.
Next, you need to make sure each page has a specific goal. Think about your visitors’ journey when they arrive on your homepage: where do they need to go next, and what’s the most logical step after that?
You also need to figure out if there’s any extra content or call-to-actions (CTAs) you need to offer in order to get them to take that next step – or if there’s anything else in their way that might be stopping them.
You’d be surprised how much of a difference can be made just by providing the right information at the right time – and it’s also much cheaper than the cost of a brand new website.
A new approach to web design
One of the best approaches I’d recommend is to invest in growth driven design for your website. It means that instead of changing your website all at once, you simply pay a monthly retainer to a company so that your website is looked at and improved upon section-by-section.
Each section will be changed, tested and improved on to grow along with your business – which in my opinion, is much better than paying £10 – £20k every few years for one static web design that’ll get tired really quickly.
Growth driven design means you’re constantly evolving to not only meet your own changing home contractor business’s needs, but also the changing needs of your customers.
Think of it as the smart way to do web design – kind of like A/B testing but on a much bigger scale.
For more information, take a look at this website on growth driven design.
7 important questions to ask before hiring a web designer
Now you’ve got a better idea of cost, and you’ve chosen to go ahead with hiring a web designer, you may already be wondering where to find one.
But with so many people and companies calling themselves web designers these days, it can be a jungle out there.
Whether you need a brand new website built from scratch, or a complete redesign of your existing site, one thing is certain; you need the right web designer for the job.
But how do you choose?
I’d recommend getting in touch with a few different designers before making your final decision, and asking them the following essential questions:
1. Can I see previous examples of your work?
If you’re going to simply hire someone off-the-bat, without even seeing some of their previous examples, then you’re more trusting than most. Ask your chosen web designer about their experience, the type of companies they’ve worked for, and if they have a portfolio that you can look at.
Looking at previous examples of a web designer’s work might give you some idea of the scope they are capable of, and you might even get a couple of extra ideas for your own website!
You could even take it one step further and ask to speak to previous clients – this will tell you how smoothly the process went and whether there were any hidden charges or problems.
2. Are all my ideas possible?
You may have some brilliant ideas that you imagine are going to make your website amazing, but before you get too excited, I’d recommend sitting down with your designer and discussing them. This will help determine what is possible, and which features may cost you extra before any work begins.
If one or two of your features are particularly tricky then it’s best to know upfront. Your web designer may have a better solution.
3. How long will it take to complete?
Now, in an ideal world, everything always goes to plan and nothing is ever delayed. We know that’s not always the case, but your designer should still be able to provide you with a realistic timescale for when you can expect your website to be ready.
This may or may not include milestones along the way for your approval, as well as time to iron out any bugs once the site goes live.
4. How much will it cost?
You’re going to need to know how much the website is going to cost you from the get-go. If possible, ask how the price is worked out and whether you can have a fixed price quote.
Again, sometimes costs can run over if there are complications or the website is delayed for any reason.
5. Can you work around the content?
As I mentioned previously, you won’t believe how many times my designer has had to go back and make changes just because the content didn’t fit the website he’d created for a client.
That’s why it’s a good idea to have as much of the research and content together as possible before work begins. This will a) take up less time and b) make it much easier for your designer to create a quality website that flows with the content.
Try to think of your website as a big jigsaw puzzle, with all your pieces having to fit together as effortlessly as possible. You should at least have a good idea of the content your website will have, or even better, have it already written – I promise your web designer will thank you for it!
6. Will my domain name and hosting account be registered to me?
This is so important. You must ensure your domain name and hosting account are registered in YOUR name, not the web designer’s or the web design company you’ve hired. In most cases, you should be able to purchase the domain name yourself before passing the details on to the designer.
As for hosting, ask your web designer for help setting up hosting via an external hosting service. They will probably be able to recommend one.
7. How can I make changes to my website in future?
Finally, you must be able to update your website on your own. Your web designer should provide you with a CMS (Content Management System) so that you can make changes on your own – check that they will definitely do this before agreeing to anything.
If they refuse and want you to pay them for any future changes, walk away immediately. Otherwise you’ll be forking out every time you want to make simple changes to your website – something you should be doing regularly anyway in the form of A/B tests to ensure your site is effective.
Conclusion
I hope you’ve enjoyed reading, and that you’ve come away from this article with a better understanding of how much you should be paying for a new home improvement web design – as well as whether one is even necessary for you yet, and the questions you should be asking a web developer once you’re ready to buy.
If you have any specific questions about investing in a new web design, or need advice on the right marketing approach for your business, please don’t hesitate to get in touch with me, or leave a comment below – I promise to answer!