Founding a small business is not an easy process. Doing so requires passion, conviction, and clear goals if you want any chance of staying open longer than a year or two. When we founded Midwest Websites, my business partner and I were both fed up with the mediocre web design and outdated SEO packages that are the norm with big companies, and wanted to offer the business owners of the Midwest a better alternative.
When you invest thousands of dollars in a business website, we believe that you deserve to receive an informative, good looking site that also provides a strong SEO foundation for getting found online. You shouldn’t be brushed off if the web design isn’t to your specifications, nor should you be treated like a statistic. Time and again we’ve heard about experiences with companies that are guilty of these crimes and worse, leaving broken promises in their wake.
Many of these stories came from customers of large industry names, companies that secured these business owners’ buy in with promises of providing all the tools they’d need to get on the Web, touting their millions of customers, and showcasing examples of finished products that don’t reflect the concealed standard of low quality.
Small companies like ours have to compete against these exciting advertisements for your attention. During this competition, you’re also going to be asking yourself a few questions about the merits of making your mark online:
If you’ve ever tried to get someone’s attention while they’re distracted in a crowded room, it is often the next best thing to impossible. It also isn’t the best environment for prioritizing or making sound decisions, which often leads people down the wrong path for fulfilling their business needs.
The biggest mistakes often occur when considering return on investment (ROI), the element that should matter most to those who are looking to grow and succeed. ROI measures the profits your website brings to your business (and to you), against the resources spent creating and maintaining it over a period of time.
A surprising number of people lose sight of the bigger picture here because they only consider money in this equation, neglecting to value their own time.
This is why you can often find mediocre websites created by attorneys, doctors, and other professionals that charge an arm and a leg for their services. Each may have spent as many as 50 hours building their website instead of providing their expertise, putting them deep in the red when compared to spending $2,000 on a professionally built website that would have been attracting customers sooner and looked better.
Business owners can also be frightened off by sticker shock, incomplete knowledge of what they need, and confusion about what is actually being paid for in a web design package. When this happens, the “bigger is better” mindset often kicks in, leading those who are looking for their first website to an industry name because they charge more and have been around for a long time. Therefore, they must do a better job, right?
Wrong.
Overcoming myths and inaccuracies like these in any industry is a tall order on its own, but doing that while standing out against some pretty steep global competition is exponentially more difficult. We had to consider both when deciding how we were going to win customers over as a web design and SEO company, and selected these as areas of importance for earning your trust:
While we’re going to outline our thought and decision processes for Midwest Websites on each of these 5 points, these are excellent questions for any small business owner to consider as well.
Jump ahead to:
The trusty dartboard is only brought out for product and policy decisions that have an impact on existing employees and customers.
Surprisingly, this was not the toughest nut for us to crack. GoDaddy and hibu both have local offices in Cedar Rapids, IA, and having worked for both of them in capacities involving web design, website development, and website maintenance, we’ve seen firsthand how pricing is handled, market trends are calculated, and services are delivered.
In these capacities, we’ve also talked to tens of thousands of businesses over the course of the last decade. CEOs, new employees, and everyone in between reach out to big companies to create new websites or improve existing ones because these industry titans have millions of customers around the globe.
This places us in a unique position because we know what small businesses expect from their web designers and what big companies are willing to deliver. Oftentimes these lists do not match up with one another, creating conflict for hirelings and customer service agents to sort out. When price enters these conversations, it is almost always because the small business has already paid for a website and is unsatisfied with the bang they got for their buck.
Having learned that people will pay big web design companies thousands of dollars to create a templated website that is only slightly better than what they could do themselves at Wix (complete with many of the same flaws), we concluded that every one of these businesses agreed to the big companies’ price range, but failed to receive what we believed they were due in return.
Using this knowledge and comparing the prices of web design competitors both big and small, we were able to come up with where we wanted our standard web design and SEO audit packages to fall ($2,000 and $500, respectively). It also turns out a small operation like ours with low overhead was both willing and able to provide you with a LOT more for a lot less.
Industry giants are notorious for expensive, cookie-cutter web design environments that charge you anywhere from $1,500 – 15,000 to build a website within them. These are frequently followed up with maintenance packages that charge as much as $100-200 per month while performing the barest minimum possible.
Their primary aim is to maximize profits at the expense of quality, and this mindset shows in everything from the slow web hosting servers your site lives on to dated and/or mediocre SEO. We weren’t okay with that, but the size of multi-million dollar companies makes it very difficult to implement any sort of change to fix this backwards idea.
So we decided to take the matter into our own hands and offer you more.
Coming from writing backgrounds, we prioritize superior online writing from established professional writers. Your website should speak to your customers in a way that engages them while appealing to Google’s mandate for quality content – something you won’t get from most random individuals hired off the street.
Next, we take steps to help set your business up with Google itself. Business claiming, analytics, and webmaster tools are all important for helping your website get indexed, measuring traffic, and improving your presentation when someone finds you through a search. You shouldn’t have to pay an extra monthly SEO fee to get those things done, so we provide guidance for getting these key steps taken care of as part of our standard web design package.
Google also likes to see that you’re invested in keeping your website up to date. This can be done through a blog or periodic updates to existing content for new services, completed project pictures, and overall news. You need to be able to access your website in order to make these changes, so we provide a brief tutorial upon website completion that shows you how to get into WordPress, where your pages can be found, and the locations of other key website elements.
The first deals with the fact that WordPress websites are created from a variety of pieces designed by third parties. While making a change to your website or updating a plugin to improve your website, there is a small chance of creating a conflict that takes your site down and removes your dashboard access.
Having this happen feels like one of the worst things in the world, especially after spending thousands to get everything just right. You’re left feeling like there’s no way to fix the error that has replaced your beautiful page and aren’t sure of how to restore your website to the way it was.
We’ve got your back though. After finishing your original website, you will receive a full copy of your files and database that can be saved to your local computer. With them, you can use the video tutorial we’ve put together to set your website back to the way it was when we finished it or upload it to a server of your choice. You can also use our backup guide and instructional video to download your own backups, giving you the power to keep everything running smoothly.
For those seeking an easier option, the hosting environment we use also takes daily backups that you can restore from with the click of a button, so long as it is within the last 30 days. This isn’t a substitute for taking your own backups, but is often far easier and faster when you need to undo the last day’s changes.
While access to your files and database may not seem nearly as important as the access to your WordPress admin dashboard most days, there are other benefits you may not have considered. The most important one is the ability to work with their code directly (or have a developer make changes on your behalf). This can open up complicated or advanced features down the road or allow you to make changes across your site in a matter of minutes rather than hours!
If you’ve gotten this far and are like most people, you’re probably feeling a little overwhelmed right now. This leads us to the most difficult question we had to ask ourselves…
Most people aren’t experts when it comes to the Internet. Terms like hosting, DNS, SEO, domains, and SSL often sound like another language, making it feel like you’ve gotten lost before you’ve even started. You may even have customers that feel the same way when they call your company or set foot in your store.
We completely get that – it hasn’t been so long that we’ve forgotten what it’s like to stand in your shoes. This understanding led us to approach our question from a couple different angles.
The first involves our web design and SEO packages. We felt this was important enough to dedicate 6 pages on our website to these two core services:
Rather than forcing you to read one big blob of text on a page, you have the option to split the reading up into bite-sized pieces that also help you get to know us. The language on each page is designed to be straightforward and easy to follow as well – we don’t believe in tricking you into inferior products through fancy, confusing verbiage.
Why? Because using technical terms to build a barrier and look smarter than you are isn’t just pretentious, it also isn’t going to answer any of the questions you’ll have about our services or how they’ll help you. You’re our first priority, and we want to make sure that is abundantly clear from the moment you find us.
This same care was also employed with the products in our store. There are a lot of pieces that go into building a proper website, and whether you’re having us do the heavy lifting or tackling them yourself, it’s important to know what you need and how each piece fits in the overall puzzle.
By splitting up different product families and breaking down what each does in a way that is easy for anyone to follow, you can get a feel for the workload and take on as much as you’d like. You can also give us a call at 319-229-5225 with any questions you have – we’re more than happy to clarify any product questions for your web design project!
You might wonder why we ask a few extra questions on our contact form or why we request to speak with you before sending a contract for your project. Part of the reason for these requests is for our own benefit (extra information helps us prepare), but the main reason we do these things is so we can get to know you and your business!
Just as we strive to prove we’re the best around when it comes to web design, you’re probably reaching out to us to do the same for your customers. While this common ground gives us an appreciation for where you want to be online, it isn’t enough on its own.
Without specific information about you and your business, there’s nothing for us to go off of except assumptions based on your industry. Some of these may be wrong and are going to lead to a finished web design with inaccurate, cookie-cutter copy and a look that isn’t going to match what you envisioned.
We know you deserve better than that.
The best results come from building and improving a site aimed at the niche your specific business is built around. To ensure you receive them, the developers building your site dedicate time to learn about who you are, what you are looking for, and what makes your business tick.
You’re able to contact us by phone or email to supply this information in a format that is comfortable to you, and can even check out most questions we’re going to ask in advance!
This personal touch isn’t just limited to the initial web design process. We also allot time to go through revisions with you – multiple times if necessary. You should never have to worry about whether something has been left out or lost in translation, nor should you feel like it’s a burden to ask us to make a change of any size. You’ve chosen us as your partner for success, and we want to do everything we can to help you achieve it.
While this sounds good on paper, the last few questions have all been designed to answer the most important ones that are probably on your mind.
We’re actually going to start answering these questions by pointing to the blog you’re reading right now! We don’t feel that our expertise has to be hoarded in a pile of big secrets – if you want to become informed about how to navigate the Internet from a business perspective, we want to help you achieve your goal!
It’s also a way we can showcase that we actually do know the score when it comes to business websites, and can put some demonstration behind the promises we make. That benefit might seem relatively small at first, but when you think about how few companies actually take the time to do this, the value becomes very apparent.
Our openness isn’t strictly limited to the blog though. We like and encourage questions throughout your interactions with us, and have social media profiles to expand our lines of communication as well. While most companies have tapped into those types of platforms too, I personally answer the questions bigger companies delegate to other departments.
In addition to this personal involvement, I’ve also prepared a summarized list of what comes with one of our web design packages:
• A 1 on 1 consultation before your web design project begins to ensure we’re on the same page with you
• Professional copywriting that is tailored to your needs and yours to keep after your site is built
• A professionally built WordPress website ready to go from the minute you approve it
• Recommendations for how to maintain your website once it is up and running
• Guidance on how to coordinate business claiming, analytics, and webmaster tools on Google
• A 1 year SSL for site security & to boost SEO
• A 1 year malware scanner
• Advice on areas of opportunity to further improve your SEO
• A backup copy of your WordPress website files and database
If you’re considering a web design project and want to know more about the people behind the words on your screen, we encourage you to reach out to us! Call 319-229-5225 or email design@midwestwebsites.com, and we’ll be happy to answer any questions you might have!
Braden is one of the founders of Midwest Websites, and has been professionally writing and developing websites for over 7 years. His blog posts often take an experience from his life and showcase lessons from it to help you maximize online presence for your business.