26 Feb Web Design – Why Cheap isn’t always Good
Website design is one industry where prices can vary greatly depending on which company you choose to work with but just as much as the price can vary, so too can the quality and it’s often difficult to know what price is right when it comes to having your website built. While a website for a couple of hundred pounds may seem appealing, usually there is a reason why the website is so cheap and it may end up costing you in the long run. Here are some reason’s why cheap isn’t always good when it comes to website design:
Lack of Experience
In the web design industry, you don’t need to have qualifications to practice, you don’t even need to have experience to register as sole trader. Understandably everyone needs to start somewhere, but as a business yourself, you don’t want to be that guinea pig for someone lacking the required skills to make a good website. Often, when first starting out, inexperienced ‘web designers’ will charge a low hourly rate to gain experience and projects from which they can learn and streamline their processes. While this is good for the designer, it’s not always good for the customer as this most often leads to a sub-standard quality of website which is less likely to function properly, engage the user and may be vulnerable to hackers.
Outsourcing Work
Another reason that website designers may charge a very low rate is if they are outsourcing the work to countries like India. This is fairly common among companies in the industry who will charge a client say £700 for a website then outsource that abroad for less than £100. While this may result in a cheap rate for you, the ethics are questionable and it means should their be any issues with your website, that local company is reliant on being able to contact the designer at the other side of the world who set it up. Also, the quality of work from outsourcing can vary greatly at the expense of you.
Using Templates
Most companies will use some kind of theme or template on a website, especially if they are using a content management system. The difference here is that a good web designer will tweak and customise the theme so that it is bespoke to your business and by the end of the project it should look very different to the original theme and other websites. Some designers, in order to charge a low rate, have to severely limit the number of hours they put into a project and so will use template but simply change the text, logo and pictures leaving the design much the same. this will result in your website looking very similar to others, potentially even your competitors and it won’t truly reflect your business or what it’s about.
- What platform are they using?
- Do they use a template and do all their websites look similar?
- Do they outsource any of the work?
- What is the quality of the other websites in their portfolio?
- What are the ongoing prices and how much will you need to pay to make minor changes?
Ultimately, as with almost every other product – you get what you pay for. If you want a website ‘cheap as chips’ you need to accept that it might not be as high quality as others you have seen. While we appreciate that not everyone has a huge budget for website design, we recommend going with at least a mid level web design package as doing it cheap may simply result in you having to have the site redesigned in a couple of years, costing you more in the long run.
Here at Bluecoo, we are happy to say that all of our designers are highly experienced with the relevant training and experience, we never outsource our work and while we do use WordPress themes, they are highly customised to make every project bespoke. For more information on out website design services in Dundee, call us on 01382 918525 or email hello@bluecoo.co.uk .