Custom Website Design Wilmington NC
Are you frustrated with your current website? Is it just not working? Does it look bad on mobile devices? Don’t know where to start? We Can Help. Website design is easy with our expert team!
Stop. Breathe. Smile.
The cornerstone of all online success is your home on the web. Your website must give a clear message and inspire visitors to take the next step. We can show you how to make that happen. How? Keep reading!
Goal Oriented Web Design
Get Your Free Consultation!
Contact us today and find out more about what Wilmington Website Design & SEO can do for your business. We offer free estimates and would love to work on your next project.
Improving Your Existing Web Design
Unhappy With Your Current Website? We Can Help!
Is your website holding you back? Do you worry that it isn’t reaching the right people, or worse that it is turning them away because it sends the wrong message? Let us help you make it right.
We can produce a complete website audit for you in just a few days. This will tell you exactly, and in clear details, what is wrong with your website at a technical level.
We can also advise you if there are website design or structural problems, but you can begin this process by opening your site and asking yourself the following questions:
- Is it clear what you want visitors to do when they reach your website? This is known as a “call to action”.
- Do you make finding and working things on your website as easy as possible? There is a rule known as the “fewest clicks” rule. This means, can your visitors find exactly what they need in the fewest clicks possible?
- Are you touching their hearts as well as their heads? Your page should create an instant emotional impact when they land. They should feel they have found a place that gives them answers, as well as see the answers explained.
- How are your visuals? The internet is primarily a visual medium. If your images are unappealing, you are turning away visitors at an instinctive level. Show your clients the potential success they hope for in their hearts.
- Does every page have a clear and simple purpose? Every page on your website should have a mission that you can describe in one short sentence. If the purpose is multiple or muddled, split the page so each message is made clear, and then flesh out the new pages with fresh new content entirely focused on that message.
- Does the site look good on mobile as well as your desktop? Try out your site on as many different devices as possible.
- Get as much feedback as possible from those around you. Ask your clients, trusted friends and family to give you their honest opinion. Reward criticism, and make sure they are specific. Maybe give away a voucher for the best suggestion.
Trust Us To Help You Get It Right
We have many clients now entering their second decade of trusting our Wilmington NC Website Design team with their online presence. We can help you get on track and make real progress toward amazing new horizons! We can make your website excel, and continuously improve it with technological advancements. Call us today, and give us the opportunity to show you how!
A Great Website, But Need It To Do More?
A terrific website is just the beginning. You have built a terrific vehicle for your business, and now is the time to set off on that journey. You still need two things: A map of the terrain and the right tactics to navigate it. Wilmington Web can help!
We offer a truly comprehensive analysis of your keyword landscape and your competitors. Our keyword and competitive analysis services provide you with all the data you need for your SEO voyage, and at a price everyone can afford.
Armed with the right information, we can offer you the tools and experts to get the job done alongside you. We can build the right Search Engine Optimization plan that will give your website the momentum, results, and conversions you’ve been dreaming about.
So, what can you realistically expect for your investment?
Although we strongly disagree with instant quotes and “one-size-fits-all” pricing, here is a guide to what you can expect to receive for your website development budget.
For a budget of $1,000 to $2,000
For this level of investment, you should expect a standard, one or two-page website with a contact form. If you can provide the content (text and images/videos), this will significantly reduce costs on your end. It can be sensible to break your project up into phased rollouts.
Additionally, it can greatly increase your scope if you have an in-house team member who can produce great copy and has the knowledge to grow your presence on social media.
At Wilmington Web, we can help you optimize your spending in a way that delivers on your unique needs and also provide training to your team to help you make big savings by bringing regular important tasks in-house for your organization.
For a budget of $2,000 to $5,000
For this level of budget, you should expect a custom web design with 5 to 10 pages. You will still be looking to find the right balance of copy creation, graphical design, search engine optimization, and custom functionality such as online payments and purchasing.
A site such as this can truly put you ahead of the competition by guiding your leads and clients through a structured online process carefully designed to meet your goals. For this level of investment, you should expect to receive an online presence that can become an indispensable and powerful arm of your organization.
For a budget of $5,000 +
For investments at this level, you will receive custom web design, custom functionality, graphics, content, search engine, and social media work. Our team will work closely with you at every level to craft a website that strongly focuses on your target audience and the action lines and processes they follow to successful conversions online. At this level you are looking at a true revolution for your organization, taking you to a whole new phase of technological advancement and success. As you grow, your site will be fully reflexive to new needs and challenges, while giving you a truly solid foundation for your core activities.
At Wilmington Web, our goal is to deliver you a website that meets your needs and budget.
We begin every project by listening to you to discover your needs and then offering solutions that will meet these in the best time frame and at the right price.
Call us now at 910-452-6345 to set up a completely free and no-obligation consultation!
So, you have just launched your new web campaign. The site is live, the buzz is spreading across social media, and the clicks and inquiries are starting to roll in. There are three ways our Wilmington NC Website Design team can still be of help to your organization:
1. Continuing Technical and Design Support
We realize our role does not end on the day of your website launch. Think of us as a trusted arm of your technical team, only a phone call or e-mail away and ready to respond to any question, problem, or request. To make every penny you spend work hard for you, we offer custom support tailored to the specific needs of your organization and technologies. You can have our team available when needed for changes and technical solutions starting at as little as $50. We believe you should only pay for the services you require. Tell us your needs and let us give you the solution.
2. Team and One-On-One Training and Support
At Wilmington Web, we understand that bringing some skills in-house can represent a real improvement in costs and responsive stability. For this reason, we are happy to offer custom training solutions on a variety of software and technologies, from WordPress, to blogging, to social media. We are experienced in training both one-on-one and small team environments. Tell us your needs and let us give you the very best solutions.
3. Your Next Development Phase
Unlike printed material, a website is a fluid document that grows with time and responds to changes in your organization’s needs. Our goal is to work beside you to help you plan and budget for these new development phases. We have years of experience working on project plans of all shapes and sizes, and we hope you will trust us to become an important part of the team that takes you from success to success in the outstanding years to come.
Starting a New Website Design Project
Step One: What Do I Want My Website For?
Every website needs a reason, a purpose to fulfill, or a job!
The first step in creating any website is to define the reason why you need one. Have a brainstorming session by yourself or with your team and answer the following questions:
Who are we trying to reach with our website?
It is very important to know the target audience or “demographic” you want to appeal to with your website (or any form of digital marketing for your organization). A website intended for high-level industry professionals will and should have a very different look, feel, and function to a site intended for children or a site intended for selling fashion accessories.
A good thought experiment is to write down the attributes you would want in your “ideal” visitor. This will help in answering the other questions going forward about your site.
What do we want website visitors to be able to do?
A website can allow a visitor to find and do any number of things. It is up to you to decide what functions you want to provide.
-Is your site just about information?
-Are you looking to sell a product or encourage prospective clients to contact you about buying a service?
-Do you want visitors to be able to get an online quote or to be able to donate money?
Don’t limit your vision. If you don’t have the full budget, or your business isn’t quite ready to service all the features you want, you can always split your project into stages and launch a site that can easily grow, expand, and develop when you’re ready.
What “call to action” do we want for our visitors?
This is a very important, arguably the MOST important question to answer about your website before starting any web design process.
-How do you want a visitor to act when they find your website?
-Do you simply want to encourage them to call?
-Do you want them to make an online contact request?
-Do you want them to go ahead and make a purchase or a booking right there on your site?
-Do you want them to send you information, or perhaps subscribe to your mailing list?
Here again, it can help to make a simple point-by-point plan on paper, from “A visitor arrives at your homepage…” to “A visitor leaves your website.” Having this information at hand will enable you or your designer to tailor every element of your site to make this happen.
What “style” do we want for our site?
Almost certainly if you are reading this, you have spent some significant time “surfing the web”. By now you know what you like, what you dislike, and what you absolutely love.
If you are in a business or organization you have very likely spent time looking at your competitors’ website design, or sites similar to the one you want to build. Bookmark these sites and write down what you like or hate about each. You may love the way a menu works in one site but hate the color scheme. On another you may like the way they take orders, but find the site hard to navigate. At our company, we call these sites picked out by a client “exemplars” and they can be invaluable when creating the look, feel, and function of a site that will meet the client’s vision for their project.
The balance in style is between building a site that looks pleasing, distinctive, and professional, but has the type of functionality a visitor expects and can easily navigate.
Step Two: Finding and Registering A Domain Name
So, you have your website planned out. You know your audience, what you want them to do on your site, and you have a pretty good idea of how you want your website design to look. Now, it’s time to give your site a name. For a website, that means “registering a domain name”.
Domain names can be registered at a low cost (from about $10 to $20 depending on the domain type). If you are working with a web design company, they may be able to suggest available names and take care of the registration process for you.
Of course, before you can register, you need to find an available name! Every registrar, and a great many web design and hosting companies, have a domain name search feature. If your organization name is very much your brand, or something people are likely to search for online, buying a domain that reflects this can be a good idea. Alternatively, you can search for a name that contains “keywords” relevant to your business that visitors may use when searching. This can help your SEO too.
A competent web professional should be able to suggest five or six good (and more importantly available) options for you, or you can start searching until you find a name you like that can be registered.
If you’re looking to self-register, a good place to start is with GoDaddy.com. No company has 100% perfect reviews, but we have used them since 2002 and have always been very pleased with their service!
A great domain name sticks in the mind, tells the public who you are, and is like an online signature. There are still millions of great domains not yet taken and the price to make them yours can be as little as $30 a year. The Wilmington Web design team can help you find the domain that is just right for you!
Call us today and let us take the worry out of getting the best domain for your organization!
Step Three: Where Will My Website Live – Finding A “Host”
So you have your project plan and your domain name (whew! This web thing is a lot of work but trust me, the more you plan the better your website will be!). Now you need somewhere for your website to live.
This is known as website hosting. For the newcomer, information about website hosting can be baffling and overwhelming. Our parent company, WordwrightWeb, offers flexible website hosting options.
A great litmus test for any hosting provider is simply to give them a call. If you can’t get a response, spend half an hour talking to a machine, or find you have reached a new friend in India, these are bad signs that when you have a problem, help will be hard to access!
Step Four: Who Will Design My Website?
So, you have a name, a plan, and a place for your website to live. Finally, it is time to start designing your website!
The choice here is to try to build yourself (“self-build”) or find a professional to do the job for you.
A halfway option some use is to find a family member or friend who dabbles in website design and will do the job for as little as a case of beer. I would strongly advise against this route as the design process can be quite intense and is apt to place some strain on any personal relationship if significant redrafting is needed or the design is not all you had hoped for. If your first web designer is not up to the project, you can fire them and move on. Letting go of a family friend can present far more issues!
If choosing to self-build, you should be aware that there will still be costs, most significantly your time, but also possibly in obtaining software to use for coding or manipulating graphics.
Although it may not look the case on the screen, a webpage is a complicated computer-coded document far more involved than a Word document or even a PowerPoint presentation. There are a lot of factors to consider: various screen sizes and types of browsers, optimizing images for fast loading, and perhaps most importantly, building to the best standards for Search Engine Optimization.
Another possibility is to use a content management program such as WordPress, which is free and easy to install on your hosting space. Many companies, including us, offer these as standard with hosting accounts and the software can be installed with just a couple of clicks.
The other option, of course, is to hire a professional web designer. Using a professional can take away all the stress and endless hours of frustration a newcomer finds when building their first website. A good website designer will talk you through the process and go over your needs in detail before providing you with an estimate and a project outline. Again, beware of companies too quick to quote an off-the-cuff price. Such companies can be website “factories” that turn out the site they want to give you, rather than the site you want, with very little recourse.
Be wary of anyone asking for full payment upfront, making promises that seem too good to be true, or who seem to be avoiding your questions. Another good rule of thumb is how easy a web designer is to contact. If they are quick to return your calls and e-mails, that’s a good sign they will be responsive to your needs.
There are a lot more issues with self-building and hiring a professional, but if you think of web design like fixing your car you can’t go too far wrong. If you can do the work well yourself, go right ahead. But if you need to hire a professional, look for someone trustworthy, well-recommended, accessible, and competitively priced.
Step Five: Letting The World Know Your Website Is There!
So you finally have a website built and online. Time to sit back and watch the hits fly in? Unfortunately, the concept of “if you build it they will come” does not apply to the Internet.
The big concern for almost all website owners is how to rank on the top page of search results. Search Engine Optimization is a complex and contentious area with millions of words written every year trying to explain its mysteries. Here are a few pointers everyone should know.
- A good website design will start life at launch with all the key factors for optimization in place. Proper use of title and description tags, good keyword density, cross-site linking, alt tagging, etc. should all be in place at rollout.
- If the mantra of the realty business is “location, location, location”, the first cry of good web design is “content, content, content”. I cannot stress this enough. The more valuable content (interesting, useful, and well-written) you can put out there on your website, blog, and social media platforms, the better your website will perform. Remember, if you are putting content elsewhere but on your site, don’t forget to link back to it! Just as important is to keep content fresh.
- You don’t have to pay a company a fortune to achieve success. Anyone who owns a website has received e-mails offering top Google placement for a set monthly fee. In most cases, these are empty promises (you just get a set of doctored stats e-mailed to you every month). Even worse, the company may be using link farming or other techniques considered spammy that could lead to your site being penalized or blacklisted! We understand that your website will grow with you. We will help you nurture your site as a cornerstone of your business, and you will understand why you invest every penny.
- Get into Social Networking! Start a blog, post a video on YouTube, set up a company page on Facebook, send out newsletters… The possibilities are growing all the time and the more work you put in the better the results you will achieve. Don’t forget to link everything back to your website!!
