If you’re building a website for the first time, or if you’re building a new site after using an old one for several years, you might be suffering from a bit of sticker shock.  That $50,000 web design estimate may have you reaching for Plans B, C, or D, but stop and take a deep breath.  Before you scrap the entire project, lay off a couple of employees, or give up on that new sedan you’ve had your eye on, remember that you have other options.  Chances are, you just haven’t shopped around enough.  Your website does not need to be expensive to be effective, and if you approach the bidding process the right way, you’ll get the right site at the right price.

The first thing you should do is figure out what you actually need from your site.  Some companies really do need a high-end site with user profiles, shopping carts, and sophisticated encryption, but that’s the exception rather than the rule.  Obviously, the more complicated a website function is, the longer it takes to build, and the more your web designers and programmers will charge you for it.  If you’re not going to be engaging in e-commerce —that is, if you’re not going to be selling products directly through the site, your needs are relatively simple, and you definitely shouldn’t be spending tens (or hundreds) of thousands of dollars on your site.  Make sure that you’re not spending money on functions you don’t need.

Once you have a clear vision for your site, make sure your web designers understand it.  One very simple way to do this is to provide examples from other websites.  If you’ve seen sites that have the same functions that you want, or that look the way you want yours to look, show those sites to your designers.  It will get the point across more effectively, and it will save you and your designers a lot of time.  If you find a site that’s very similar to the one you want to have, get in touch with the site’s owner to find out who did the work.  Designers are often more eager to work with customers who find them this way.  You may be able to contact another site’s designer directly, if there’s a “Designed By” link somewhere on the site.

After you’ve narrowed your requirements down to what you actually need, and you’ve made sure that your designers are working toward those requirements, you still may get a price quote that seems too high.  The solution here is to get another estimate, and another.  If your current design team can’t compete with the other bidders, it’s time to send them packing.  You may not like the idea of starting from scratch, especially if you’ve been working with the same team for a number of years, but the pain of starting over is nothing compared to the pain of paying through the nose for a website you don’t want.

If you are starting over, it’s not a bad idea to get five estimates, or even ten.  The web design industry is very large, but it’s also very new, and it’s what economists call an immature market.  There are still a lot of people looking in the wrong places for designers, and a lot of designers bidding on jobs that they shouldn’t be doing.  Things change so quickly in the web design world that it’s difficult to know exactly what a job should cost, so the only real solution is to shop around until you find someone who can do the work you need at the price you want to pay.  It may take a while, but it will be well worth the effort.

So, put that $50,000 estimate in the garbage can and start thinking about what you really need.  When you define your needs and talk to the right people, you’ll get the right website for your business, and you’ll feel a whole lot better when you take that Lexus for a test drive.

Pick up a copy of today’s newspaper.  Take out one page from the sports section, one page from the business section, and one page from the lifestyle section.  Set those three pages down next to each other, and compare the advertisements on each one.  Chances are, you could have guessed which section of the paper you were looking at based on the ads alone.  The ads on the sports page are aimed primarily toward men, the ads on the lifestyle page are aimed more at women, and the ones in the business page are intended specifically for professionals.  It’s not just a question of what the ads are selling– there are obvious differences in the types of images used in the ads, in the language used, and in the way the ads are laid out.  You can see the same basic patterns in magazines, in television ads, on billboards, and in any other type of advertising or marketing material.  If you want to attract your target audience, you have to present yourself in a way that your audience will find appealing.

This isn’t a new idea, but it’s not the first thing most business owners tend to think about when they’re building a website.  Knowing your audience is critically important, so you should do a little research and figure out what is most likely to attract the people you want to attract.  Your web designers should know all of this already, but you should know it too, and you should make sure your designers know that you know it.

Attracting Professionals:  Think about all of those illuminated advertisements you walk past when you’re in an airport concourse.  They’re clean-looking, often with a lot of white space, and they get right to the point—they’ll tell you, for example, that a certain software package is used by 90% of Fortune 500 companies, or that a certain consulting firm has saved its client $50 million in the last six years.  The graphics imply action, progress, and strength.  Those ads aren’t aimed at the family from Cleveland on their way to Disney World.  They’re aimed at business travelers, and the websites of those advertisers will look and feel very similar to their airport ads.  The impression you get from those ads and websites is the same type of impression you want your own website to give, if your site is aimed at professionals.

Attracting Women:  It’s east to see the differences between websites designed to attract women and the sites intended for men.  Sites for women tend to have softer colors, calmer images, and a different vocabulary.  Proceed with caution, though—you don’t want to your efforts to appeal to women to make you appear sexist or condescending.

Attracting Youth:  Are you trying to attract children or teenagers to your site?  If so, you may need to put more emphasis on flashiness and style than I normally recommend for other business owners.  Take a look at some random pages on a site like MySpace to get an idea of what this audience finds appealing.  You’ll see a lot of bold color, animation, and loud music.  While those are just the things that tend to drive adults away from a site, they’ll actually give you more credibility with the youth market.  

Attracting Blue-Collar Workers:  Blue-collar workers, by definition, aren’t using the internet on the job, but that doesn’t mean they don’t use it at home.  If these are the people you want to sell to, just remember that they may be a little less web-savvy and a little more hesitant to do business over the Internet.  You should avoid using a lot of Internet jargon on your site, and make sure that you provide detailed instructions for using the site.

No matter who you’re trying to attract, spend some time studying the other websites your target audience is looking at.  This will help you decide what your own site should look like, and if you find a site you really like, you may be able to hire the same designers and programmers to do your site.  Look for a “Designed By” link somewhere on the site, and use it to contact the designers.  If you can’t find a link, try a WHOIS search, either on WHOIS.com or on any of the big domain registration site like GoDaddy.  Often, the technical contact listed for a site will be the designer or programmer, or at least someone who can point you in the right direction.

How many people get married on their first date?  I’d guess that it happens maybe one time in ten thousand, and I’d also guess that most of those marriages end before the bride and groom have gotten over their hangovers.  There’s a reason that people spend months or years deciding whether or not to get married— you can’t gather all the information you need to make such an important decision in a short period of time. 

There are just too many unknowns on a first date— you may be able to tell right away that your date looks good or dresses well, but what can you tell about their flaws, history, or plans for the future?  Not much, because they, like you, are trying to appear as attractive as possible.  You need time to get to know someone, and find out where they’ve been, find out what your friends think about them, and find out whether they’re in it for the long haul.  And, of course, your date will need time to find the same things out about you.  If you propose marriage on a first date once, it might be good for a laugh.  Keep talking about it, though, and you’re more likely to get arrested than married.

The same basic principle applies in business.  Lots of purchases happen quickly and without much thought—the equivalent, maybe, to a quick dance in a club.  However, if you sell a product or service with a long buying cycle, if you’re asking for the business equivalent of a long-term relationship, you need to allow your customers time to get to know you before they commit.  You probably know this already, or you’d have a hard time staying in business.  But here’s the question:  does your website reflect the fact that you know it, or does your website demand too much of your customers too quickly?  Let’s look at the questions your customers are asking, and how your website can give the right answers.

Are You Attractive?  First impressions are just as important on websites as anywhere else.  Your site needs to tell the customer right away what business you’re in.  You need to assure the customer that you do in fact provide the product or service they’re looking for, and that you can do it in a professional manner.  If your site is a jumbled, incoherent mess, you’ll lose your chance with the customer right away.

Who Are You?  Once you have the customer’s attention, you need to let them know exactly who you are.  Your site should provide a brief history of your company, including key dates, major accomplishments, and any major changes you’ve gone through.  You’ll probably also want to provide some basic information on yourself and the key members of your team.  Educational background, years in the industry, and the awards you’ve won are the sort of things you might want to include.  Remember to keep this stuff short and to the point, though—don’t start rambling about your favorite foods or your astrological sign.

Can You Be Trusted?  You cannot overstate the importance of trust in long-term business relationships or large purchases.  Your customer needs to know that you have honesty and integrity, but you can’t just say “Trust me!”  You need to demonstrate your trustworthiness.  A good way to do this is to provide references from your other customers.  Ask a few of your best customers to write testimonials for you, and try to make sure that they speak to your reliability, honesty, and ethics.  You should also point out that you have accreditation from whatever professional organizations govern your industry.  If you’re a member of the Better Business Bureau, point that out as well.

Are You Serious About This?  Make sure that your site demonstrates your customer service and product support capabilities.  If your customers are spending a lot of money with you, they need to know that they’re not going to regret it a month down the road.

What’s the Next Step?  Once you’ve answered these other questions, it’s time to ask your customer to move forward with you.  Again, you don’t want to tell them to BUY NOW!  Just tell them how to reach you on the phone, or how to set up an appointment, or how to fill out an inquiry form.  If you’ve shown yourself to be a worthwhile partner, you’ll have greatly increased the chance that your customer will be ready to take the plunge with you.

Author Bio:  Bob Regnerus, "The Leads King", is an expert at generating online traffic and converting web visitors into prospects and clients.  To learn more about how your website and blog can be successful, effective tools for your business, please visit http://www.TheLeadsKing.com or contact Bob at 1-877-349-2615.

Websites either repel or attract.  Each person who views your site will decide in a couple of seconds whether to stay on the site and read what you have to say, or hit the “Back” button and go somewhere else instead.  You can’t worry about keeping every single person on your site— the trick is keeping the people you want, and letting the others go.  To put it another way, you want to send the right message to the right people.

There are “wrong people” to have looking at your website, and it’s really not a bad thing if your website repels them.  Some people will get to your site by accidentally clicking on a link, or by doing a poorly-worded internet search, or with a simple typo.  Or maybe they just have the wrong idea about what products and services you sell.  However they got to your site, those people are not going to buy anything from you, so there’s no need to keep them around any longer than you have to.  You definitely don’t want them fumbling around your site for a while, getting confused, and then calling your customer service team to find out that they went to the wrong website.  So, you do want to repel them, but you should try to repel them with clear communication—your front page should say, first and foremost, who you are and what you do.  Don’t add a bunch of unrelated images or links to muddy the waters.  Just state your business.  That will send away the people you don’t want, and more importantly, welcome in the people you do want.

As long as your front page makes sense, it should be fairly easy for you to discourage the wrong people from using all of your bandwidth.  The more important thing is encouraging the right people, once they’ve found your site, to stay there.  This shouldn’t be terribly difficult, either, but there are all sorts of things you can do to drive people away.

There are some technical issues to consider first.  If your site is slow to open, you’re shooting yourself in the foot.  Slow pages are one of the most common reasons for users to abandon a website.  Don’t load your site down (especially the front page) with large images, Flash animations, or anything else that cause a delay on the user’s end.  Think of Google’s front page as an example—it’s just a logo, a search tool, and a bunch of white space, and it opens instantly.  Granted, you’ll probably need to put more than that on your front page, but try to keep it simple.  Also, if you’re having problems with your hosting service or ISP, don’t turn a blind eye to them.  Make sure that anyone who wants to see your website will be able to do it.

Do everything you can to make your website easy to read.  Choose soothing colors, and don’t put blue text on a green background.  Use plain, widely-used fonts for your text.  People who are using older web browsers may not be able to view non-standard fonts.  Remember not to cram too much text on one page—wide margins make for easier reading.

Be sure that your content is appropriate for your audience.  Don’t make it too technical or too simplistic.  You’ll insult your customers if you err on either side.  Keep it appropriate in other ways as well—think “Rated G” or “Rated PG.”  Unless your business requires you to be edgy or adult-oriented, you don’t want to risk your site being blocked by a parental filter or corporate “watchdog” program.

Finally, don’t impose your own personality on your website.  You may want to have that “personal touch,” especially if you expect your customers to be interested in you as an individual, but you can achieve this while still remaining professional.  Don’t try to sneak political commentary, bad jokes, or unnecessary personal information onto your site.  You may think it will make you look unique, but it will actually just make you look crazy.

Your customers will visit your website because they’re interested in your company.  Don’t reward them by presenting a site that’s hard to use, hard to read, or just plain repellant.

Bob Regnerus, "The Leads King":  Bob is an expert at generating online traffic and converting web visitors into prospects and clients.  To learn more about how your website and blog can be successful, effective tools for your business, please visit http://www.TheLeadsKing.com or contact Bob at 1-877-349-2615.

Here I got a photo op with my mentor in Reston, VA this fall.  I’m blessed to be working with Dan on 3 different projects, so I get an incredible chance to learn from him first hand and see his copy come to life on my web pages.  Very cool!