12 April 2024
Web Design
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Our web design packages have everything you need to get your business online without breaking the bank. By choosing one of our website rental plans you can pay off your website each month over a period of 12 months minimum, which means there are no large upfront costs involved in the development of your website, as well as any ongoing maintenance, updating and hosting costs. You can also pay out your website design plan anytime within that 12-month period.
As a web design agency, we've worked with a wide range of industries. From psychologists to mobile car detailers, entrepreneurs, travel agencies, lawyers and everything else in between. We know what goes into creating a great-looking website that is user-friendly, high-performing and results-driven. What you will get from us is constant communication throughout your web design journey. We will meet timeframes and keep our word. But even more important is that you love what we create for you and your brand and will make changes to your web design until you love it visually as much as we do.
Check out our rental plans to get an idea of which rental package will suit your web design needs. If you are unsure about which package to choose, then give us a call at (07) 5592 2685 and we will discuss your requirements and goals for your website with you, to help you choose the right plan for your business.
Once you've chosen a Rent-a-Website plan and you are happy for us to go ahead building your website we will send you an agreement to sign as well as an invoice for the one off set up fee. Once the agreement is signed and the set up fee is paid we will set up your host account and domain name (if you don't already have one), as well as the content management system to being building your website.
Once we have an idea of the best way to present your business online, we then need some things from you:
If you're not sure exactly what information to provide us, we can help design your messaging, write your copy, provide stock images, and provide sound advice for marketing your product to your target audience online.
We will build your website according to your specifications and the rental package chosen. Within 7 to 14 days of the information being provided and once you are happy with what we have built for you, your website will be live on the Internet.
Today there are a lot more options for small businesses when it comes to web design services. Thanks to loveable computer nerds, a number of drag-n-drop web platforms with pre-designed template options have been developed to enable do-it-yourselfers the ability to build an ok website. Some of the most popular DIY platforms include Site Builder, Wix and Shopify.
Also, with CMS platforms like WordPress, Joomla, Magento and Drupal having a website designed by a professional web designer have made the design process a lot easier as sites no longer need to be hard-coded from scratch, saving small business owners, tens of thousands of dollars while still ending up with a professional, responsive and user-friendly product.
Ranking well in the SERPs can be more difficult than an owned (open source) website platform. Many people have complained about the performance of DIY website builders in search engines. One of the main issues here is that Google loves it when a website is well-coded and clearly structured, after-all it is how Google makes sense of your site's information. Many DIY structures hide the code. This may be great for making the design simple, but for Google, it is confusing, which means in the end not so great for your website and in Google terms, it may as well not exist.
All Rent-a-Website sites are built using CMS (open source) platforms. You want clean coding that allows your site to load quickly, as well as a great on-page SEO structure that enables you to use friendly URLs and add meta descriptions and keywords. DIY site builders should have these basic options in the structure, but with a content management system, you have more ability to upload tools and plugins that will help boost your site's search engine optimisation rank. Do you know how to set up your website incorporating on-page SEO?
Today Technological knowhow is no longer an obstacle to you getting online when you use a DIY website builder and they are growing in popularity without a doubt. But, it is important to point out that when using platforms like Wix, Shopify and Weebly you will never fully own your website. If your business outgrows your website or you need more control you can't simply move it to another platform like WordPress or Joomla. You will have to start again.
All Rent-a-Website plans are a minimum of 12 months. Once that period is finished you own the website and can take it with you to another hosting account or you can leave it where it is for a minimal plan cost that would include hosting as well as continued maintenance and updates. After the 12-month period, you have essentially paid off the cost of your website development, so there are no lock-in contracts and you can move it anytime. You will have complete ownership, as it should be.
If you design your website on a DIY website platform you will have to host the site on their servers. If you have used a free option then it will include their name in the domain address, which is not great for your SEO or professionalism as a business. Again as mentioned above you can't move the website from their servers to another host company server, so you would have to start from scratch if you were unhappy with the service.
All Rent-a-Website sites sit on their own cPanel set up. cPanel is one of the most popular Linux-based web hosting control panels, which also enables you to have complete control and access to key metrics about your server's performance and allows you to access a range of modules including Files, Preferences, Databases, Web Applications, Domains, Metrics, Security, Software, Advanced and Email modules so you can set up professional email addresses with your domain name. This host set up is included in all plans and once your plan is finished you can easily move your site to another host set up if you want or you can stay there for a minimal monthly fee. It's up to you.
DIY website builders come with a certain amount of templates you can choose from to start dragging and dropping your content and images into. You will have minimal control over what you can change to make sure the template fits with your branding. The quality of these templates will also vary depending on the platform you are using and what level of the monthly fee you are paying.
Not having much differentiation between you and your competitors and non-competitors could harm your brand online. Any professional marketer will tell you that your BRAND is important. How you choose to market yourself will cross many channels both online and offline. Presently, host companies offering Site builder and other website builder options, have hundreds, thousands and maybe even millions of users. Actually, one company boasts over 42,000,000 users. That's a HUGE number, and we suspect very over-inflated, but if this is the case then guess how many other people have a website that looks like everyone else's.
With a CMS there are thousands of template design options to choose from. A BIG plus with content management systems is its functionality lets you change or customise any theme to implement the design you need, incorporate your brand and help you stand out from the crowd online.
Both DIY website builders and CMS platforms come with mobile-friendly templates, which is very important in today's mobile-obsessed environment.
Using a CMS helps us to build and to add extra features with ease and have a broad range of features and customisation options so you can have any type of website built for your business and even better it will easily grow with you as your business grows.
Many people believe that they will save money by building it themselves. Well, this is not necessarily true. Besides the time it will take for you to build your website, you will also have to write the copy, choose and edit the graphics you want to include, as well as making sure you've optimised it for search engines by adding alt tags, title tags, keywords, meta descriptions and much more.
With companies like WIX, Weebly, Squarespace and Shopify there is also a 'forever' cost involved. As we mentioned previously you don't own the site. The monthly fee is an indefinite cost that you will pay unless your business closes down and you no longer need your website.
So let's break it down:
We've been in business for more than 11 years. So if I decided to use a DIY option like WIX - their PRO plan (which is also their most popular) for a business is $19 US per month or $26 AUD per month. So annually I would be paying $312 for my website and after 11 years I would have paid $3432. If I am lucky enough to be in business for 20 years, well the ongoing cost would now be $6240 and climbing and I still don't own my site outright.
What if you need an e-commerce website solution? Shopify is the most popular DIY for e-commerce. I wouldn't even consider the basic option of $29 US per month, so let's look at $79 US per month or $108 AUD. The annual cost is $1296, so multiplied by 11 years it would be $14,256. The advanced e-commerce Shopify monthly fee is $299 US or $409 AUD per month.
With Rent-a-Website you:
So, let's break it down:
Rent-a-Website plans start from $49.95 AUD per month to $199 AUD per month for an e-commerce website. So, for the 12-month period, you pay between $599.40 AUD to $2388 AUD depending on the plan you choose + the one-off set-up fee.
That's it unless you choose to continue hosting your site with us and having us maintain your website for you.