How long does it take to create a website?

How long does it take to create a website?

Table of Contents

It should come as no surprise that the answer to this question, varies depending on what you’re looking to get out of it, who it is for and who is developing it. With an agency or website developer this may take from two to four months to plan, create and go live. If you decide to create your website on your own then this may take more, or less time, it all depends on you and your businesses requirements.

However, before starting to create your website you should take a considerable amount of time to plan what features and functions would be best for you. Ideally, you want to tailor make your website to your target audience and ensure that their first impressions are positive, they can easily navigate and all content is relevant. It is estimated that 75% of business credibility comes from the design of a website, drawing in on the importance of design and navigation, the way your website looks will reflect what the client thinks of your business. If you have a roughly put together website with irrelevant content, it will only push your potential customers away, as 89% of consumers shop with a competitor after a poor user experience on a website.

Whether you’re making a website for yourself, your small or large business/organisation, a website is a fantastic way of establishing you are legitimate, reliable and authentic. It’s estimated that 46% of small businesses don’t have a website or little to none digital presence. Digital presence will aid your business to flourish. In this blog post, we will explore the benefits of a website, what it entails, and vital parts of creating a website that most businesses tend not to think about!

What's the purpose of a website?

1. An Information Exchange 24/7

When your website is live it means that potential customers have information about your products and services all day, every day, inside and outside of business hours. An information exchange is not only informing your customers on your products and services, but you can inform them on your business values and aims, your background story, contact information, social media profiles and showcase a portfolio with previous customer reviews.

Nowadays, everything is online, you probably have two or three personal social media profiles yourself, you do this to connect with the people around you, so why not give your business an online presence too? Connect with customers and businesses let people know what you’re all about, show off, grow your brand and business!

2. Credibility

Your potential customers would be more likely to distrust your business that didn’t have a telephone number or email, the same can be said for not having a website or any sort of digital presence.
Moreover, if you decide to create a website which isn’t properly developed and looks unprofessional, it can actually draw customers away rather than in. An important aspect of a website creation that you need to consider is design as it can greatly impact credibility. If a websites format is too busy, there’s no navigational features and hasn’t been regularly updated you might find yourself losing potential customers rather than gaining new ones.

It is estimated that 75% of business credibility comes from the design of a website, and 89% of consumers shop with a competitor after a poor user experience on a website, you don’t want to be handing out customers just because of few quick fixes you need on your website.

Having a good quality, easy-to-use website makes customers feel comfortable purchasing your services and products, it also gives your customers a sense of business personality and how you express originality which will make you look trustworthy.

3. Expansion Customer Reach

You may be put off with the high prices of website creation but, once your website is live you will reap the rewards. Your time and money invested will come back overtime through an increase in interest and possible sales as your website will be accessible to anyone, anywhere in the world. Not only will your website give potential customers information on your business, it can lead them to your social media sites, which they can follow and interact with which will spread word of your brand further when someone likes, comments or shares one of your posts.

4. Consumer Insights

It’s important to understand where your customers come from and who your typical site visitor is. This can be done by monitoring traffic and engagement of your website through a variety of analytical tools and variables. Learning about analytics can help you explore different approaches of marketing for your target audience.

Overall, this can maximise purchases through your site and set your business up for success through reaching customer satisfaction and earning customer loyalty. If you offer your products and services to people who really need it, then they can’t say no!

There are so many tools for tracking and analysing the behaviours of your site visitors, analytics can also show you what pages of your website are the most effective and which ones are underperforming by the amount of time the page has been visited, how long it was visited for and the bounce rate of customers. These statistics can all help you later on when you update your website to improve it.

What to consider when building a website

Firstly, you must ask yourself who is your website for, what is its purpose and, how you will demonstrate a clear brand house style to make your site visitor recognise your brand through its design. You also must consider how much content you will add, what type of content and how will you display it, these can be things such as simple text, imagery and videos. In fact, videos on a website can entice your customers and make them stay on your website for longer, as videos on your website video content can contribute to 157% increase in organic traffic.

Furthermore, you should always consider what type of website you want to create. There are so many different types for different purposes so you need to be sure what you want your website to do for your business and your potential customers. The type of website you want also depends on how much you want your business to grow and how it’s already grown, it needs to accommodate your needs.

A basic website usually has around 3 – 4 pages which consist of a home, contact, about and product/services page so as a new business you might want to start off with these. However, if you’re looking for further growth try adding a blog/news page, a portfolio/case studies page which consists of reviews from your clients and customers or a cart page, so your customers can purchase directly off of your website.

Stop! Stay on trend!

Although your completed website might look great and have interesting content, the only way it can be kept successful is through updating it regularly, you could do this monthly, seasonally, or whenever a new service or product is realised – it’s completely up to you. Most people forget about Website Maintenance and how having a consistent update plan in place can affect traffic and how useful your website is for your business.

What's the point of Website Security?

Website Security – it’s not optional, it’s essential. There are approximately 2 billion websites in the world, not all of them are protected. You may never have considered protecting your website and its data as you feel you may not need it, or you’ll never be hacked. However, it does happen and you won’t want it to be you next. Without protection you are practically allowing all business and customers personal and financial details to be at risk This would destroy business reputation and, waste the time and money you spent on developing your business.

How do I create a website?

If you want a website which will cater to your business goals and needs then take a look at our Website Design and Website Maintenance services. We will closely tailor to your business and develop a plan for your new website which represents and promotes your brand with personality.

Alternatively, free website builders usually are used for creating very basic and restrictive websites. If you’re confident in Website Design and want to give it a go, take a look at the top website builders of 2022:
  • WordPress
  • Web.com
  • Wix
  • Hubspot
  • WooCommerce