Professional Web Design Bristol
Helping you and your business become more successful
We are web designers and marketing specialists covering Bristol, Portishead, Westbury on Trym, Clifton, Clevedon, Taunton, Bridgwater, Exeter, Weston Super Mare, Somerset and beyond! We help to deliver more sales and qualified leads with smart thinking website designs and search engine friendly content.
We achieve results on very tight budgets by clever digital marketing and traditional marketing methods – giving your Bristol or Somerset business a great return on it’s investment!
We deliver results fast – Our concepts and methods have helped many businesses become more streamlined and cost effective – see for yourself by looking at our portfolio and testimonials!
Web Design Results
Footfall increase over 30% compared to last season’s marketing
– Tourism Sector, UK
5 times return on investment on single order alone
15% increase in sales since new website
15% increase in leads since new website
– Business to Business Sector, Bristol
20 times return on investment on single contract alone within 7 days
– Electrical Sector, Somerset
Doubled our contact rate through website Podcast
– Charity in Bristol
Feedback
“Just wanted to thank you for all your support with our new website; after much work we are really pleased with the new design and are already seeing some great feedback (and, more importantly, enquiries!)
“A trustworthy, professional creative designer, providing solutions that deliver cost effective results.”
“I really enjoyed meeting Ben Smith and discussing the concept I was after. He really listened, and implemented what we had discussed, plus he really put in the work, and listened to any further suggestions without any problem. I would thoroughly recommend him”
“Just a quick thank you for producing my new website. Very pleased. Already having enquiries through the “contact us” facility.”
A rough guide to website design prices in Bristol
As virtually every business needs a website these days, the question often asked is how much should you pay for a website to be designed and built for you?
Assuming you will not do it all yourself using the build-your-own services available on line, the answer is it depends. What do you want from your site, how do you want it to look, what functions do you require it to have and what support are you looking for going forwards.
If it is a simple selling site for a recognized product – herbs and spices perhaps or DIY tools, you may require a simple, easy to navigate site containing information. In this instance, you might just need your site built for you to be able to add content and be looking to manage it yourself. You would be looking at guide costs of mid – high hundreds.
However, if your business is in a design sensitive/lifestyle selling field, such as fashion, architecture, boutique hotels etc, where image is extremely important to the visitor, or if you are in a field where quality of the product is to be stressed – expensive cars, an exclusive restaurant, exotic foreign holidays, high end handbags etc and this needs to be reflected in all aspects of what you do and nowhere more so than your website, your shop-window to the world, then you may well want to pay for a fully integrated design, that has a smooth flow and oozes quality on every page. A good designer can help you with quality of images and presentation help sell products and services use of moving images, design and other clever devices would help to illustrate the ambience of your product or service, your ideas, achievements and concepts.
Web Designer Bristol UK: Ben Smith Design & Marketing is Your One-Stop Shop
These sort of uniquely designed sites, where everything from the typeface used is carefully considered by a professionally trained designer, is more likely to be up to £5,000 range for a smallish client.
Sites that are for on-line businesses and which, therefore have the potential to grow hugely and which will involve not only slick and efficient ecommerce but also further marketing functions such as recognition of the visitor with items such as ‘you may also like’ and ‘people who bought this also bought this’ type functions, can cost thousands. Beyond a certain point – where you pay for a thoughtfully created attractive core design – it is the complexity of the sites functions that dictates the cost.
Given the huge variation in website design prices, when you are briefing website designers/builders and asking them to quote it is essential you do not ‘compare apples with oranges’, in other words always say exactly what you are looking for to each possible candidate in order to get a properly accurate estimate and properly comparable prices. Consider up front, not only what you want for your site now, but what you may want if as organization grows. Assess also the sort of ongoing support you will require, SEO ranking help and on-line marketing techniques etc. There is no point in having a lovely looking site if no traffic visits it. A good web-designer will discuss such matters with you in preparing your estimate, as well as visualizing and story-boarding the site with you.
Are web designers becoming obsolete?
We dont think so!
It is a fair question in an era when slick and professional looking websites can be designed using the template resources and sophisticated ecommerce platforms available on the web and when you can subscribe to the tools needed to analyse and quantify visitors to your site, to ask why is the professional website designer still required to design, build and oversee the running of your site.
If you are just starting out in a small business, it may be that your time can be spent in setting up your site, you can learn what you need to from the internet and do the work yourself. You can design an attractive if formulaic site using the on-line templates available. You simply may not have the money at that point to do anything other than do everything yourself.
As your business starts to grow, however, as in many areas of life where we pay for services, whether you decide to get your site professionally designed will probably be firstly, a question of weighing up the value of time to a business against money to be spent. In other words, are you willing/can you afford to put in the time, or would it be more cost effective to employ someone for a fee so they can use their experience and specialism to do this for you. An analogy with something as complex as graphic design, coding and the work involved to keep up with the various aspects of SEO and other online marketing is, with that of legal work – you could run your own divorce – for example – if you take the time to learn what you need to know and then have the time to do the work required. The availability of do it yourself law has not seen the end of the solicitor. Sometimes it is just better to leave it to the trained and experienced experts.
Web Design Company in Bristol Providing Quality Design for Any Platform
Wix, Moon Fruit, SquareSpace & WordPress
With web-site design, as with any type of design there is that extra element –creative flare. Are you able to think of various visual ideas as to how your all important shop window should look and how to follow this through at every level of your site? Do you understand your market and the ‘look’ that reflects this and would make your site, particularly really stand out? Your strengths may lie in completely other areas – you may be an inspiring life coach, a wizard with accounts, or a brilliant engineer, but not have an eye for graphic design.
Looking to the future of your site, here is another area why web designers and builders are far from becoming obsolete. To run a successful site, you need up to speed with the very latest platforms available in the fast moving world of the internet. Keeping you compliant with the latest SEO trends, is another key area. Bear in mind too, as your business grows, your site will grow too, but also it will evolve. The world of websites is far from static. You can feel more confident about this if you are in partnership with a good web designer who can monitor and develop your site to reflect accurately your organization’s changing needs.
The benefits of using a freelance web designer
Deciding to use a third party at all to help you design your website will be your first decision when embarking on launching your web presence, given that there are plenty of template DIY site platforms out there. Deciding you need to bring in help can be based on such factors as – how good are you (when you have to do it from scratch) at graphic design and writing copy? How long will it take you to make the site look and function as you wish it to – ie the cost in terms of your hourly rate of dedicating yourself to do something that stops you earning that hourly rate? And last, but by no means least, are you prepared to take the time to learn about and monitor your SEO, to learn about the latest trends, to write blogs, utilize all marketing opportunities etc?
For an SME, which finds that any of the above factors will be a hurdle, the use of a freelance web-designer is a good solution. You will be speaking to someone who does these kinds of things for a living and who will be up to speed with all the latest developments in his or her craft. You can get, up front, accurate estimates of how much designing, developing and maintaining your site – and making it work to its optimum performance for you – will cost. You can discuss your vision for the site at the outset and allow the designer to use their visual skills to realize your idea. You can explain what you want the site to do and discuss options (and their costs) of how this can be achieved. You can learn about the on-line marketing available and decide on the strategies you wish your website designer to employ and prepare yourself for your campaigns.
The use of a freelance designer gives you all the skills but for less of an outlay than if you went to a large agency. The reason for this is not because of a lack of quality, but rather because a one-person band does not have many employees’ wages to cover or an expensive studio to lease and maintain. Additionally, it is a fact that sometimes, well known design studios, having worked for large prestigious organisations will then trade on the kudos of working with household names and this may, inevitably, push their prices up and they may not even be interested in ‘small-fry’ anymore.