THE ULTIMATE GUIDE TO WEB DESIGN

Matthew McWaters
LUCID DIGITAL MARKETING SERVICES LLC
Contents
THE ULTIMATE GUIDE TO WEB DESIGN ........................................................................................................ 3
A Word From the Owner of LUCID............................................................................................................ 3
What is Web Design ...................................................................................................................................... 4
Why Web Design is Important for Business.................................................................................................. 4
It Sets the First Impression ....................................................................................................................... 4
It Aids Your Search Engine Optimization (SEO) Strategy .......................................................................... 5
It Sets the Impression for Customer Service............................................................................................. 5
It Builds Trust with Your Audience............................................................................................................ 6
Your Competitors are Doing It .................................................................................................................. 7
It Creates Consistency ............................................................................................................................... 8
The History of Web Design ........................................................................................................................... 9
The Early Days of Web Design .................................................................................................................. 9
The Web at the Turn of the Century ....................................................................................................... 10
The Later 2000s and the Mobile Web..................................................................................................... 11
Web Design from 2010 to the Present ................................................................................................... 12
Today’s Web Design & Future Trends..................................................................................................... 13
Web Designer vs Web Developer ............................................................................................................... 13
What is a Web Designer? ........................................................................................................................ 13
What is a Web Developer? ..................................................................................................................... 14
Web Design vs Digital Marketing ................................................................................................................ 15
Elements of A Website Design .................................................................................................................... 16
Interaction............................................................................................................................................... 16
Conversion .............................................................................................................................................. 16
Call-To-Action (CTA) buttons .................................................................................................................. 16
Navigation ............................................................................................................................................... 17
Style Guide .............................................................................................................................................. 17
Visual Design ........................................................................................................................................... 17
Content ................................................................................................................................................... 18
Search Engine Optimization .................................................................................................................... 18
Web Friendly ........................................................................................................................................... 19
Page Speed .............................................................................................................................................. 20
Information Accessibility......................................................................................................................... 20

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 Intuitiveness ............................................................................................................................................ 20
Branding .................................................................................................................................................. 21
Professional Web Design vs Do It Yourself Web Design ............................................................................. 21
The Pros & Cons of a Website Builder .................................................................................................... 21
Speed Does NOT Equal Results ............................................................................................................... 22
Why Hire a Web Designer? (Besides Professional Design, of Course).................................................... 23
Tips for Hiring a Web Designer ................................................................................................................... 24
Web Design Builder Recommendations ..................................................................................................... 24
Squarespace ............................................................................................................................................ 25
Shopify .................................................................................................................................................... 25
Webflow .................................................................................................................................................. 26
Final Thoughts ............................................................................................................................................. 27
What is My Budget? ................................................................................................................................ 27
What is My Return on Investment? ........................................................................................................ 28
What Does this Web Design Agency Truly Offer?................................................................................... 29
Are There Any Hidden Costs? ................................................................................................................. 29
Thank You! .................................................................................................................................................. 30

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THE ULTIMATE GUIDE TO WEB DESIGN
A Word From the Owner of LUCID

Congratulations on downloading “THE ULTIMATE GUIDE TO

WEB DESIGN.” You have made a great decision today!

I am so excited to share my insights into web design with you

today, so that you can make good decisions about one of the
most impactful aspects of business. As you read this guide,
know that all this information comes from over 20 years of
experience working in the web design industry and over 10
years of operating and managing my own web design company.

My hope is that you find this information useful in deciding who

you hire to work on your website or in choosing a web design
platform that works for you.

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What is Web Design

Web design is the process of planning, conceptualizing,

and arranging content intended for the Internet.

Modern web design goes beyond how things look. It

also relates to how things work (functionality). Web
design is not limited to websites. It includes other uses
such as web apps, mobile apps, and user interface
design.

Why Web Design is Important for Business

You may be considering creating a new website. Or you may be considering revising an old site. In either
case, having a website is important and you should know why. Given this, we will look at five reasons why
web design is important for your business.

It Sets the First Impression

When someone visits your website, it sets the first impression of your business. They will judge your
business within seconds. In these first few seconds, you want to make a positive impact on your audience.

If your website looks unappealing or outdated, your visitors will have a negative impression. This negative
impression will deter them from staying on your site and engaging with it. This, in turn, means that you
will miss out on leads because they’ll leave your page for your competitor’s page.

Web design is important because it impacts how your audience perceives your brand. The impression you
make can either get visitors to remain on your site and learn about your business. Or, leave your page and
turn to a competitor.

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In practical terms, good web design does 3 things for your business:

• It helps draw traffic to your site (through on-site seo).

• It helps you keep your leads on your page.
• It helps you increase conversions (people buying something or contacting you in some way).

It Aids Your Search Engine Optimization (SEO) Strategy

Many web design practices influence how search engines

crawl and index your website.

This is one thing you cannot afford to mess up. If your on-
page SEO is not up to par, you will be fighting an uphill
battle for visibility from the start.

You also need to know that certain web design elements

can affect SEO in and of themselves. Web design can be
difficult to understand if you are not familiar with how it
works. To be blunt, your code needs to be SEO-friendly at
all times.

The best way to ensure proper web design practices such as SEO is to partner up with a web design agency
that knows what they’re doing. Here at LUCID, we use industry-leading best practices to ensure that your
website gets high visibility.

It Sets the Impression for Customer Service

People can judge how you will treat them by looking at your website. Your design gives them insight into
how you view your visitors. If you do not put any effort into your website’s design, your audience knows
that you will not put effort into helping them.

Your website is like a customer service representative. If your website is bright, modern, and inviting, your
audience will feel more welcome on your page. You will give the impression that you are open and
welcoming to new people who visit your website.

But an outdated and unappealing site makes your business appear cold and indifferent. People do not
want to check out a business that does not value them enough to make a good first impression.

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Think of your web design as the digital face of your business. If someone walked into your physical
location, wouldn’t you want a friendly face to greet them and make them feel welcome? An updated and
modern web design is the same as a friendly face greeting your new visitors.

It Builds Trust with Your Audience

People do not trust poorly designed websites. If they see your
poor design or the information looks outdated, they will not
trust your site. They may view your site as shady because you do
not have an updated web design.

Think about a person looking to place a bulk order with a flooring

company. They are about to spend a tremendous amount of
money. If your flooring company website design doesn’t convey
trust, they’ll find another business to fulfill their order.

On the other side of the coin, a professional site signals trust with your audience. They will trust your
business and feel comfortable checking it out.

It is important to build trust with your audience, so they remain on your site. When visitors stay on your
site longer, you create more opportunities for your business to capture those leads. The more leads you
capture, the more sales opportunities you have.

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Your Competitors are Doing It

If you need another reason why website design

is important, here is a big one: Your competitors
are using one. If you want to remain in
competition with them, you must use a good
website design for your site.

You want your website to stand out from the

competition. If you have an old, outdated, and
low-quality website, your competitors will
outrank you. Their well-designed website will
perform better than your website.

This means you will lose leads to your

competitors. They will attract more leads to
their page because their page is more appealing.

Your website’s design is an opportunity for you to set your business apart from the competition. When
you are competing with other businesses, you generally have the same services and similar pricing. You
need that one thing that will make your business stand out from the rest.

A well-designed website is an opportunity for your business to showcase your unique features. You can
show your visitors why they should choose your business over the competition.

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It Creates Consistency
When you are trying to get new leads for your business, you want to build up your brand. You want your
audience to get familiar with your brand, so they choose you when they’re ready to convert. Websites are
helpful in this regard because they help to create brand consistency.

You need to have the same fonts, styles, and layouts

across every page on your website. If you have a
different design on every page, this will make your site
look unprofessional. It also makes it more challenging
to build brand recognition. If your site is inconsistent,
your visitors will not know which colors to associate
with your brand.

If your website is not consistent, people will leave your

site and go to one that looks more professional. By
building consistency, you keep leads on your page
longer which increases your opportunities. You will
earn more leads and conversions down the line when
you redesign your site for this key element.

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The History of Web Design

The Early Days of Web Design

Web design has been important since sites began
competing for attention. A well-designed site holds a
readers’ interest, is easy to read, and presents its
content in a clear, organized way. Views on what
accomplishes this has changed over the years. As the
available technology has changed, the methods have
changed.

The earliest Web pages, starting in 1991, were not

“designed” in the sense of paying special attention to
layout. They were articles written by researchers for
other researchers, and all that mattered was the
content and links. But as the Web became more widely
used in the mid-nineties, the appearance of pages began to matter. The people creating them were
computer geeks, and they had more interest in experimenting with the new technology than in aesthetics.
Images played a greater role and lists, and tables organized information. JavaScript was available, but
people treated it more as a toy than a design tool.

By the second half of the nineties, commercial sites were starting to appear. The appearance of a site
became a more serious concern. Designers started to give more attention to readability and appeal, and
sites started to use animation for serious purposes. At first, the only choice was animated GIF images.
Then came Adobe Flash, which allowed a huge range of effects. Sites built almost entirely on Flash began
appearing. On the server-side, dynamic pages with PHP and CGI started coming into use. This made the
design even more undisciplined, as site creators had a bigger set of tools to play with.

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The Web at the Turn of the Century
By the start of the 21st century, a new idea had started
to take hold. The creation of pages should involve not
just technical knowledge but expertise in visual design.

CSS2 had been available since 1998, allowing the

important principle of separation of appearance and
content. Web developers now had much more control
over the placement and appearance of every element.

As people with design skills joined in the process, they

recognized that too much material on a page or too
much text in an unbroken block is a burden on the
reader. They started splitting content into more pages,
with menus and tables for navigation.

The landing page became increasingly important, often having little content but directing viewers to other
pages. Blinking text and bright colors started giving way to more subdued designs.

The growing availability of high-speed connections, faster processors, and monitors with more pixels
opened new opportunities for designers.

High-resolution graphics and animations became popular. Multi-column layouts and sidebars took
advantage of the larger screens. People started talking about “Web 2.0” for pages with interactive and
customized features.

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The Later 2000s and the Mobile Web

A revolution came in 2007 with the release of the

iPhone. Its impact was not obvious at first, but
smartphones would soon completely change the way
people used the Internet.

The immediate impact came from Steve Jobs’

declaration that it would not support Flash. Adobe’s
software was starting to show its age, and it presented
several problems. It was not a W3C standard but a
proprietary plugin. Other technologies had become
available.

Search engines had rapidly risen in importance, and

Flash content was invisible to them. The phrase “search engine optimization” was not in common use yet,
but site owners wanted their pages to be found. Meanwhile, it was becoming possible to create more
kinds of content with HTML, reducing the need for Flash. A decade later, Flash is almost completely
obsolete.

Ajax, a JavaScript technique that allows updating pages in place, lets sites become increasingly interactive.
Now small changes in response to user input became possible without reloading the whole page. It then
became possible to talk about Web applications in a meaningful way.

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Web Design from 2010 to the Present

Since 2010, mobile devices have grown to the point of

accounting for more than half of the Web page access
in the world. This means that sites must work well on
both small and large screens.

For a while, the dominant design approach was to offer

two versions of a page. This was a maintenance
headache! Often times people receiving the links
would find themselves on the wrong page for their
device. These problems led to responsive design as a
better solution.

With responsive design, the same page is available to all devices. The browser uses JavaScript and CSS to
configure it for the hardware on which it is running.

The release of HTML5 and CSS3 has aided in this effort by bringing another important principle to the fore.
It created the separation of the document object model (DOM) from the content and the appearance.

Being able to handle the DOM independently has helped to create page designs that work with any
content and can customize its appearance, as necessary.

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Today’s Web Design & Future Trends
One of the latest trends today is the closing of the gap between the front and back ends. Many sites now
run JavaScript on the server as well as the browser, with remarkably close interaction between the two
sides.

The distinction between a website and a mobile application has now blurred. This means that a visitor can
run offline and catch up with the server when it has a connection.

Enter in the era of progressive web apps (PWA). PWA's act as a mobile app version of your website. This
is great because it allows the visitor to download your site to their mobile device. This means that you'll
see low bounce rates and higher conversion rates.

At LUCID, we leverage PWA's to your advantage. When we build a site for you, you get a PWA for free!
This means that you will get more conversion and sales in the long run.

Web Designer vs Web Developer

What is a Web Designer?

A web designer works on the appearance, layout, and, in
some cases, the content of a website. Appearance, for
instance, relates to the colors, font, and images used.
Layout refers to the structure and categorized nature of the
information on the site.

Sometimes a web designer may also work on creating

content. This will depend on the designer and the company
they work for. In most web design companies; the design
will work with a digital marketer and content writer to
create content for a site.

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What is a Web Developer?
A web developer or programmer is someone who takes a web design that has been created by either a
client or a design team and turns it into a website.

They do this by writing lines and lines of complicated code, using a variety of languages. Web developers
have quite a difficult job because they essentially must take a language we understand, such as English,
and translate it into a language that a computer understands, such as Python or HTML.

As you can imagine, this can take a lot of time and effort and requires an intricate understanding of various
programming languages.

Different types of developers specialize in different areas. This means that large projects are usually a
collaboration between several different developers.

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Web Design vs Digital Marketing
Behind the curtain of any profitable and growing
business is a savvy digital marketer. The marketer has
likely guided the organization through a website build
or redesign.

The digital marketer examines the entire experience in

a very purposeful way. They look at the structure of the
digital storefront and the design experience of a
website to make sure customers can buy from you
easily.

Think of digital marketers as the “architects” of a

website’s overarching strategy and execution. In fact,
they often lead the project team altogether. They are the brains of the operation. They are responsible
for everything. From creating your brand voice to nitpicking micro-flaws that might hurt your site’s
conversion rate.

Without a digital marketer onboard your website project, you will have major challenges with project
management. You also might end up with a beautiful website that does not generate leads. A hyper-
charged website that looks like a site built in 1990s, or worst of all, a sucky website all-around.

You should never forego consulting a digital marketer about your vision for your website. Their insight will
inform the concept of the site and they'll act as quality control. This keeps your brand’s purpose at the
heart of every feature.

Having said that, this is one of the major reasons why we do what we do. We act as your marketing
consultant. We provide your website with the oversight it needs during the design process. This ensures
that your website becomes a conversion machine.

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Elements of A Website Design
Interaction
A truly effective website design engages your visitors as soon as the land on the site and continues to hold
their attention through every page, as well as influences them to contact you. This is called 'conversion’
and is the key goal of your website. Again, there is a fine line between interaction and annoyance, so the
level of interaction should never outweigh the benefit.

Conversion
Your website is the most important client
generator your business has, and its goal is to
bring in new clients and making other services
available to existing clients through increased
awareness of all the services you offer. Providing
them with the tools they need to do business
with you in an easy and enjoyable way will
increase your website conversion and bring you
the kind of success you are looking for from your
website.

Call-To-Action (CTA) buttons

Once you have leads on your site, you want to
guide them towards converting. A key element
of that is your call-to-action (CTA) button. Web
design importance is clear when you are trying to get your audience to act.

A well-designed CTA button will get your audience to go ahead to the next step. These buttons fit into
your design but stand out on the page. Your audience’s eye at once goes to these buttons.

If you had a color scheme of black, white, gray, and yellow, a yellow CTA button would stand out on the
page compared to these other colors. It still fits with the scheme, but people will automatically be drawn
towards a bright yellow button.

By integrating CTA buttons into your website’s design, you will help drive better results on your page.

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Navigation
Your website should be easy to navigate and the menu items should easily be accessible from any page.
The viewer should always know exactly where they are on the website and have easy access to where
they would like to be. This sounds elementary but most websites could be improved in this area.
Remember, there is a fine line between an interactive menu and an annoying one, so functionality should
be the idea.

Style Guide
As we said previously, one reason why web design is
important is because it creates consistency across your
entire website. Consistency helps your audience build
brand recognition and keeps them engaged on your
page longer. A style guide will help you keep a
consistent brand image on your website.

Your style guide is the basis for how you want your
website to look. You decide the color, format,
typography, and more, for every page on your website.
This ensures that every time someone adds an element
to your site it is consistent with other pages.

You will help your team creates consistency across your website, too. They can reference your style guide
anytime they add an element to your site. It makes it easier for different people to work on your website
and add elements to it.

When you have a consistent design across your website, you create a more cohesive site. Your audience
will engage on your site longer and build brand recognition. This will help you earn more conversions
down the line.

Visual Design
People are visually oriented creatures, and using great graphics is a good way to make your website more
appealing. Your website has about 1/10th of a second to impress your visitor and potential customer. Your
website lets visitor know that your business is trustworthy and professional. However, it is important not
to go overboard with too many graphics. Scrolling text, animation, and flashy intros should be used
sparingly in your web design and only to emphasize a point for maximum effect.

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Content
This is the backbone of your website. Not only does your content play a major role in your search engine
placement, it is the reason why people visit your website in the first place. Your website text should be
informative, easy to read, and concise. Well thought out web content and copy will do more than anything
else to make your website design engaging, effective and popular.

Search Engine Optimization

Search engine optimization is extremely important for
any business because it makes your website more
visible to people searching for your products or
services. SEO consists of multiple strategies, actions,
and best practices, all of which have the end goal of
improving your website’s position in search engines—
which is why it is called “search engine optimization.”

There are two kinds of SEO: on-page and off-page. On-

page SEO consists of anything you can control on your
own website to improve your rankings. This refers to
things like site speed, keyword presence, header text,
and so on. On the other hand, off-page SEO consists of
anything done on other websites that may influence your rankings. Generally, this only refers to links.

It takes time, knowledge of SEO, and successful implementation of the desired on- and off-page SEO
factors to optimize your website for high rankings in search engines. If the collective power of your site or
an individual page’s SEO is more powerful than all others, with regards to a specific query, you’ll rank #1.

Because SEO involves so many ranking factors, you can think of the #1 site as winning a triathlon of sorts.
In a real triathlon, the winner of the running part is not necessarily the winner of the entire race – and so
it is the same with SEO. The site with the most links, the most pages, or the most visitors is not necessarily
the #1 site. Their overall performance decides who comes out on top.

SEO is Google’s way of determining which sites deserve to rank highly for each query entered into its
search engine. Without modern SEO, it would be extremely simple to manipulate the search results so
that the site with the most links or the most pages—all easily generated by software—consistently ranked
#1.

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SEO is important because it keeps the search results fair. It reduces the ability to manipulate these results
as much as possible, so that the sites appearing for each search are there because they deserve to be
there. Hard work and a website that appeals to visitors correlate with high search engine rankings, so if
your site meets these criteria, you will have a better chance at showing up in the results.

Users trust search engines and achieving a top spot in search engine rankings signals to searchers that
your site is a credible source. The higher you rank in results pages, the more clicks and traffic your site will
generate. SEO also improves user experience, making it more likely for customers to become repeat
buyers.

And SEO is cost-effective. Competitive industries can spend large amounts of money on paid website
traffic. Of course, you can still buy ad space, but if you are working with a tight budget, SEO is a great way
to drive qualified traffic to your site without directly paying for it.

Web Friendly
No matter how informative, beautiful, and easy to use your website design is, it is useless unless it is web
friendly. It is important that your web designers know the keys to making your website work on all the
major browsers, and that they utilize meta tags, alt tags, are fully versed in SEO (Search Engine
Optimization). Many factors affect your search engine placement and visual appearance of your site, so
make sure your web designers know their stuff.

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Page Speed
You can have an awesome website design, but it will not matter if your audience never gets to see it. Page
speed is an important element of web design. It ensures that your page loads quickly, so your audience
can access information fast.

Your audience hates to wait for slow loading pages. If your page takes too long to load, your audience will
lose interest. They will return to the search results and select a competitor’s page instead.

You can check your page’s speed by using Google PageSpeed Insights. This tool allows you to see how
quickly your site currently loads and where you can make improvements. You must make these
improvements on your own.

The other option is to rely on page speed services from a digital marketing company. This allows you to
reap the benefits of a fast loading page, while focusing on running your business.

Information Accessibility
Not all visitors to your website are interested in or have
the time to peruse the entire site. They may need to
access only a phone number or address, or just a
certain bit of info. For this reason, it is important to
place key information in plain sight, in an area that is
easily accessible. We have all had the experience of not
being able to find some needed information on a
website, and the result is always a frustrated visitor.
The experience is annoying at best, and a disgruntled
visitor will not stay on your site exceptionally long and
is unlikely not to return, much less do business with
you.

Intuitiveness
A great website anticipates what your visitor is thinking and caters directly to their needs, and has
elements arranged in a way that makes sense. If a visitor is searching for one of your products or services
on a search engine or directory where your site is listed, it's important that your website have a landing
page that is directly relevant to what they searched for rather than forcing them to filter through all of
your information. Remember, the shortest distance between two points is a straight line.

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Branding
Your website should be a direct reflection of your business and your brand. Your visitor should
immediately make a visual connection between your logo, print material, and brick-and-mortar location.
A website that does this not only contributes to the memorability of your branding but adds a level of
credibility and enhanced image of that of your overall business.

Professional Web Design vs Do It Yourself Web Design

If you do not plan to teach yourself how to build a website from scratch, then you are left with a choice:
website builder vs. web designer. As convenient as web builders may claim to be, below are a few reasons
why, at the end of the day, we recommend you at least consider investing in professional web design
services rather than just settling for a DIY website builder. After all, you are running a business, so you are
going to need a website that sells customers.

The Pros & Cons of a Website Builder

DIY Web Design website builders have become so
popular recently. The main attraction to them is that
users can quickly choose a template, upload their
content, and have a website online in a matter of
hours, at little to no cost.

These website builders use “drag and drop” and

“WYSIWYG” (stands for “What You See Is What You
Get”) tools to make it easy for anyone to format and
edit webpages. If you can use Microsoft Word then you
can use these services, which is much better than
having to learn HTML and CSS to build a website
yourself.

With web builders, their paint-by-number templates make it quite simple for you to upload content, like
text and images, and place where you want it on the page. If you stay within the lines of the template and
properly size your images to fit the space, then you should be in good shape.

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Speed Does NOT Equal Results

While getting a website online as fast as possible

might be convenient in the short term, it does not
mean you are going to see results quickly. As you can
imagine, there is more to web design than just
uploading a few pictures and pasting some text into a
template.

Many business owners enjoy the DIY website builder

process but are disappointed when they do not see
new customers coming into their office saying they
found you online. After many hours or weeks of
website editing, many business owners find out the
hard way that not all websites are created equal.

The most beautiful website in the world cannot generate new customers if it cannot be found by the
people looking for it or if it does not provide a great user experience. Here are just a few of the particularly
important web design and search engine optimization (SEO) elements that website builders cannot do for
you:

• Monitor and fix user and mobile experience issues

• Create lead generation strategies
• Keyword research and targeting
• Title optimization
• Local schema
• Image optimization
• Meta description optimization
• Google Analytics & Tag Manager integration
• Sitemap creation
• Submit the website to the major search engines
• And more…

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Why Hire a Web Designer? (Besides Professional Design, of Course)
When hiring a professional web designer, you should expect the overall quality of your website to be
higher.

A great website designer will take the time to understand your business, not just the niche you are in but
also what is unique about your business, and then design and build a website that’s customized to you.
This is quite different than having to stuff your business into a predesigned and predetermined box.

Also, if you have ever tried to use photoshop or design any

type of images for a website, you know how hard and time
consuming it can be. Great images and designs will take
your business to the next level and immediately create a
higher level of trust with your potential customers.

Professional web design will make your business look

unique and professional, helping it stand out from the
crowd while still being functional and user friendly. Web
builders may offer speed and convenience, but they
cannot offer unique design to specifically fit and market
your business. They also cannot work with you one-on-one
to create lead generation opportunities and other digital
strategies, like SEO, to drive more traffic to your website.

One of the many benefits of hiring a professional web designer is that they should understand how to
maximize local SEO so your business comes up in a variety of Google searches. You will still need to work
on your local listings and citations but having great on-site SEO is a huge head start.

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Tips for Hiring a Web Designer
If you would like your business to look professional, get found online easily, and start generating business
for you from day one, then we recommend talking with some professional web designers. Start by doing
a Google search for “Web Design in your city and state.

Most web designers will charge a one-time cost to custom design and build your website. You can expect
the cost to be a minimum of $2,000.00 - $20,000 for a website and $25,000 - $35,000 for an e-commerce
website. Keep in mind that large advertising agencies will always cost more than local boutique agencies.
These prices will not include any ongoing SEO or the domain name (youbusiness.com) and web hosting
(where your website will be stored), which you’ll most likely be responsible for supplying (don’t worry if
you don’t know how to get those, the web designer
should be able to help you through the process).

That is the traditional choice but if that does not

sound right for you then search around for other
solutions. There are other web design service options
and models available. At LUCID, we have created
custom website design packages specifically for local
businesses that have the appeal of a website builder,
but are designed, customized, built, hosted, and
maintained by our team. Not only that, but you get a
year of hosting and website management for free with
you purchase of a new website.

Regardless of which path you choose, remember that your customers are looking online for the solutions
to the problems that your business can fix. If they cannot find you online, then you are missing out on real
customers and real opportunities. You need to start investing in your business’s online presence.

Web Design Builder Recommendations

We know that hiring a professional web designer or a web design agency is not for everyone and that
sometimes it can be outside of the scope of your budget. Given this, we wanted to give you some
information on a few web design platforms you can use. Keep in mind that the following platforms can be
a good way to start your business when you’re working with a limited budget, however in the long run
you’ll need a professional web design company to help you grow your business.

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Squarespace
Squarespace is like the Apple of website builders. It is intuitive, curated and thoughtfully designed. We
highly recommend it for user that are looking to start a website with a limited budget.

Squarespace templates are fresh, sophisticated and share a similar look and feel: lots of whitespace, bold
typography and room to showcase photography.

It is of course a bit subjective, but in our opinion, Squarespace has the best templates of any website
builder.

Squarespace also has excellent features. They have the best blogging, podcasting, audio players and photo
galleries of any website builder. Plus, their ecommerce is a practical alternative to pure ecommerce
website builders such as Shopify.

To top it all off, Squarespace has honest, up-front pricing. You will not be nickel-and-dimed further down
the road— an unfortunate problem with many other website builders.

Shopify
Shopify is the best ecommerce builder for those looking to build an e-commerce site on a budget. If you
are building a pure ecommerce website, we highly recommend Shopify.

Shopify has come to dominate ecommerce software by constantly innovating and improving— while
always still being clear and easy to use. It is a magical balancing act that's unusual in the world of software.

The App Store is its biggest differentiator. The Shopify core covers what 80% of online stores will need
and the app store covers the other 20%— that way the core does not get bloated with features most
stores do not need. Shopify is not the only ecommerce website builder to offer an app stores, but they
have significantly more apps than any competitor.

Besides the app store, Shopify has continually launched innovative features like Shopify Payments, Shopify
POS and Shopify Augmented Reality that push the industry forward— at a pace competitors rarely keep
up with.

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Beyond features, the thing we most often hear from users is that they love that Shopify is so easy to use.
It is clear, simple and intuitive.

Webflow
Webflow feels magical. Go ahead, roll your eyes. We get it. We just called software magical. But let us
explain why.

The big innovation with Webflow is their Designer tool. It is the first tool to provide the flexibility of front-
end coding without requiring you to actually code.

It does this by not shying away from the complexity of code— to use Webflow, you need to understand
the fundamentals of web design. This includes concepts like style hierarchy, box model, floating, absolute
and relative positions.

This makes it a categorically different tool than website builders like Squarespace or Wix. Squarespace
and Wix are not designed for you to have complete freedom. They provide templates and smart defaults—
they abstract you away from the complexity of code and they're much easier to use.

On its own, Webflow's Designer is excellent but what takes Webflow to the next level is that you can
integrate Webflow's CMS into the Designer— allowing you to create custom, repeatable content types,
something you can't do in any other website builder!

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Final Thoughts
There is a lot that goes into a good website design as you can see. When you are considering a website
design there are a few questions you will want to ask yourself.

• What is my budget?
• What is my return on investment?
• What does this web design agency truly offer?
• Are there any hidden costs?

What is My Budget?

Look at your marketing budget and determine how

much you can invest in a new website or redesign. A
good method to calculate your marketing budget is
to use the following equation:

(Net Revenue – Expenses – Taxes) / 3%

This will give you a good idea of how much you

should spend on a website. If you are trying to
reposition yourself within your designate marketing
segment and substantially grow your business, then
increase the 3% to 5% or 7%. Remember that a high-
quality website can cost anywhere between
2,000.00 - $20,000 for a website and $25,000 -
$35,000 for an e-commerce website.

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What is My Return on Investment?
Good business decisions are all about creating a return on your investment. A website is no different. To
calculate the return on your investment you can use this equation:

(Increase in Revenue – Cost) / Cost = Return on Investment

Practice example. Let us say a company is currently getting 50 leads a year through their (old) website,
and each lead is worth $10,000. They are going to be investing $14,000 in a new website.

Through increased visitors, higher conversions, and better branding, they are now expecting more leads
from their new website.

If they get 10% more leads:

($50,000 – $14,000) / $14,000 = 257% ROI

If they get 20% more leads:

($100,000 – $14,000) / $14,000 = 614% ROI

If they get 30% more leads:

($150,000 – $14,000) / $14,000 = 971% ROI

Worth it? We think so!

The ROI calculation for your business will be heavily dependent on average sale price, lifetime value of an
account, and volume of transactions. So be sure to do your own math to see how a website investment
would affect your specific business.

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What Does this Web Design Agency Truly Offer?
A professional web design company can be worth its weight in gold if they offer a certain set of services.
When considering a web design company, be sure that the company offers the following services before
you make a purchase:

• Hosting or E-Commerce Hosting

• Website Management
• Site Dashboard or Access to Your Site
• Search Engine Optimization
• Progressive Web Application (Downloadable version of your site)
• Website Personalization (on-site pop-ups and notification settings)
• Content Writing
• Analytics
• SSL Security Certificate
• Business Listing Submissions
• Customer Support

The other thing to consider in making a good purchasing

decision is to find out if these services are included in a
website package or sold separately. If the web design
agency offers these services separately, you may find
yourself paying a lot more than you bargained for. Here at
LUCID, we include all of these services in your purchase of
a website.

Are There Any Hidden Costs?

In the web design industry, there can be a lot of small hidden fees that the average business owner may
not be aware of until it is to late. Make sure you consider the following items:

• Hosting Fees
• Domain Name Fees
• Management Fees
• Migration Fees
• Content Fees
• Progressive Web App Fees
• Search Engine Optimization

Make sure that you ask the web design agency you are working with to provide you with a list of all of the
services associated with your website before you make a purchase and/or get a itemized quote.

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 Thank You!
Thanks for reading! We hope that you have found this information helpful to your search.

If you need help with your website, please give us a call at (800) 790-7912.

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