5 Options to Get Your Small Business Website Design

Every business needs a website nowadays. But what’s the best way to get your small business website design? We compare several web design solutions, along with their pros and cons.

Wondering why small business owners hire web designers? Because their businesses can’t survive without a website.

It used to be a case of getting out in the street, and finding the nearest place that is of interest, whether it's a bakery, cafe, shop, or something else. Nowadays, people usually google their interest and only then decide to visit the brick-and-mortar shop.

Search engine optimization (SEO) plays a vital role in helping clients discover small businesses, so an intuitive and easy-to-navigate web design is a good idea if you want your online presence to make a difference for your business.

However, remember that even with stellar SEO tactics, you have a lot of competition to beat. That’s why you need stellar small businesses website design.

In this post, we’ll cover the characteristics of a good web design, and compare different options for getting website design for small business owners.

What makes a good website?

There’s a solid reason why small business owners hire website designers - they probably know very little about web design themselves.

And while there’s absolutely no need for you to know the ropes of web design, it’s useful to understand what makes a website effective. Here are some of the main characteristics of good websites:

1. Easy and convenient usage: Although website design for small business brands is highly important, functionality always comes first. Make it easy and intuitive for users to interact with your website.
2. Optimization for Mobile Devices: Close to 60% of the world’s internet traffic comes from mobile devices. So, ensure your customers have a seamless experience on mobile, and can learn everything they need to know about your business.
3. Fresh and Quality Content: There’s no way your website can rank well without quality content. Blogging and using the right keyword, and regularly sharing updates will help more people discover you small business website.
4. Readily Accessible Contact and Location: This is a must for any website design for small businesses. If you want people to visit your physical store, you must make it ridiculously simple (and I mean that) for them to find contact information.
5. Clear Calls to Action: Do you want people to visit your store? Can they purchase something directly from the website? Create straightforward prompts for your customers to take the desired action.
6. A Clean and Validated Code: This will ensure compatibility across different browsers, better SEO, faster loading times, easier maintenance, and more stability.

Those are some qualities of all well-designed websites. But how to design a website for a small business, specifically? Here are some of the most vital elements to include:

What should a small business website design include?

1. Homepage: This is the first page visitors will see when they visit your website. It should include a brief overview of your business, its mission, and its products or services.
2. About Us Page: This page should provide more detailed information about your business, including its history, values, and team members. It’s really important for small business websites, since it can help show the personal side of your business.
3. Products or Services Page: This page should highlight the products or services your business offers, with detailed descriptions and high-quality images. It’s optional, however, if you want to sell products online, you’ll need a designated product page.
4. Testimonials or Reviews Page: Another optional addition, this page features testimonials or reviews from satisfied customers, which can help build trust with potential customers.
5. Contact Page: This page should include your business's contact information, such as your phone number, email address, and physical address. Embedding a Google map on your site is a great way to connect with customers locally. You may also include a contact form to allow visitors to send you a message directly from the website.
6. Blog: Not that long ago, small business websites were usually static. Nowadays, it’s really difficult to rank in search engine results without new and relevant content. Think about topics that are important to your customers, as well as keywords that will help your posts rank better.
7. Social Media links: Make it easy for visitors to connect with your business on social media by including links to your social media profiles. Getting people to engage with you on social media increases the chances of them becoming customers: 90% purchase from brands they follow on social media!
8. Privacy Policy and Terms of Service: These pages are important legal documents that outline how your business collects and uses visitor data and its terms of use.
9. Navigation Menu: A clear navigation menu that is easy to use and helps visitors find what they're looking for quickly and easily.
10. Mobile Optimization: Your website should be optimized for mobile devices to ensure a seamless user experience for visitors using smartphones or tablets.

Where to get a small business website?

Now that you know how to design a website for a small business, or rather the elements it should entail, one big question remains: can you do it yourself?

The answer is: yes and no. You can always use a website builder and depending on your budget and design skills create something pretty decent (more on that later).

But remember that a cheap website design for small business brands isn’t always worth it in the long-run. A website for small businesses is their online store front. You should put as much care and effort into it, as your physical store.

So, here are 5 options for getting your website design to fit virtually any budget.

Web design agency

A web design agency will take care of your design needs, and can scale up and down based on the complexity of your design.

Web design agencies usually include way more services than just the design, such as SEO copywriting, responsive design, ecommerce features, custom themes and style, domain names, content management systems, etc.

The cost of hiring a web design agency can be anywhere between 3.000 to 100,000 dollars on average for the US market. For the smallest price, you can expect to get just the look and layout of the website.

It definitely won’t be a cheap website for a small business, but a higher level of professionalism and larger scope of services are to be expected.

Practically, what it comes down to is that if you can afford it, a web design agency is absolutely the easiest choice that will lead to a good website.

However, since for a small business, a website doesn’t have to be mind-blowingly unique and extensive, you should probably focus on a more affordable and effective option.

Freelance website designer

Outsourcing freelancers is an affordable and flexible opportunity for almost any type of one-time project. From web designers to narrators, you can find any kind of freelancer on platforms like Upwork and Fiverr.

Web design is no exception, and there are plenty of freelancers who offer their services on Fiverr, Upwork, Twine and other platforms.

You can hire freelancers to take on the full website building process, or just the design portion of it, and discuss the details, time management and scope of work with them.

But, the risk of working with freelancers is the time of delivery, lack of quality assurance and the possibility of a lot of back-and-forth without effective communication.

Essentially, if you can handle managing an outsourced freelance worker, you can have a good and cheap website design for a small business in very little time. However, if you don’t quite understand what you need, it’s better to go for an option that includes management of output and scope of work too.

Website builders

A limited, but extremely resourceful and DIY way to have your own website, is a website builder. Platforms such as Wix, Shopify, Instapage, Squarespace and others (most of which support WordPress websites), are popular for a reason: for a small price, you get a large library of design templates and many integrations you can use in your website.

However, after doing some research you can easily see that plenty of companies use website builders, and the wow factor will not be achieved with them.

That doesn’t mean that you can’t have a well-designed website that is easy to navigate, so if functionality is your primary goal, as a small business, a website builder is perfect for your needs and budget. You can read more about some of the most popular website builders in our comparison guide on Wix and Shopify, as well as the guide to Elementor and guide to Instapage.

The downside of this model? It goes without saying that creating a website design yourself is time consuming. Moreover, there’s always a risk of ending up with a website that’s below par, and having to redesign the website before long. This is why many small businesses owners hire web designers instead. It may be a hefty investment, but it’ll save you time and money in the long run.

Unlimited design services

An unlimited graphic design platform instead of a web design agency or company? It might sound unusual, but it is an extremely effective and affordable option, if you don’t necessarily want the same company to deal with the development and hosting of your website.

That means that for a flat rate of 549 or 899 dollars a month you can get both a local business website design and other graphic design projects like custom illustrations, social media posts, digital ads, print design, landing pages, etc.

The most important thing when purchasing an unlimited design service is that it is truly unlimited. There is no maximum number of design projects you can request, and the turnaround time is around 1-2 working days, depending on the complexity of the project.

You would also have a designated designer working with your company, that is chosen and vetted based on their expertise. So, for small business website design services, you would have an experienced UI designer.

If you are still not sure about the quality of our web design, check out some of the websites designed by our team.

In-house web designer

If you are not a startup, chances are you will not have the need to tweak and update your website all the time or change the services as you grow.

That means that, for a small business, hiring an in-house web designer is a waste of resources, as you would only need them for one big project, and then they wouldn’t have much work on their hands.

If you are not a startup, chances are you will not have the need to tweak and update your website all the time or change the services as you grow.

That means that, for a small business, hiring an in-house web designer is a waste of resources, as you would only need them for one big project, and then they wouldn’t have much work on their hands.

The average salary for a web designer in the USA is more than 56.000 dollars a year, based on Glassdoor’s data. In reality, you would only need a website designer for a month or two for your small business website, so there is no need to strain your budget this much.

Conclusion

For a small business, the design of your website should be easy to navigate and intuitive, rather than creative and uniquely designed. Furthermore, you can go for a design that is optimized but not necessarily updated for the latest trends.

That means that if you want affordability, unlimited website design services or freelancer is the best option if you want someone else to create your design.

If you want to test the waters yourself and create a website with a drag and drop builder, go for a website builder. It is easy to work in, affordable and covers way more than just design.

If you don’t mind paying some extra bucks, hire a design agency or in-house designer, that will take care of your website design every step of the way.