Websites – The big playground of the online world. 

With the ColorWhistle team’s collective experience (20+ years! :)) and with great expertise in building websites, our website development company uses many website builders, taking care of many clients (top of the preferred website vendor list) website maintenance, website support services, addressing their daily website needs and technical consulting for SEO & digital marketing services. 

We would like to document (via this blog :)) 

We plan to use Google results for different queries and try to share the required knowledge as much as possible.

Let’s start typing Website on Google

Google search suggestions shows the popularity of recent “website + keyword” combinations which people are most interested in.

What is a Website Builder?

What More to Understand About Website Builders?

From the above popular result suggestions’ context, most people are finding Website Builders to connect with their business purpose – website builders for small business, website builders for photographers, website builders for online stores etc..

One interesting fact from the above result is that most people are already citizen developers with website building experience. Thanks to the long & dominant internet regime!

There are many website builder tools / platforms available in the market. Out of these free big website builder softwares, not all are fit-for-all-businesses types. For example, HubSpot CMS website builder is basically a free website builder software, but it doesn’t fit for all. 

Below is a screenshot of what Dharmesh Shah, Founder & CTO at HubSpot said in a linkedin post.

Depending upon the increased demands of your business with the website needs (marketing, sales etc..), your team / people who access the website – you can make a decision on the website builder. This should also be based on the tech capabilities of the team too!

WordPress CMS is playing a huge role in the internet era by helping & modernizing the businesses’ online presence. In 2022, WordPress powers 42.9% of the web.

Here are articles from ColorWhistle about selecting a website builder for your business

• Top WordPress Page Builder
• 101 Things to Know About WordPress Elementor Page Builder/Editor
• Top 13 Websites Built With Elementor Builder
• Top 10 E-commerce Website Builders

What are the roles of Website Designer / Website Builder in an Agency?

You are here, after you have well researched your website planning, ideas & strategies, and decided to build a website with a professional website development agency.

Let’s give clarity on website design as a person vs website designer as a software.

‘Website designer as a software’ is mostly interpreted with website builder commonly, it is nothing but a tool or program that simplifies the website designing process.Today, we bring all these different softwares under the category of “low code, no code” tools & platforms.

‘Website designer as a person’ is a technology professional & experienced in building websites and using various website development tools to build websites for businesses. The advantage here is that you will have a human touch & interaction while envisioning the business website and its purposes!

Here are articles from ColorWhistle about tools of the website development & further works:

• Quick, Handy Tools for Designers, Developers, and Content Writers
• Top 25+ Digital Agency Tools for Outsourcing Needs
• 9 Top Appointment Booking Tools for Businesses
• Best SEO Tools for Experts in 2022
• Best Marketing Automation Tools
• Top 8 Email Marketing Tools Compared!

Is Website development industry specific? How to select a digital agency vendor for your website?

We often get an inquiry on our website, like 

• Do you have experience with luxury fashion jewel website development, mental health & mental wellness programs website development?
• Do you have experience with websites for a SaaS product? etc..

From our perspective, website development fundamentals are still the same from the starting of the internet era and have not changed a lot, though the internet has evolved and digital marketing needs are exponentially growing that narrows the gap between Website development vs Web application development. 

We strongly believe, an experienced web development agency can help build any industry / niche website with their expertise using modern technologies.

eCommerce website development, search aggregator website development, marketplace website development —  these internet only businesses make a real difference in how to select a digital agency vendor for your website. As the website development fundamentals are mostly same, the key additional factors are like 

• How well a digital agency understands UX principles of website development?
• What are the tech-stacks a digital agency can work with?
• How well does the digital agency connect with digital marketing essentials?

But, before validating the digital agency vendor for a partnership, let’s work on the basic expectations:

• I need a website, so looking for a website vendor – Check the agency’s experience with website development and digital marketing exposure (Pro tip: Check the digital agency’s website performance scores using online tools like GTMetrix, Google Page Insights, WooRank)
  
• I need a web application, so looking for a web development vendor – Check the agency’s experience with web application development (Pro tip: Just interview the tech team for their tech capabilities, attitude, commitments and professionalism)

Below are a couple of excellent examples of web development vendor partnership queries we received and started working with 🙂

Here are the articles from ColorWhistle about web application development:

• Web App Development Ideas
• Best Web Apps That Changed The Industry
• WordPress vs Laravel – How to Decide the Web Application Development Platform?
• Web Application Development Tech Stack – How to Decide?
• Modern WordPress Website Development Types – WooCommerce Website to Hybrid Web Application
• Myths about Website Development, Design, and Web Application
• How Custom Dashboard Web Applications Help Modern Decision Making Processes

How To Strike A Deal With A Vendor On A Website Cost? What Are The Common Questions To A Website Development Vendor?

Businesses who are approaching digital agency services providers like website development, SEO and digital marketing are one step ahead from the crowd sourcing market, i.e away from UpWork, Fiverr, freelancers etc..

Many businesses often get into the professional experience of building a strong relationship with a website vendor is more critical for a long-run than building a one-time project based relationship. 

From these popular search suggestions, when people are searching for a website – if they are new or roughly want to understand the cost they will go asking like how much does the website domain cost, website designer / website builder cost, website redesign cost. 

If they have done some research already, or are aware of website tech, they will go asking –- how much does a website cost for a small business, how much does a website cost monthly, how much does a website cost to create, how much does website cost on WordPress.

What Are The Factors That Decide The Website Cost (Not Considering The Domain Name & Hosting)?

Website Page Designs / Website Layout Mockups. 

We have 2 options in general. 

• Selecting ready-made design layouts / ready-made themes, purchase, configure and use that for our business. Requires less efforts, so this should be priced low
• Custom design the website pages entirely, by collaborating with a digital designer, and create page designs, UI aesthetics with our brand guidelines, and custom created marketing focused UI elements. This requires good efforts from a designer and collaboration team, so this will be priced high compared to the ready-made option, and the business can get more value for the efforts

Website Pages, Menu Structure And Sitemap

The number of website pages and website’s unique layout structure (templates) determine the effort required to convert the website design into dynamic working templates on the web. Here, businesses can share their menu structure / sitemap with a vendor, ask the efforts required and cost of the website development.

List Of Website Functionality / Features Of The Modern Website

General content based business website development requires contact forms and dynamic backend content management. ECommerce website development requires a shopping cart, payment gateway, shipping & tracking, inventory management, and customer dashboard functionality features. 
Travel portal development needs booking calendar features, Health care website development requires appointment features, Directory website development requires buyer & seller features etc.. These essential website features building efforts knowing is critical in fixing a website price. Share this list of website features with your vendor and get your website cost quote.

Content Development And Migration Efforts

Website content creation is a great investment for long-term SEO benefits. Also, today’s modern website design is majorly dependent on the type & volume of the website content. Whether it’s a CTA button text, FAQ content, creative content writing for your services or products, company profile – all these types of content need professional help to meet its goals. If you supply these content / reuse your existing website content, make these content development efforts clear with your vendor and ask for the inclusive quote or ask for a website quote without content efforts

Marketing & Sales Tools Integration

If you’re partnering with a vendor with full-stack digital agency services, they can integrate your marketing and sales tools during the website development process. This includes the SEO plugin, Analytics, GTM, CRM and Marketing automation software integration too. Share your list of integrations and get your website cost quote including all the above tools

Roadmap Of The Website Usage After The Website Development / Launch Of The Website

In this digital era, we build websites to do lots of activities online with various connected digital channels. By sharing your roadmap of items that goes along with the website – launch campaigns, offers, events etc.. helps the website development vendor to come up with a cost quote and timeline that meets certainty on both ends.

Here are some articles from ColorWhistle about the cost of building a website:

• How Much Does it Cost to Build a Website?
• How to Build A WordPress Website Under $1K With Elementor 3.0?
• How to Build a WooCommerce Store in a $2K website budget?
• Start with Wix, Switch to WordPress – How to Decide?
• Digital Marketing Pricing Packages – Build Custom SEO Pricing Plans
• Agency vs Freelancer – The Ultimate Decision Guide

What Are Some Examples Of Vague Website Price Shopping?

Yes, there are many “price shoppers”. Usually, website price shoppers don’t proceed to the next steps after knowing the cost. Most experienced website developers, digital agency owners are aware of these price shoppers types, mostly during the time of interaction and at times with their vague details in inquiry.

Big Portfolio Showcase Website Vendors Vs Less Or No Portfolio Website Vendors

• Website vendor portfolio showcase or previous work examples help the visitors to get an idea of the capabilities of the vendor that in turn helps to build confidence and check if the vendor matches up with the requirements
• The flip side of the portfolio showcase is that it doesn’t always reflect the real-time or today’s ground reality. Technology is changing fast. People are moving between agencies faster than ever before. So, the previous work examples / portfolio showcase might be with old tech or with previous company employees. 

White Label Website Vendor Partnership Vs Portfolio Sharing Website Vendor Partnership

• Not every digital agency provides white label website services. But, if you’re outsourcing to a white label digital agency services vendor, do check with them what all services they do include under white label 
• Website vendor partnership can also be done this way — based on the necessities and the nature of your business. If you are a startup digital agency or an early stage in business, you may need a portfolio showcase to win your first set of clients. By partnering with a website vendor who mutually shares your vision, strength and understanding of the revenue sharing opportunities, this will work to scale fast, especially if you both share each other’s strengths equally well

Website Vendor Partnership For Industry Specific Vs Website Vendor With Tech Specific

• Industry specialized website vendor partnership provides a greater control and clarity with the domain specific decision making process
• Technology stack specialized teams are growing fast, and disrupting almost all industries capabilities in a much good ways

How To Select A Website Vendor For Regular Website Updates And Monthly Website Maintenance?

If you are active in business, the online mode of the business reflection and promotion happens around the multiple website activities – Events, Job posts, Blogs, Social media etc..

Whether you have an in-house team for website activities or not, you should keep the website maintained well by relying on daily business updates.

Search Of Best Website Vendor Partner For Website Updates And Maintenance

We need to have some quick list of items for website maintenance outsourcing before we start searching for website vendors.

• Create a document containing all different maintenance activities required
• Create tabular chart or prioritize the list of activities
• Discuss and forecast the budget possibilities for the year, quarterly spendings
• Define the monthly website maintenance scope (tasks or timeline) and budget
• Have an idea of how much it would cost you if the website maintenance runs through your inhouse team. Would recommend to allocate 70% of it’s cost for website maintenance outsourcing activities
• Decide the coordination & collaboration possibilities with the outsourced website vendor team
• Have an idea of your payment mode preferences and payment terms

From these popular search suggestions on website maintenance, people are interested in website maintenance cost, types of website maintenance services, website maintenance packages, and consulting help from the website vendor partner to plan for the website maintenance.

Some examples of website maintenance queries at ColorWhistle that we usually work with:

Here are the articles from ColorWhistle about the website development maintenance:

• Custom WordPress Design vs Ready-Made WordPress Themes
• Confessions of a boutique website design agency: freelancers aren’t a bad option!
• Why Should you Redesign your Website?
• WordPress vs Squarespace – Which Is A Better Choice For Your Business Website?
• Why Digital Marketing Demands Website Redesign?
• ColorWhistle and Client Partners – B2B Business Partnership Engagement

How To Select A Website Vendor For Website And Marketing Activities Maintenance?

Digital Marketing usage is growing exponentially over the years now.

The world of businesses understand the importance of digital marketing and opportunities with the digital marketing budget spending.

Whether you are a startup or an established business, your digital marketing strategy is very important to bring competitive advantage to your business.

The key lies in selection of a website vendor partnership with website redesign services and outsourcing your website and digital marketing services.

Website vendor partnership from a digital agency with following capabilities creates a great win-win combination for many business types:

• Creative UX designer, strategist in a web development company
• Modern UI designer, UI developer from a website development company
• Website development experts who are good in handling marketing automation workflow, customize CRM integrations for marketing & sales campaigns
• Content marketing strategist with experience in technical SEO
• SEM, SMM strategist and operations team
• Email marketing and Marketing automation team
• Digital marketing & digital transformation consultant

Here are the articles from ColorWhistle about the website strategies and digital marketing:

• Services Offered by Digital Marketing Agency
• Quick, Handy Tools for Designers, Developers, and Content Writers
• Digital Transformation Vs Digital Marketing
• B2B SEO Best Practices and Strategies
• How Does Digital Marketing Help To Promote Web Application (Saas) Frameworks?
• Website Planning – Ideas, Strategies, and Budgeting

It’s Time To Make A Decision On Website & Marketing Vendor Partnership

After all your website vendor evaluation, you will have to make a decision based on weighing your needs rather than others.

Website vendor partners from anywhere in the world, would need a lot of time and projects to show you the shining stars. The closer your collaboration with the website vendor, the more achievements you make together, simply. 

We believe this blog helps you as a guide on a website vendor partnership, website builder, how a website development company approaches website and marketing together. Feel free to contact us for a quick consultation or get started with our first project today!