We have never seen such cutthroat competition in the digital landscape. Businesses of every scale and from all niches migrate to online expanses investing millions of dollars into their digital spaces. According to stats provided by WebsiteSetup, 576,000 new websites appear each day, whereas over 4 billion people visit the internet daily. Indeed, the market is booming. As a web design company, you cannot miss this golden sales opportunity.
In 2021 not only do people seek the best web design services for small business to establish themselves online, but they also in search of ideas that will create an ongoing value for them. All-in-one solutions come before everything else, turning people into deal-hunters. Therefore, it is the perfect time for you to step up and extend your web design services list.
There is a plethora of benefits for your clients to choose one provider for multiple services instead of several ones:
- It is time-saving. Finding the right person for the task may require extensive and thorough searches, reading recommendations, and conducting interviews. Working with different specialists at the same time may slow down the progress due to time management and all sorts of circumstances.
- It is less nerve-racking. Find and hire several professionals may require your whole devotion to the process. There are so many situations that may break your heart: the executor may disappear without any reason, the deadline can be missed, extra costs might arise out of a sudden, etc.
- It is cost-effective. Quite often, a web design agency offers additional services in a package that has a lower price tag comparing to ones in the market. Besides, loyal clients always get bonuses and discounts, so there is a big chance to strike a bargain.
- It is easily maintainable in the future. Whatever happens with a website, clients can always address these issues to the web design agency that offered and performed extra services for them.
- It is an intangible business asset. When you deal with a trusted provider, you can be sure that you are a top priority. Web design agencies always provide guarantees for their loyal clients without compromising the quality of their work.
Web design agencies also enjoy some substantial benefits. Let us consider them closely.
Benefits to Offer Additional Web Design Services
Apart from facing tough competition with music, web design companies enjoy several benefits of offering additional web design services for small business.
- First and foremost, it presents you with more revenue opportunities at higher margins. You can exponentially increase the profit generated per client. This is important since, even though people require digital footprints and extra services, as we have already mentioned, competition is tough in the web design sector. There are so many vendors: full-service agencies, web design agencies, standalone designers and developers, and even online tools that help non-tech-savvy people to create and maintain their online properties without coding and design skills. Therefore, grabbing every opportunity to make more money with fewer clients is a lifesaver strategy these days.
- Second, it is much more cost-effective to sell to existing clients. Just consider these recent studies:
- You are 60-70% likely to sell to an existing customer, compared to the 5-20% likelihood of selling to a new prospect.
- It is much more expensive (almost 25 times) to onboard a new customer than retain an existing one.
- Clients are more likely to spend more and purchase more frequently from the provider they have been dealing with.
That is why cross-selling and upselling are increasingly popular in the eCommerce sector. Selling to existing clients works: it generates traffic and increases profit.
- Third, it is an opportunity to gain some extra experience and master skills that, at the end of the day, make you a better professional, raise your overall cost and reinforce the brand image.
- Fourth, you may identify, recruit, and train people with the ideal set of skills. Besides, hiring talents from various niches is rewarding, even though it will undoubtedly take some of your time and nerve. Diversity benefits the company since exchanging knowledge and experience always takes the company to the next level.
- Fifth, it helps to build the brand's evangelists. If you can solve all the issues, leaving a client satisfied with your company, you may get yourself a fan. The loyal customer is more likely to return to you and generate more revenue.
- Finally, surprisingly, but it is an excellent opportunity to extend your market. The deal is the satisfied customer is much more likely to recommend you, your agency, and your services to their friends. Who does not like all-in-one solutions that really work, right? We all in search of trusted and reliable vendors who can solve all our issues without extra hassle. Therefore, every happy customer will send friends and peers your way. Word-of-mouth goes a long way.
To put it simply, if you are up to extending your experience, mastering your skills, building your name, increasing brand awareness, inspiring loyalty, turning customers into the company's evangelists, and simply amplifying your profit, then offering additional web design services for small business is certainly for you.
However, before extending your web design services list, it is crucial to know the other side of the coin. Let us consider some drawbacks of branching out.
Drawbacks of Offering Additional Web Design Services
There are not many drawbacks to offering web design services for small business; nevertheless, they still should be addressed to rack in cash. So, what are the main issues of branching out that you cannot ignore?
- First and foremost, you risk sabotaging your core services. If you get carried away with extras, you can compromise the quality of the primary services.
- Second, you can burn out your employees.
- Third, you can hire the wrong employees in a rush that may cost you money and reputation.
- Finally, you can damage your brand image by offering services that are irrelevant to your niche.
To overcome these drawbacks, follow these tips:
- Do not be all things to all people. Do not offer every additional service possible.
- Do not waste your precious time and resources (including human resources) on services with low margins.
- Narrow down the web design services list. Leave those services that are relevant upsell or cross-sell of your core services.
- Based on the team's personal experience and expertise, prioritize services that you are best at.
- Scale web design services list gradually. Start with safe options and then work your way towards other ones.
- Always grow your service menu without forsaking quality. Remember, quality over quantity, even if new service promises extra margin.
- Think through the logistics of offering services beforehand.
To sum up, extending the web design services list benefits both parties. However, some drawbacks and obstacles should be overcome. Always play smart and do not collect dust. Focus on things that not only matter for your clients but also directly relate to your core services.
To give you some hints on what to add to your web design services list, we have gathered the five best web design services for small business that upsell and cross-sell web design creation.
5 Best Web Design Services for Small Business You Must Offer in 2021
We will cover the best strategies for growing your income from website projects that will correlate with your core web design service and, most importantly, meet the current market's needs.
These web design services are versatile; therefore, they are perfect options for extending your eCommerce web design services menu as well.
1. Ongoing Website Maintenance
The first additional web design service that you may offer to your existing clients is, of course, ongoing website maintenance. If your core service is creating website designs, then this is the first step to take. And it is essential extra, because of several good reasons:
- According to stats, the lion share of clients that hire you are non-tech-savvy people. Therefore, not only creating but also maintaining their websites can be very hard for them.
- There is no such thing as a perfect website. Mistakes and crashes happen all the time. Some of them are technical, while humans cause others. With ongoing maintenance, you can ensure proper functionality and a consistent user experience.
- Keep site up-to-date. No one likes outdated designs. They scare potential customers away. Staying on top of the site ensures both content and design are fresh and modern. This increases engagement and maintains interest.
- Maximize the marketing side of the project. Employing the latest plugins and programs on the website helps to streamline internal sales and marketing processes.
As for agencies, it is an excellent opportunity to learn about customers and get a complete understanding of the target market.
At a minimum, ongoing website maintenance involves such things as:
- keep up with security updates,
- run backups,
- publish fresh content,
- fix mistakes and bugs,
- introduce new features,
- ensure a positive user experience.
Cost As a rule, web design agencies offer packages and charge a monthly retainer that is beneficial for both sides. As a vendor, you can be sure about ongoing revenue, whereas clients can plan their budget and avoid sudden expenses.
Depending on the type and amount of additional services and the website's scale, the cost of web design services may drastically vary. Usually, it starts from $100 per month for making backups and occasional check-ups of the website and ends with thousands of dollars for offering a full package of maintenance.
2. WordPress Support
Even though the recent studies show that WordPress is one of the most friendly content management systems in the World, making it the most popular solution on the web; still, people, regardless of their technical skills, address this issue to professionals. There are many good reasons for that:
- Extending functionality in WordPress can be tricky, even for clients with a technical background.
- Maintaining a WordPress website takes up time and requires owners to allocate an hour every day to manage it efficiently.
- WordPress, as well as its custom plugins and themes, require constant updates and check-ups.
- Finally, there is no traditional instant support. Even though WordPress is regularly updated, still bugs and problems appear all the time. However, as a free product, all it has is a free community where you can get help in the form of "Q&A," which can be tricky and time-consuming.
Clients often seek a trusted developer who can do all the heavy lifting for them while focusing on more important tasks like generating quality content, expanding the target audience, or running marketing campaigns. Therefore, as an additional web design service, ongoing WordPress support is a hard-to-beat offer. It is also a great addition to your eCommerce web design services list since many online stores are powered by WooCommerce, a trusted eCommerce plugin for WordPress.
The WordPress support covers a number of tasks, such as:
- core WordPress updates,
- plugin updates,
- theme updates and customizations,
- website backups,
- protecting websites from hackers and malware,
- optimizing the website for speed and performance,
- uptime monitoring,
- extending functionality,
- gathering actionable insights about traffic, etc.
Cost Much like ongoing website maintenance, you can create plans and receive monthly payments for conducting a list of tasks.
As for the cost of web design services, WordPress support is a relatively small expanse item. Therefore, the majority of the customers can afford it. The price tag starts from as low as $100. However, it can quickly go up if you need to support a large portal or eCommerce website with constant updates and customization works.
3. Search Engine Optimization
Search engine optimization is one of those complimentary web design services for small business that has carved quite a niche for itself, becoming an integral part of every digital agency out there.
Every niche and every project benefits from working with SEO specialists. It helps the website to thrive. Let us consider some good reasons why SEO services matter for companies:
- It helps to generate organic traffic to the website.
- It is a critical component of the buyer funnel.
- It contributes to a brand's visibility.
- It ensures a better user experience.
- It optimizes digital property for a specific vicinity making it an indispensable tool for small and mid-scale businesses that target local markets.
- It monitors for changes to stay ahead of the competition and make the website a better place for people and search engines.
- It ensures a good reputation for your brand and high ranks in search results.
- It is a long-term strategy.
SEO is vital for everyone. The Ahrefs, the top SEO specialists in the World, backs up this with their extensive studies that show that more than 70% of online experiences begin with a search engine.
So, this one is undoubtedly to include in your web design services list. But, what to focus on? SEO is a broad sphere that comprises numerous services. If you have never dealt with it, then zero in on only one specific area. It can be on-page SEO, off-page SEO, or technical SEO.
Though, bear in mind that usually, digital agencies opt in favor of complex solutions that cover the best of the best services from these areas.
Cost The cost of these web design services depends on the scope of the project. Yet, even at minimum, it is not on the cheap side. It has the capabilities to generate a substantial profit for your firm. As a rule, the basic plan starts with $500 per month and increases exponentially for bigger projects.
4. Copywriting
It starts with words. Whatever niche you are working, whatever product you sell, and whatever mission you pursue, content is always a top priority. It is still a king that sets its own rules.
As proof, recent studies show that more and more web design companies are placing importance on a design process that starts with content. Due to the short attention span that people have these days, visitors often do not read everything you write, and some even scan text. However, you still need to deliver your message. It is here where the copy should unobtrusively lead the reader to the right places.
When well done, it also builds trust in the company, leaves a favorable long-lasting impression, and has dramatic results in terms of sales. Therefore, copywriting services are in the running and consider to be the best web design services for small business.
Here, you can focus mainly on onsite copywriting that include:
- keyword research,
- topic research,
- blogging,
- creating key landing pages,
- creating SEO-optimized content for inner web pages,
- creating social media copy for popular platforms.
Cost The cost of web design services in copywriting niche depends on the professional level of a copywriter. For instance, copywriters charge from $70–$100 per hour for juniors to $130–$240 per hour for top-level specialists.
5. Hosting
Hosting is one of those aspects without which a website cannot exist. Literally, there is no other way. Everyone needs that, and everyone will deal with it eventually. However, managing hosting always sounds challenging to people, especially those who do not have a technical background.
As a consequence, clients often address this issue to professionals. It means this is another golden opportunity to rack in some extra cash and extend your web design services list.
There are several good reasons why offering hosting services is beneficial for web design companies. For instance,
- It requires a monthly payment. Although sometimes this payment is not considerable, it is still recurring revenue that is the lifeblood of a web design business.
- It is an upsell and cross-sell opportunity. When you are in constant contact with your clients (for example, by sending reports all the time), you get a good sales opportunity each month. More so, selling to existing and constantly nurtured customers is much easier than to new ones.
- It increases customer satisfaction and elevates your brand image. By monitoring the website, you can quickly fix minor bugs or issues that establish your web design agency as a trusted partner.
- You do not need to manage your server. You can get a reseller hosting account.
Cost Perhaps hosting is one of the cheapest options on our web design services list. Usually, basic plans start from $50-$70 per month. However, it may still bring profit. It can quickly grow up depending on such factors as the type of website, type of server/hosting provider, traffic, etc.
Three Other Web Services
There are three more web design services for small business that you should consider as an alternative path to escalate your web design services list:
- UX,
- accessibility,
- graphic design.
They are a natural fit for your core service and are certainly high in demand these days. The more we offer, the more opportunities we will have. However, it does not mean that we should get carried away and scale web design services list infinitely. Much like with any other business, you need to know when to stop. Always remember the golden rule, quality over quantity. Do not burn the midnight oil and do not collect dust.
Conclusion
Play smart when extending your menu of services. Take baby steps by adding extra features to avoid harmful consequences such as losing loyal clients or burning out your beloved employees.
To make it work for you, first, focus on extras that closely relate to your core service.
Second, think through the realization and extra costs that may arise.
Third, make a plan and set goals for new services to analyze their feasibility.
Finally, always remember that offering different web design services should not be only about making money. It should be all about creating value for society and helping others solve their issues and reach their goals.