Think about choosing a new kitchen for your home.  The cost will depend not only on how many cabinets you need, but also on the finish you’d like.  You could choose a budget DIY store flatpack kitchen or a high-end hand-built solid wood kitchen.  Then you’ll need to consider worktop material, the number and type of appliances, and so on.  You’ll face a similar number of choices when planning your website.

Website prices can range from free to thousands of pounds. In this article we explore the factors that will affect the cost of your website.  How much a website costs will depend on who’s designing and building it, what you want it to achieve, and the technology used to create it.

Typical costs for a WordPress website in the UK

So how much does a WordPress website generally cost in the UK today?

The average cost will typically fall within the range £1,000 to £20,000.  But as we have already established, the cost will depend on many factors, such as:

• The scale of the website – how many sections and pages
• The complexity of the design
• The amount of customisation needed in order to add the functionality you need

For small businesses, the average professional website build typically falls between £3,000 and £10,000. 

The table below sets out a very rough guide to website costs, depending on the type of website you need:

Don’t forget, if you need specific functionality for your website this will affect the price. You should treat the prices in the table above as a very approximate guide.

What are the factors affecting the cost of a website?

1. Project approach

DIY drag-and-drop websites

You could consider a DIY website.  There are now many providers that offer platforms allowing you to drag-and-drop pre-designed components onto a webpage.  This means that anyone can build a website even if they’re never written a line of code in their life.  There are many reasons why you should avoid DIY website builders. This type of website tends to perform very poorly and you will undoubtedly regret taking this approach.

Template-based websites

Alternatively you could use either a free or paid-for ‘off-the-shelf’ template into which you enter your images and text.  The good news is that these are less compromised technically than the DIY drag-and-drop style websites. However you will still end up with a generic website that might look similar to thousands of others.

Bespoke websites

If you have the budget it is always better to hire a professional to create a bespoke website, tailored to your specific needs.  It will have been designed from a clean-sheet and carefully considered to meet your business goals. It will have been hand-coded with care, and optimised for speed.  This approach will undoubtedly give you a result you will be more pleased with. More importantly it will give you a website that performs better with search engines – and your customers.

2. Hiring a professional web designer

The cost of hiring a professional to design and build your website will make up the largest proportion of the total cost of the project.

There are usually two stages in the process of making a website: Design and build.  If you can find someone with experience in both areas, you may find this easier as they will be able to handle the entire project for you from end-to-end.

It is always best to ask for a recommendation if you can.  If you can’t, search for a web designer that has many years’ experience. Also, check out their previous work to examine the quality of the design and user experience.

Avoid online services such as Upwork where you can connect with freelancers (typically overseas).  You will find they offer very competitive prices, but you must exercise caution or you may end up with poor quality work. You could be buying a DIY drag-and-drop website presented as a quality piece of bespoke work.

3. Functionality

Whilst there are some elements that are common across most websites, beyond this no two sites will be the same.  This is because your business goals will dictate that you need specific functions or technology to ensure the site is effective.

Examples of functionality that will increase your costs, are:

• Dynamic filtering or sorting of content such as your products or services
• Integration with third-party services
• A mailing list registration form that connects to your CRM

These are just a few examples, and you’re only limited by your imagination.  Most features that you can think of can be achieved if you have sufficient budget.

4. Hosting, domain name and SSL certificate

Aside from paying your web designer, you will also need to consider some ongoing costs to third parties.  You’ll need to keep paying these in order to keep your site working after it has been built.

• Hosting
  Hosting is space that you rent to house your site in order for it to appear on the web.
• Domain name
  Your domain name is your unique web address, which your customers will type into their browsers to find your site.
• SSL certificate
  An SSL certificate secures the connection between your customer and your website. This is now essential as most browsers mark websites without this as unsafe.

Hosting can cost around £10 – £20 per month.  A domain name is often around £20 per year, but can sometimes be bundled with your hosting for no extra cost.  An SSL certificate might cost you around £60 – £80 per year, but again some providers bundle this with the hosting for no extra cost.

Always ask your web designer about their recommendations for hosting, domain and SSL certificate providers.  They will have a wealth of experience and be able to advise you about reliability and customer service as well as price.

5. Search engine research and optimisation

Your website will only perform if people can find it on Google and the other search engines.  Having an SEO professional provide data-backed research that can inform both the design and structure of your site will pay dividends in the long term.  Whilst this work can be done retrospectively this is often more difficult. Reverse-engineering the recommendations into a completed website will take longer and be more expensive as it may require design changes.  It is far more effective to factor SEO into your project from the beginning.

How to minimise your costs

Ideally, ask your web designer to give you a fixed cost for your project, rather than simply paying them an hourly rate until the site is completed.  Hourly-rate projects can very easily spiral beyond initial expectations if you get carried away with design changes and feature requests that weren’t part of the original plan.

Even with a fixed price project, costs can escalate if you don’t work with your web designer in an organised way.  The fixed price will include a defined number of designs and design revisions.  If you can’t decide what you want or keep requesting changes to completed work, you will be asked to provide additional budget for this extra work which wasn’t part of the original cost.

Website maintenance and support costs

Finally, once you have completed your website, don’t forget to look after it.  It is vital to keep your website updated with the security patches and bug fixes.  Whilst you can attempt these yourself, if something goes wrong it can be tricky to get your website working again.  It is better to leave these updates to a professional.

Regular maintenance will ensure that your website will last for many years, and will help you get the best value from your initial investment.

The cost of website support and maintenance can vary.  Having the person that built your site deliver this support makes sense. No-one will know your site better than they do.  Running the regular software updates will only take an hour or two every month, but you may want additional time available each month for technical support with any issues that arise.

Conclusion

When considering the cost of your new website, always remember what the website can achieve for your business. A £5,000 bespoke website will quickly pay for itself if it brings 5 new clients each spending £1,000 within the first few months. Obviously this will depend on what you charge for your products or services, but the return on investment can be relatively speedy.

Contrast this with a DIY website that might only cost a few hundred pounds but which performs so poorly you need to scrap it and hire a professional web designer and pay for a new site. You will be surprised how many times this happens.

Rather than being focussed on what the website costs, pay more attention to the process of selecting the right web designer. Make sure that all the factors you need are included in your quotation, so that there are no unexpected extra costs later.

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When designing a website, it’s easy to get lost in discussions about colors, fonts, and fancy animations. While visual appeal and functionality are certainly important, there’s a crucial factor that often doesn’t get the attention it deserves: buyer intent. 

Buyer intent describes how close a visitor is to making a purchase or taking a specific action—like filling out a contact form, signing up for a newsletter, or scheduling a consultation call.

Why does this matter so much? Because buyer intent shapes how visitors interact with your site. 

If your pages aren’t designed to match a user’s mindset and motivations, you risk losing them to a competitor whose website is more aligned with their needs. A website that effectively caters to different types of user intent can significantly boost engagement, conversion rates, and overall customer satisfaction.

In this blog post, we’ll explore the nuances of buyer intent, the types of content that address each stage of the buyer’s journey, and how to incorporate these insights into the design of every critical page on your website. 

By the end, you’ll have a comprehensive view of why buyer intent isn’t just another marketing buzzword—it’s a fundamental element of user experience (UX) that can define the success or failure of your online presence.

In this article:

• What is Buyer Intent?
• Buyer Intent and Content Type
• Buyer Intent and Webpage Design
• The Consequences of Not Considering Buyer Intent
• Closing Thoughts

What is Buyer Intent?

Buyer intent is essentially a measure of how ready someone is to take the next step in the purchasing process. Imagine two potential clients who arrive at your website:

• Client A is just beginning to learn about website design options. They might be asking basic questions such as “What is the difference between a CMS like WordPress and a website builder like Wix?” 
• Client B has done their research, knows exactly what kind of website they need, and is actively comparing different web designers or agencies to see who offers the best value.

In these two scenarios, each user’s primary goals and concerns are different. A single design or layout won’t work equally well for both. 

We categorise buyer intent into three main stages:

1. Informational Intent: People in this stage are in exploration mode. They’re not ready to purchase yet; instead, they want to learn about your field, understand best practices, and compare options. They’ll be looking for blog posts, explainer videos, how-to guides, and educational material.
2. Navigational Intent: Visitors know which brand, product, or service they want to explore and are seeking the quickest path to relevant content. This often translates into branded searches like “Shopify pricing,” “WordPress theme store,” or “[Your brand name] services.”
3. Transactional/Commercial Intent: These visitors are ready to engage in some type of transaction. They might want to fill out a quote form, schedule a call, or buy a product. At this point, they’re actively comparing prices, reading testimonials, and looking for the final push to convert.

Understanding these differences is crucial. If you offer a one-size-fits-all approach to your website—perhaps with a single page that tries to do everything—you risk missing the mark for every type of visitor.

Buyer Intent and Content Type

One of the most effective ways to accommodate various levels of buyer intent is to create and organise content that aligns with each stage of the purchasing journey. Let’s break it down.

1. Informational Intent

People with informational intent are looking for knowledge. They may not even know they need your product or service yet. They’re mostly concerned with solving a problem or gaining an understanding of a topic. 

For instance, a potential client might think, “What’s the best approach to building an online store?” or “What does a web designer actually do?”

Types of Content to Provide:

• Blog Posts: Detailed articles that address common user queries or industry-related topics. For example, “10 Questions to Ask Before Hiring a Web Designer.”
• Guides and eBooks: Deeper explorations of complex subjects, such as “The Ultimate Guide to E-commerce Website Design.”
• Videos or Webinars: Educational materials that break down industry concepts in an easy-to-digest format.
• Infographics: Visually appealing overviews of a process, timeline, or set of statistics.

The key here is educational value. The more value you provide at this stage, the more likely these informational users will remember your brand when they’re ready to move to the next stage.

2. Navigational Intent

Navigational-intent visitors already have a brand or website in mind. They might type your website’s name directly into Google or click on a link from another reputable source. At this stage, they want direct, streamlined access to specific information—perhaps your “Services” page, “About Us” page, or blog.

Types of Content to Provide:

• Clear Navigation Menu: Make sure your top-level navigation is simple, self-explanatory, and intuitive (e.g., “Home,” “Services,” “Portfolio,” “Contact”).
• Internal Linking: Ensure your blog posts and homepage contain relevant links to deeper pages on your site. If you mention your portfolio, link to it directly.
• Search Functionality: If your site has a lot of content, a search bar can help navigational users find what they need quickly.

3. Transactional/Commercial Intent

Your visitor is now ready to act. They’ve done their research, possibly evaluated other service providers, and want to see if you’re the right fit. The key is to reassure them that they’re making the best possible decision by choosing you.

Types of Content to Provide:

• Pricing Pages: Transparent, easy-to-understand pricing or at least guidelines on costs.
• Comparisons and Feature Lists: Show how your solutions differ from others in the market. This could be a comparison table or a list of service tiers.
• Testimonials and Case Studies: Social proof is critical at this stage. Showcase success stories and client testimonials that highlight real-world results.
• CTAs (Calls-to-Action): Prominent buttons or forms with text like “Get a Quote,” “Book a Consultation,” or “Start Your Project.”

By making content that specifically addresses these different stages, you guide each type of visitor through a natural journey, increasing the likelihood of conversion.

Buyer Intent and Webpage Design

Now that we’ve covered the content side, let’s get practical about design. Incorporating buyer intent into your web design means each page or section has a specific purpose and is optimized accordingly. The goal is to avoid friction—any confusion or difficulty that might cause a visitor to bounce.

1. Homepage

The homepage is often the first impression, functioning like a lobby that helps direct visitors to where they need to go. 

For those with informational intent, provide easy access to blog posts or educational content. For those with navigational or transactional intent, make key links—like “Services” or “Contact”—highly visible.

Best Practices:

• Use a clear headline that summarizes what you do or offer.
• Incorporate brief calls-to-action for multiple segments (e.g., “Learn More” for informational users and “Get Started” for transactional users).
• Ensure the navigation bar is prominent and easy to read.
• Highlight unique selling points or your brand’s value proposition.

2. Service/Product Pages

Service or product pages aim squarely at transactional intent, though you can still cater to visitors who are somewhere between research and action. Provide detailed explanations, but keep it concise and scannable. Use bullets, short paragraphs, and clear headings.

Key Elements:

• Compelling Headlines and Subheadings: Immediately tell users what problem your service solves.
• Visual Aids: Photos, screenshots, or videos to showcase your offerings.
• Trust Indicators: Badges, client logos, awards, or certifications.
• Testimonials: Embed short quotes from previous clients explaining how your service helped them.
• Clear CTAs: Don’t bury your “Contact Us” or “Purchase” buttons.

3. Blog & Educational Content

Blog sections should cater to informational-intent visitors. However, that doesn’t mean you can’t also incorporate navigational or transactional elements.

Ideas to Implement:

• Category Organization: If you cover multiple topics, arrange them in easily searchable categories.
• Related Posts: Encourage binge reading by suggesting other articles that are relevant.
• Subtle CTAs: You can embed a CTA banner or text link within your posts, leading to relevant service pages.
• Content Upgrades: Offer a downloadable guide or checklist in exchange for an email address—great for building leads at the informational stage.

4. Contact & Quote Pages

These pages are where transactional intent really shines. Visitors who arrive here typically want to speak with you, get a quote, or start a project.

Crucial Elements:

• Short Forms: Only ask for the information you genuinely need—long forms can scare people away.
• Multiple Contact Methods: Some users prefer email, others prefer a phone call, and some might want live chat or even text messaging.
• Strong Validation Messages: If a user enters incorrect info, provide helpful guidance so they can correct it easily.
• Thank You Pages: After submitting a form, redirect them to a personalised thank you page with next steps or additional resources.

By tailoring each page to address a specific type of buyer intent, you create a seamless journey. This not only boosts conversions but also fosters trust and credibility.

The Consequences of Not Considering Buyer Intent

What happens if you ignore buyer intent altogether? Your website might still look great, but it could inadvertently push users away. Here are some common pitfalls:

1. High Bounce Rates: If a user with transactional intent lands on your website and can’t find clear pricing or a contact form, they’ll leave. Similarly, if someone in the informational phase can’t find resources or guidance, they’ll bounce, too.
2. Lost Sales Opportunities: Without strategic CTAs and well-structured pages, visitors who might have become customers slip through the cracks.
3. User Frustration and Confusion: Cluttered or confusing navigation can irritate visitors. When users don’t find what they expect, their trust in your brand diminishes.
4. Poor SEO Performance: Search engines like Google pay close attention to user signals. If your site has high bounce rates and short session durations, your rankings may drop over time. Moreover, Google’s algorithms are increasingly focused on matching search queries (and thus intent) with the most relevant pages.
5. Damaged Reputation: Word of mouth travels fast online. Negative experiences, even if it’s just from confusion or misalignment with buyer intent, can lead to poor brand perception.

In essence, ignoring buyer intent is like trying to fit a round peg into a square hole. You might eventually force it in, but you’ll damage the peg—and the user experience—in the process.

Closing Thoughts

Buyer intent isn’t just a marketing buzzword—it’s a lens through which you can evaluate every piece of content, every design choice, and every navigational element on your website. 

Ignoring it can be costly, leading to lost conversions, higher bounce rates, and frustrated users who quickly move on to competitors. 

On the flip side, incorporating buyer intent at each step can streamline the user’s journey and make your website a powerful tool for turning casual visitors into satisfied customers.

For web design, this means going beyond the superficial aspects of aesthetics to consider what visitors genuinely need at each stage of their journey. It requires careful planning, user-centred thinking, and ongoing testing.

Remember, not every visitor is ready to purchase on day one. By offering the right mix of educational resources, easy-to-navigate pages, and compelling calls-to-action, you can cultivate relationships that lead to loyal clients and sustainable growth.

If you’re ready to design or overhaul a website with buyer intent at the forefront—and see real results, send me a message today. 

Together, we can create a seamless, user-centric experience that meets your visitors where they are and guides them toward becoming loyal customers.

The post Buyer Intent and Web Design appeared first on Jeremy Hickman.

Responsive Web Design became more important as the adoption of smartphones became widespread. Smartphones had smaller screens than the previously-favoured desktop or laptop computers.  The users of these devices soon became the majority of all website visitors.

Traditional web page layouts didn’t fit smartphone displays which were typically portrait in orientation and narrow.  Responsive Web Design allows the web designer to offer different page layouts to suit these new screen sizes. In 2015 Google started to boost the ranking of mobile-friendly websites in its search results, in a decision dubbed ‘Mobilegeddon’.

Responsive Web Design is device agnostic

Today, there is a huge range of devices on the market today with different screen sizes and resolutions.  Some are landscape, some are portrait, and others are square. Many can switch from portrait to landscape depending on the way the device is held by the user.  The iPhone and iPad are good examples of such devices.

This presents a challenge for the web designer.  However, techniques such as flexible or fluid grids have become a popular way to create responsive websites.  These grids use relative units or percentages to specify their proportions rather than absolute units such as pixels.  Combined with CSS media queries these layouts can adapt to smaller screen sizes. This means the web designer doesn’t need to create separate designs for every device on the market. This makes today’s responsive websites device-agnostic.

Who benefits from Responsive Web Design?

A responsive website will benefit all users and improve their user experience (UX).  The web designer and developer will benefit as they can build one site which works on a range of devices. This is far more economical and efficient than developing separate sites to suit each specific device.

Responsive Web Design improves the experience of all users that browse websites on their mobile devices. This applies whether the user is browsing for pleasure, shopping, banking or for business.  As of 2024 over 60% or website traffic comes from mobile devices.  Over 92% of users consider accessing the internet on their smartphones compared to other devices ¹.

With this level of mobile traffic it is easy to see why Responsive Web Design is an essential technique today.  Search engines such as Google now favour websites that are mobile-friendly, responsive, and fast to load in their search results.

What elements are required for Responsive Web Design?

• HTML (Hypertext Markup Language)
  This is the language a web page is written in, and determines the content and structure of the page.
• CSS (Cascading Style Sheets)
  This is a programming language that determines the design of a web page a web page written in HTML
• Media Queries
  A the part of CSS that allows the developer to specify different designs and layouts depending on the screen size the user is viewing the page on.
• Flexible grids or fluid layouts
  Provide for a content layout (specified in relative units) which can adapt to fit different screen or browser widths.

How does Responsive Web Design work?

When written with RWD in mind, Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) provide for different settings and styling properties depending on the user’s screen size, orientation, resolution or other characteristics.  One of the most common CSS properties related to RWD are viewport and media queries.

Mobile-first design

Your web designer should work on a mobile-first approach.  This is important now that Google and other search engines place so much emphasis on websites which are mobile optimised.

A mobile-first approach means that the designer will consider how the website will look on a mobile device in the first instance. They will then use progressive enhancements to alter the design and layout as space progressively increases on larger screen sizes.

Ideally the website content will be the same across all devices. Early websites developed for mobile devices presented an abridged version of the page with some content omitted. Today, we should show the mobile user all of the content. The page design should make this content easily accessible by the user, given the available screen space. As screen size increases on different devices, the layout can adapt to present the same content in an appropriate way for the additional space available.

The mobile-first approach to Responsive Web Design contrasts to the former graceful degradation approach. This method meant the website was developed for larger screens first, without consideration for mobile. As page elements stopped working on mobile devices, techniques were employed to allow the site to continue to function without the failing elements.  This generally gave mobile users an inferior experience to their desktop counterparts.  With the high level of traffic coming from mobile devices today, the mobile-first approach is essential.

How can I tell if my website is responsive?

It is possible to quickly see if your website is responsive:

• Open your website in Google Chrome.
• command + alt + i to open Developer Tools
• command + shift + m to toggle the Device Toolbar
• Choose a device to view your page from a mobile, tablet or desktop perspective

You will be able to see how your website looks on a simulation of a wide variety of devices.

You may find that your website isn’t responsive or that it gives a poor experience on mobile devices.

Even if your current site is built with Responsive Web Design techniques many weren’t designed on a mobile-first basis. This means that mobile users weren’t considered as the priority. In this case you will almost certainly benefit from a website redesign. Contact me today to discuss your options, and request a no-obligation initial discussion.

¹ https://whatsthebigdata.com/mobile-internet-traffic/

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