WEBSITE DESIGN PORTFOLIO
TORONTO WEB DESIGNERS
OUR BEST TIPS TO HELP YOU CHOOSE THE RIGHT AGENCY FOR YOUR BUSINESS
HOW MUCH DOES A WEBSITE COST IN TORONTO?
For a brand-new business, we typically recommend our small business web design packages which starts at $1793 - $3793 , really depends on the number of features you need and how many pages you would like to have. For e-commerce websites we recommend you to check out our ecommerce pricing page where we talk about our Shopify packages. If you are an enterprise level business and need more advanced features, we have a WORDPRESS pricing page on our website that gives you more details about the package structure.
WHAT TYPE OF COMPANY SHOULD YOU HIRE?
For a new business, we typically recommend you to hire a full-service team of Toronto web designers, so that they can help you get your website launched, and build a custom marketing strategy that’s going to help you get more customers coming into your business.
Hiring a Toronto web designer that only knows how to build websites is going to be more difficult for your later on, because they don’t necessarily know what are the right pages you need on your website to help your rank higher on Google, they might also not know the best practises from an SEO perspective on how to follow Google’s rules in order to prevent your website from being penalized for violating any Google policies. It really depends on the level of experience your Toronto web designer has, but just to be on the safe side, it’s always better to hire a Toronto web designer that also knows how to do digital marketing.
BEST PLATFORMS FOR WEB DESIGN
There are tons of platforms to build websites on, some of them are better than other’s so it’s important to choose something that has all the features you need today and something that can handle your business growth in the next 5-10 years.
Technology does move very fast; some platforms are better than others in terms of staying up to date on all the latest innovations and technology. When you meet with our Toronto web designers, we take a look at your business model in depth, we also look at your business from a marketing perspective and try to figure out which platform is going to be the best fit for your business long term.
For most small businesses that sell services, we typically recommend our small business package which ranges from $1793 - $3793 . Our Toronto web designers will build your website using our own cloud-based web design platform that has all the features you will need long-term.
Best of all, once your website is done, we can actually train you or your team on how to edit your website. This allows you to make updates and changes to your website as you need them.
For businesses that focus on selling products online, we recommend our e-commerce packages, we typically build ecommerce websites on either the ECWID platform or SHOPIFY, which are the most popular and most affordable options for small business owners.
For enterprise level businesses that want more advanced customisations, we recommend WORDPRESS, since it is a very reliable solutions for businesses that always want to have the option to custom code new features on their websites.
HOW TO GET CUSTOMERS TO THE WEBSITE
Having an amazing looking website is important, however if no one sees it, then it really does not matter how good your website looks. On the flipside if you spend 1 million dollars on ads and people see your ugly website, guess what? they are not going to convert into paying customers or ever come back to your website. So, you need to be mindful of both when you go about hiring a Toronto web designer in your area. Save yourself time, energy and headache and work with a local Toronto web designer that knows how to build amazing looking websites along with a digital marketing strategy that can bring the right type of customers to your website. Imagine what a peace of mind your website can bring you if you had a sales machine that was constantly bringing you qualified customers or generating online sales for your new business. With over 10 years of experience, and working with countless businesses in a variety of niches, we know a thing or two about creating websites and marketing campaigns that generate revenue for our clients in Toronto.
HOW TO BRAINSTORM IDEAS FOR YOUR WEBSITE
The best way to brainstorm new website design ideas is to go on Google and search for your products and services to see who the top competitors are in your niche. Study their website carefully to see what layouts they use; what types of photography they have on their website and just get an overall feel of what kind of website you are up against.
Your future customers will compare your website with your top competitors’ website and make a decision on who they want to buy from. Ideally you want to get majority of the sales, so you have to build a website that is really going to wow your new customers.
CONTRACTS OR NO CONTRACTS?
Contracts were invented for a reason, because unless it’s written on paper or digital paper, people don’t usually have an incentive to keep their word, especially when money is involved. Before you hire a Toronto web designer, regardless if its our company or your best friend from school. Always have a contract, this way you know exactly what you are going to get for your project, how much it will cost and payment terms. Contracts help to keep the transaction smooth so if there are any issues that come up, both parties can always refer back to the contract and see what they agreed on.
HOW TO NAME YOUR COMPANY CORRECTLY
This part is extremely important, if you skip out on this, it could cost you a fortune in lost revenue. For example, let’s say you own the .ca version of your domain and forget to buy the .com version of your domain. Few months later if another company decides to start a website with the same name as you with the .com version of your domain, both of your websites could potentially rank on the first page of Google for the same keyword. Depending on who does better SEO, if that company ranks above you, they could be taking all of your traffic and your customers. This would mean that your advertising dollars are literally going to waste by sending that traffic to someone else. Make sure when you are buying a domain, get yourself registered for the .ca and .com version so you never have this problem in your business.
IMPORTANCE OF CONTENT ON YOUR WEBSITE
Your website is not going to look good without content, you want to put special attention to the kinds of photography you use on your website, along with the text content as well. We typically want to write content that educates the customer on which of your products and services are going to solve their problems. We also want to choose great photography that really dresses up your website. Its always good to hire your own photographer and take amazing pictures of your products or services, if you can’t do that, there is always stock photography. We typically choose the photography on behalf of our clients who hire us for website design, but you can always visit some of our recommended sources to find images for yourself. The links to all the best stock photography websites are posted at the bottom of this page.
HOW TO SECURE YOUR WEBSITE
If you don’t want to have your website hacked in the future, or you don’t want your website to get any viruses, we highly recommend you to have your website secured. Our Toronto web designers do this as standard in all of our web design packages, however we always come across clients who want to hire us for marketing, but don’t have secure websites. Getting your website secure is a very simple process, you can go on the GoDaddy website and buy their SSL package and their customer support team can definitely help you get that setup. If you don’t secure your website and it happens to get malware, Google will lower your rankings and this will negatively impact your rankings. On top of that, if you decide to do Google advertising, Google will automatically disapprove your ads due to malware. So, don’t risk it and get your website secured from the beginning.
DO YOU REALLY NEED SOCIAL MEDIA?
At this point it is safe to say that social media is now a part of business culture in the new digital age that we live in. When customers come to your website for the first time, they are usually going to judge you on several different factors before they make a purchasing decision. First, they will compare your website to your competitor’s website, typically if your website looks better, you will capture their attention for longer, next they will look at the content on your website, your portfolio or product photography, next they will look at your reviews. After all that, they will check to see if you are active on social media. By being active on social media, you let customers know that you care about your business and that you are a legit player in the industry.
You don’t have to post on social media 24/7 but you do want to post something on a weekly basis, this could include video content, photos of your work or just contributing to your stories. Testimonials are another great thing to share on your social media pages because customers do spend a lot of time on social media during their off time, the longer they spend interacting with your digital assets, the higher your chances of converting that person into a paying customer.
WEB OPTIMIZATION TIPS BY GOOGLE
If you don’t already know this, you need a fast loading website, which means all those images that you upload to your website, you or your Toronto web designer need to have them compressed. If your website takes too long to load, Google will lower your rankings. On top of that, people will click the back button and go to your competitor’s website and do business with them instead. Our Toronto web designers prevent this from happening by using Amazon Web Servers as our proffered hosting provider. Amazon has the best hardware in the world so your website will always be secure and load fast. We also implement various strategies that help improve your website load speed.
We also build responsive websites as standard for our clients, the world is changing and people are shifting their time from tablets, smartphones, laptops and so on, so we build websites that can adjust and look great on any device that your customer happens to be on when browsing your website. By not having a mobile optimized website, Google won’t rank you well on the first page of Google when people look for your products or services on mobile.
CHOOSE A TORONTO WEB DESIGNER YOU GET ALONG WITH
This last tip is hugely important, chances are you want to hire a Toronto web designer that you actually have good rapport with. You will have a long-term relationship with this person even after your website is done, most likely you will end up speaking with each other on a monthly basis to discuss your marketing campaigns, you want to hire someone with good attitude and someone who is really passionate about their work and a strong desire to bring you results. That being said you as a client want to do your part and be a good client to work with.
Here Are the Best Resources of Tools, Links & Free Business Training Links for Business Owners
Free Stock Photography Resources
https://www.gratisography.com/
Paid Stock Photography Resources
https://www.bigstockphoto.com/
Best SEO Blogs For Free Training
Neil Patel: https://neilpatel.com/blog/
The Moz Blog: https://moz.com/blog
Search Engine Journal: https://searchengineland.com/
Search Engine Roundtable: http://www.seroundtable.com/
SEMRush Blog: https://www.semrush.com/blog/
Yoast Blog: https://yoast.com/seo-blog/
Google Web Master Central: http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com/
Content Marketing Institute: http://contentmarketinginstitute.com/topic/seo/
Search Engine Watch: http://searchenginewatch.com/
Ahrefs: https://ahrefs.com/blog/
Quick Sprout: https://www.quicksprout.com/blog/
Backlinko: https://backlinko.com/blog
GotchSEO: https://www.gotchseo.com/blog/
Best Web Design Blogs for Free Business Education
Smashing Magazine: https://www.smashingmagazine.com/
Web Design Depot: https://www.webdesignerdepot.com/
Site Point: https://www.sitepoint.com/
Tutorial Zine: https://tutorialzine.com/
Scotch.io: https://scotch.io/
Designs Shack: https://designshack.net/
Best YouTube Channels For Entrepreneurs
Sunny Lenarduzzi: https://www.youtube.com/user/SunnyLenarduzzi/about
Dan Lok: https://www.youtube.com/user/vanentrepreneurgroup
Grant Cardone: https://www.youtube.com/user/GrantCardone
Neil Patel: https://www.youtube.com/user/neilvkpatel
Gary Vee: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCOEMEjL1GBJ41uCWur5VXWQ
Patrick Bet David: https://www.youtube.com/user/patrickbetdavid
Sam Ovens: https://www.youtube.com/user/samovenstv
Silicon Valley Girl: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCiq1FIgtEK7LRAOB1JXTPig
Graham Stephan: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCV6KDgJskWaEckne5aPA0aQ
Entrepreneur Magazine: https://www.youtube.com/user/EntrepreneurOnline
Content Editing Tools & Plagiarism Protection
Grammarly: https://app.grammarly.com/
Duplicate Checker: https://www.duplichecker.com/
How to Get Your Website HTTPS Enabled
More info: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HTTPS
GoDaddy SSL Certificate Purchase: https://ca.godaddy.com/web-security/ssl-certificate
Social Media Profile Creation
Facebook Business Page Setup: https://www.facebook.com/business/pages/set-up
Instagram Business Page Setup: https://business.instagram.com/getting-started
LinkedIn Business Page Setup: https://business.linkedin.com/marketing-solutions/linkedin-pages
Pinterest Business Page Setup: https://business.pinterest.com/en/creating-your-account
Twitter Business Page Setup: https://business.twitter.com/en/basics/create-a-twitter-business-profile.html
Business Directory Listings
Google My Business: https://www.google.com/intl/en_ca/business/
Yelp Business Listing: https://www.google.com/intl/en_ca/business/
Yellow Pages Listing: https://business.yellowpages.ca/onboarding/#/search
Apple Maps Listing: https://mapsconnect.apple.com/
Better Business Bureau: https://www.bbb.org/en/us
Angies List: http://angieslist.com/
Yahoo Local: https://smallbusiness.yahoo.com/local
Manta: http://manta.com/
N49: http://n49.com/
Best SEO Tools For Your Website
SEM RUSH: https://www.semrush.com/
Google Search Console: https://search.google.com/search-console/about
Ahrefs Backlink Checker: https://ahrefs.com/backlink-checker
Yoast SEO Tools: https://yoast.com/wordpress/plugins/seo/
Keyword Everywhere: https://keywordseverywhere.com/
Image Compression Tool: https://wordpress.org/plugins/wp-smushit/
Google Analytics: https://marketingplatform.google.com/about/analytics/
Google Page Speed Insights: https://developers.google.com/speed/pagespeed/insights/
Best Video Editing Software
Camtasia: https://www.techsmith.com/video-editor.html
Final Cut Pro: https://www.apple.com/ca/final-cut-pro/
Adobe Premiere Pro: https://www.adobe.com/ca/products/premiere.html
Best Networking Event Apps For Your Business
Meetup: http://meetup.com
Event Bright: https://www.eventbrite.ca
BNI: https://www.bni.com
Legal Policy Generator for Your Website – Always consult your lawyer before uploading any legal documents to your website
Privacy Policy Generator: https://www.shopify.ca/tools/policy-generator
GDPR Policy Generator: https://www.gdprprivacynotice.com
Refund Policy Generator: https://www.shopify.ca/tools/policy-generator/refund
Cookie Policy Generator: https://www.cookiepolicygenerator.com
Terms of Service Policy Generator: https://www.shopify.ca/tools/policy-generator/terms-and-conditions
Best Websites to Buy Your Domain & Tools
GoDaddy: https://ca.godaddy.com
NameCheap: https://www.namecheap.com
Dynadot: https://www.dynadot.com
Google Domains: https://domains.google/intl/en_ca/
Best Payment Processors
Stripe: https://stripe.com/en-ca
Square: https://squareup.com/ca/en
Shopify Payments: https://www.shopify.ca/payments