Frequently Asked Questions

Well, you’ve come to the right place. You can check out our Process section to see the steps – Start to finish.

The financial nitty-gritty of website creation doesn’t have to send you sprinting for the hills, or rocking back and forth clinging onto your tenth coffee while you number crunch.
Costing up your website creation is a simple process, but being clued up on exactly what costs money rather than a ballpark meaningless figure will stand you in good stead to make decisions based on your individual circumstances.

While we will be talking about the website development and design cost, you should also consider the infrastructure (Hosting & domain), creating content, legal documents (like a privacy policy or terms of service) and professional email account.

Your web design is an area where you quite simply get what you pay for. Professional websites built by experienced people in the biz are going to be your most expensive output…but it’ll be key to keeping those customers rolling in and being wowed by your brand.

The cost of a website varies based on the various factors, pretty much like a car or house prices may vary based on the complexity, depth and level of expertise.

If budget is tight or your business is small and you only need a small site, ask for a
minisite or a single scrollable site and you’ll be looking at about £900. An all-singing, alldancing business site will be around £1800 for 12 pages.

Ecommerce sites can also start from £1800 but if you (rightly so) want some more integrated and high-end capabilities to get the edge over competitors it will set you back about £3500, but will be worth every penny.

For more complex platforms like membership sites, marketplaces, directory sites, crowdfunding platforms or other complex functionalities, prices can range from £3500 all the way to £25k for the biggest projects we worked on.

Like with the budget, the time it takes to build a website depends on the requirements and complexity of the project. While some advanced platforms might take 6 months or more to create; it’s pretty safe to say that most projects take about 4 weeks to deliver.

From our experience, the 2 main causes for delay are:

1. communication delays with the client – Even though we will, please don’t make us chase you for replies to our communications.
2. Failure to deliver the content on time – Most clients underestimate the value and work involved with creating the content for the website. If you don’t have the time – no worries, we’ll hook you up with great copywriters that’ll take it off your plate and allow us to deliver the project on schedule.

Every developer will tend to recommend the language and technique he’s most familiar with. Which totally makes sense – you want your developer to feel comfortable, have experience and know his way around the technologies used on your site.

For more than 90% of our projects, our CMS of choice is WordPress.
After years of working with the platform, we can’t think of any reason why we need anything else.

But, like I said in the beginning, we’re probably biased – So don’t take our word for it, here are some number to illustrate our choice:

Infographic by Softpedia News

Yes, all of our websites are 100% responsive.

This means that we go to great lengths testing and ensuring that your new website will work and look great on any modern screen size.

Using a phone, tablet, laptop or TV is commonplace now when it comes to surfing the web. If your website isn’t geared up for mobile-friendly use, the layout won’t be able to respond and adapt to your mobile screen, making it more than likely unreadable.

If you need more convincing, last year Google officially announced they will credit sites by promoting them higher up on the search rankings compared to nonresponsive sites. It’s a win-win.

Yes, you will – we will even train you to do so.

To manage your content you would need a CMS (Content management system)

A good CMS will seamlessly manage all incoming leads, sales and updates, giving you complete flexibility. There are a ton out there, but we use WordPress, which is the most industry-trusted, powering more than 28% of all websites on the internet. It’s highly customisable and unlike other platforms, it grows with you as your business expands.

With every project we deliver, we create a 30-60 minute tutorial video to illustrate exactly how to add, edit or remove any content from your website. On top of that, we include more than 12 hours of short videos regarding the different sections of the CMS, traffic analysis and marketing tips.

Similar to your house or flat, web hosting is like renting out a space. You pay a yearly rent (around £100) and keep all of your belongings there, which in this case would be your website content. Think of customers who visit your website as houseguests, except the more people that visit the more your rent goes up!

While hosting is your house, the domain acts as an address that lets your guests know exactly where to find you. It’s that simple.

It’s like keeping the keys to your house. Whatever your hosting plan, we always insist that the account is registered in the client’s name so there is complete freedom with both their ‘house’ and ‘address’. We’ll work with you to explore the best plan for you, it’s all down to individual needs.

Ace Tip: Always keep control of your hosting and domain account. Putting it in the hands of your web developer will create a dependency that will put you in a jam if you need to replace them, or they disappear (it can happen!)

Your CMS is going to turn your house from an empty box to a space with rooms and facilities. On top of this it will act as a housekeeper with your content organised and accessible, in the places it should be.

A good CMS will seamlessly manage all incoming leads, sales and updates, giving you complete flexibility. There are a ton out there, but we use WordPress, which is the most industry-trusted, powering more than 28% of all websites on the internet. It’s highly customisable and unlike other platforms, it grows with you as your business expands.

Ace Tip: Don’t go with the latest fads when it comes to choosing a CMS. Use a long-lasting CMS like WordPress so even in a few years you’ll be easily able to update or redesign your website, without extra expenses creating issues. You can simply build on the existing CMS without starting from scratch. If the foundations are solid, the house won’t collapse just from hanging up a new shelf.

Using a phone, tablet, laptop or TV is commonplace now when it comes to surfing the web. If your website isn’t geared up for mobile-friendly use, the layout won’t be able to respond and adapt to your mobile screen, making it more than likely unreadable.

If you need more convincing, last year Google officially announced they will credit sites by promoting them higher up on the search rankings compared to nonresponsive sites. It’s a win-win.

Ace Tip: View your finished website on as many devices as you can to make sure it’s nice and smooth throughout. Check it out on an IPad, MacBook, Samsung phone, iPhone… mix it up so there are no nasty surprises after the launch.

Continuing the house analogy from the Hosting and Domain answer above, The content is your belongings in your house; your furniture and decor. All the textual and visual elements of your site are included, company info, services, testimonials, contact info, photos, logo, gallery images, team members and case studies…it’s your brand essence.

Most web designers will ask for this from the get-go. Writing high quality content and website photos require creativity and time, so make sure you ask your web designer if they can recommend a copywriter and photographer that are experienced and reasonably priced.

Ace Tip: There’s no doubt that copy is super important to engage your potential customers. But it’s proven that websites with high quality images give off a better impression than images from a mobile phone camera, so be careful what you put your money into. If budget is an issue, take your pick from iStock for professional, affordable images, or let us source the perfect images to visually represent your brand – we’ve been around the block a few times and know exactly what works!

This should be a one-way traffic flow; your social accounts should drive traffic to your website, not the other way around. Don’t make your social icons and feeds a key focus on your site, as once you’ve diverted potential customers away you lose out on the opportunity to get valuable contact info. There are way too many distractions on social media, so try to keep them in the controlled environment of your website as long as possible. Don’t hand your guests a flyer to your office as soon as they get to your house!

Ace Tip: Regularly publishing engaging, valuable content across your social sites will be the best tool for driving that all-important traffic back to your website.

Ace Digital London started when Vito our founder and managing director was still a freelancer himself. Moving from a one-man band to a full-service agency, we asked him to comment what he thinks is better and why.

“When I was a freelance designer I thought I was providing much better service being 1 on 1 with the client.ut as I accumulated more knowledge I found more and more things that I was never even aware of and that I simply can’t deliver the level of websites I want

But the more I learned, I found more and more things that I was never even aware of and that I simply can’t deliver the level of websites I want on my own. 

Now, as an agency owner, I appreciate the bigger picture and the fact that 2 brains are better than 1, let alone 9 brains (Our current team).
Every team member has their own strengths and contributes from his experience, creativity and knowledge to deliver far better websites in terms of the level of depth I was aspiring to as a freelance designer. 

I also understand the power of processes. As a freelance, you pretty much either do as you’re told or you’re trying to figure it out as you go along. There usually aren’t any structured processes in place to deliver different types of websites. Since you’re usually working on one project at a time there simply aren’t enough projects per month to begin and see patterns to expand or correct.

If you’re looking for a professional result I would definitely say that a good agency can give far more value than any single person can give on his own.”

Well, sometimes you should.

Free templates or ‘out of the box’ websites have been around for some years now and they are a great solution for very small/brand new businesses. So if you’re budget is really tight, you’re probably better off whipping something up on your own using one of the free platforms out there.

But we encourage our clients to look at their website as a new branch of your office or shop – it’s there for generating business rather than a simple flyer to share with friends or family.

While online builders and free resources do help us streamline some of our work and give pretty much anyone around the world the tools needed to create a website and launch it – these are just tools, like photoshop to a graphic designer, a swing saw for a carpenter or a guitar to a musician. It takes years of studying to understand when to use what and how. Would you try and build your own kitchen or your own car? Probably not if you want them to work properly.

The first step would be – getting a great looking professional website that fits your brand and positioning and includes all the tools you need to manage inbound communications.

Without that, it’s like trying to catch fish with a BB gun.

Once this is sorted, you need to have a clear marketing strategy that includes more than 2 methods of marketing.

For example: Driving traffic to the website, using Google ads, trying to convert the traffic into leads using email marketing techniques while re-targeting the same people who showed interest on Facebook.

No one can really promise that and if they are, you should beware.

The idea with SEO (Search Engine Optimization), is to get the highest position in search results on search engines like Google or Bing, the higher you are the more traffic (and customers) you’re probably going to get.

While there are many principles to achieving proper SEO, it’s mostly about being relevant to your target audience. So by creating unique and engaging content, you’re already on the right track.

Ask us about this when we speak – Sometimes SEO is not the best solution and you should focus on other marketing methods to drive traffic to your website.

Yes, we would love to help you create a visual representation of your brand. We create our logos as part of a complete branding package that also includes business cards, email signatures, letterhead and folder.

We put a lot of effort to portraying your brand at it’s best so if you’re looking for a quick logo, we would recommend finding a quick solution on platforms like Fiverr.