Create winning website packages for small businesses with Website Pro: Tips and best practices

Creating compelling small business website packages that sell requires more than just a knack for putting together attractive designs. Your small business clients do need a website that looks good, but more importantly, they need it to do the heavy lifting for their business by driving conversions and helping them meet their business goals.

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In this article, we’ll help you create small business web design packages that address all the concerns and needs of your prospects. Plus, we’ll give tips on how to offer more value than what might be available through other local website designers, and repeatably, reliably generate revenue for your agency.  You’ll learn what to include in website packages for small business, tips for creating packages that sell, and how Website Pro can be used as an all-in-one solution for creating and managing affordable small business websites.

Understanding your clients

When it comes to selling just about anything, some rules are universal. The central importance of understanding your clients is one of these. Taking the time to discover their wants can help you bypass your biases about what should be included in your small business website design packages. Let’s take a closer look at how you can get to know the needs of your clients.

Identifying client needs and goals

As an agency offering website services, one of your main goals is probably to create a portfolio of eye-catching client websites that stand out and attract more customers. While your clients also likely want an attractive site, their needs and goals go well beyond aesthetics. They’ll want their websites to perform specific functions and support their overall business goals. That’s why it’s so important to go beyond visual references and dig into what the website needs to accomplish to be successful.

Often, you may find that small business clients aren’t able to clearly articulate what their goals are. They just know their current website isn’t working for them, and they require something new. Working through their goals together can help you both uncover what should be accomplished through their new website.

Some possible goals might include to:

• Improve conversions through a smooth, optimized checkout process
• Increase online visibility and reach prospective customers through organic search
• Generate leads for a service or practice-based business
• Improve customer service by providing online support and resources
• Build and maintain customer relationships through engagement and loyalty programs
• Enhance credibility and trustworthiness by showcasing customer testimonials and reviews

Creating a standard questionnaire that all your prospective website customers complete can help work through their needs and goals. Plus, it shows them that your agency is serious about providing solutions, not just attractive designs.

Determining the target audience and demographics

When offering web design for small businesses, it’s best not to try to be everything to everyone at once. This means instead of being a jack-of-all-trades, try to focus on a target audience and get to know their demographics. This will help you craft web design packages that have a better chance of selling because they address specific needs.

For example, if you focus on selling website services to medical and dental offices, your target demographics will be considerably different compared to selling to artisans who want to put their work online.

Researching competing agencies and website providers

To sell website solutions to local businesses, it’s important to know the competition. Use Google to identify competing agencies and local website designers in your area, and check out their small business website packages.

What is their website package pricing? What do they include in their packages? This information will help you build a robust but competitive package for your clients.

Components of a small business website package

Web design for small businesses can include any of the following components:

• Domain name: This is the URL that users can type in their browser to reach the site. It helps reinforce a business’s brand or function, so using its brand name is almost always advised. Domain names should be as short, snappy, and simple as possible. Website Pro seamlessly integrated with Vendasta’s GoDaddy-powered domain solution.
• Web hosting: Hosting plays a significant role in website speed, security, and uptime, so choosing a reliable provider is non-negotiable. Website Pro comes with world-class hosting from the Google Cloud Platform.
• Responsive design: A responsive website “responds” to the browser or device it is accessed from, so it looks and works great no matter who is visiting it. All Website Pro themes are fully responsive.
• SEO optimization: Optimizations made to the content and structure of a website make it more like to appear at the top of Google searches. You can make technical and on-page SEO optimizations directly in Website Pro.
• Content creation: Content that uses a business’s target keywords can help them climb the search engine results pages (SERPs), driving more organic traffic to their site.
• Ecommerce functionality: Many businesses have some ecommerce component to their sites, whether they are primarily online sellers or they just sell a few things to supplement their other business activities. You can set up ecommerce functionality in one click with Website Pro and WooCommerce.
• Analytics and tracking: Analytics like traffic sources, bounce rates, and conversion rates help businesses make informed improvements to their websites. Website Pro comes with built-in Google Analytics.
• DIY building and editing: Some clients may want to DIY their websites using a drag-and-drop page builder like the one included in Website Pro. Since the software is fully rebrandable, you can resell it to clients who may have limited budgets and want something they can use themselves.

Best practices for creating website packages

These practices will help you create website packages that reliably generate revenue—and profit—for your agency.

Tips for creating website packages that sell

When putting together your next small business website package, go through this checklist and make sure it meets every point:

• You have a clear, well-defined audience whose needs you have taken the time to understand
• Your small business packages are simple and clear, without bogging prospective clients down with too many details
• You focus on the benefits your web design for small businesses will bring, such as more clients, better discoverability online, or a higher conversion rate
• You include website package pricing for different budgets
• You offer à la carte services that can be added on to give clients more control over their packages
• You provide ongoing support, rather than just handing off a website and leaving clients to deal with any issues that may arise

Common mistakes when creating website packages

These mistakes can leave your small business website packages floundering, so it’s best to avoid them:

• Overpromising and under delivering, leaving clients feeling they’ve overpaid and didn’t get what they expected
• Ignoring SEO, so your websites are hard to find through organic search
• Underpricing services and cutting into your profits
• Focusing only on web design and ignoring other important factors, like user experience, SEO, integrations, and analytics
• Poor communication with clients
• Neglecting the importance of website security and failing to work it into your costs, especially for sites that collect client data
• Unflexible payment options give prospects a reason to explore more flexible competitors

Tips for setting fair pricing

By now, you know your target audience and have an idea of their goals and needs when it comes to small business website packages. Next, you’ll want to set your website package pricing. Follow these tips to ensure your pricing is fair both to your agency and to your clients:

• Research your local market or the market in which you plan to operate to understand the going rates for similar packages
• Understand how different client needs can be met and what costs you will incur realistically to meet each need
• Don’t undervalue your work: the clients you want know that the cheapest option isn’t the best for something as important as their website
• Be transparent from the beginning about costs and potential fees that might arise in the future
• Consider the ongoing costs of offering your services, such as hosting, in-house website management, and the cost of using white-label experts to handle website design and management
• Provide value to your clients by giving them what they actually need at a fair price

Creating website packages with Website Pro

Website Pro is an all-in-one solution created with your needs as an agency in mind. It includes a drag-and-drop website builder that enables you to create gorgeous, responsive, and fully custom websites without the need to code. You can also access hundreds of responsive, customizable, vertical-specific templates to shorten the design process.

It comes with secure, Google-fast managed hosting, one-click ecommerce setup, 24/7 support, and tools like the Website Admin Dashboard that enable you to manage multiple client websites with ease.

Want to become a one-stop shop for your clients? Effortlessly bundle Website Pro with other solutions from the Vendasta marketplace, like SEO, PPC advertising, social media management, and more. Whatever you want to include in your small business website packages, you can deliver it with Website Pro.

Frequently asked questions

How can a small business website package help my business grow?

Offering small business website packages can help your business grow by giving you something to sell to numerous clients who may not have huge, enterprise budgets. By creating affordable small business website packages, you can build your client base, generate recurring revenue, and create opportunities to upsell more services as your clients grow.

What are the best small business website packages to offer clients?

The best small business website packages to offer clients include beautiful, responsive websites, SEO, ecommerce functionality, blog or newsfeed functionality, domain names, hosting, and robust analytics.