SEO and web design pricing

A five-page brochure site and a 60-page site with a page per service and city are different projects. A larger site requires more design, more copy and more testing. Complexity, not page count alone, sets the build time and the design cost.

We design every site from scratch, with no templates. Custom design has a higher cost than a theme, but the design fits your brand, your photos and your buyers. Customization of a template often hits limits fast.

A designer can't fix weak copy. Pages we write cost more than pages you supply, and photos of your actual crew and jobs tell buyers more than stock images.

A logo, colors and photos you already own speed up the design. Creating a brand from scratch is its own design job. Heavy customization, such as custom icons or animation, adds design hours too.

Every site we build comes with an editable CMS, such as Keystatic, Sanity or WordPress. Editing pages yourself cuts the cost of small changes after launch.

Each extra round of design changes adds hours. Clear feedback on the first homepage design keeps the final design close to the quote, and the design cost with it. A careful design agency names the number of rounds in writing.

We design each page for small screens first, then scale up for desktop. Building mobile layouts first avoids a second round of fixes after launch.

Booking, quotes, payments and CRM integrations add development time. Our forms connect to Smarfle or your own CRM, so every lead keeps its source. An online store with product pages and a product catalog requires the most work.

Google calls a page good when LCP is within 2.5 seconds, INP is 200 ms or less and CLS is 0.1 or less. The DOJ says the ADA applies to websites of businesses open to the public. Accessibility and security work belong in the design cost from the first day of the build.

Every page needs checks on phones, forms, speed and tracking before it goes live. Testing time grows with page count and integrations, so it belongs in the design cost.

A site that already ranks requires each old URL pointed at its new page. Skipping that step throws away rankings the old pages earned, so every redesign cost estimate includes a redirect map.

Some designers bill hourly rates, some quote a project fee and some charge a retainer. We quote one fixed price per website design project, depending on scope, and run SEO and PPC as flat monthly fees. Ask any agency how it bills before you compare quotes.

Some studios price design and development separately, depending on who does each part. Our website design quote covers both, plus integrations, so nothing falls between a designer and a developer.

Line up each quote by pages, copy, integrations, hosting and who owns the code. A cheaper quote may leave one of those out, and the gap returns later as an extra cost. Ask each designer to price the same list.

List your services, the cities you serve, the features and integrations you need, two sites you like and any marketing materials you already use. Logins for your domain, hosting and Google accounts speed up the build. Sites go live about a month after we have all content and logins.

Supply your own copy and photos, ask the agency to build core pages first and skip features nobody will use. Pay for depth on the pages that sell, and keep the rest simple.

A website earns back its design and development cost through calls and booked jobs. Track every form and call to its page, and you can measure ROI the way you would for any digital marketing campaign. Investing in pages that sell beats paying for extra pages nobody visits.

Competition decides the workload. Ranking in a crowded legal market takes far more pages, links and time than ranking a pool route in a few nearby towns.

Technical fixes, new service and city pages, links from real sites, Google profile work and a report with calls. You see each task in that report.

Rankings usually start to move within 3 to 4 months, and growth tends to continue past month six. Judge the ROI on calls and booked jobs, not on traffic alone.

Ad spend, a new website build and one-time projects such as an audit sit outside the monthly fee. Each one gets its own line in your written quote.