We know building a website is a non-trivial commitment of your time and resources. Our goal is to be helpful and transparent so you can know whether we're the right team to help you meet your website goals. We've put together a list of frequently asked questions below. If you still have questions or want to learn more about what you're specific project may look like, click the button below to reach out to us directly!
Every project is unique, and there’s no one-size-fits-all charge to build a website. Many factors contribute to the overall cost, including desired functionality, third-party integration, amount of copy writing/ editing, and project turnaround time.
To maintain clear expectations and deliverables for all parties involved, we quote per project, not per hour. The average cost of a custom website we build is in the $8k–$15k range.
At the end of the day, we believe your website should be the most powerful marketing tool in your businesses’ arsenal. If it’s not, your website is failing you—plain and simple. While every business is different, we strive to build websites that easily pay for themselves (if not 2x, 3x, or more) within the first year.
Because we’re fun, of course.
But in all seriousness. When it comes to building a website, you have a lot of options. Some are “meh” options, some are good options, and some are altogether terrible options. It all depends on who you are, what you’re trying to do, and, frankly, how much budget you have.
(In fact, we wrote a blog post on The top 10 design agencies in Central PA. So you should check that out.)
A great way to think about your website project is to draw an analogy to home improvement. Say, for example, you want to put an addition on your house. You’ve got options in who you hire. You could decide to go it alone as a weekend warrior DIYer, you could hire a general contractor, or you could hire a large construction firm.
If your focus is keeping costs as low as possible and you’ve got the skills to do it, taking a DIY approach might be the right choice for you. It probably will take longer because you’re building in the evenings and on weekends, but you’ll ultimately save money doing it yourself. In the same way, you can keep your website costs as low as possible by choosing a DIY approach—if you have the skills. It might not turn out as well or as quickly as you’d like, but you’ll save money (at least in the short term).
On the other end of the spectrum are the large firms. These firms are staffed with teams of designers, developers, project managers, account mangers, HR coordinators, and so forth. Firms like this are equipped to handle large, robust projects, and have the capacity to juggle multiple large projects simultaneously. However, these firms are expensive, charging tens or even hundreds of thousands of dollars for a website.
The parallel here would be your large construction firms. Lots of man power = lots of capability, However, this means lots of overhead, which ultimately means…$$$$$.
In the middle of the road are your smaller boutique design teams. To continue with our home improvement analogy, think of these like your licensed independent contractor. They are talented, skillful, and have plenty of experience, and only employ only a handful of people at most.
Think of Pixel and Hammer like this.
We have the skill and experience at developing a wide variety of professional websites. Because of our size, we don’t take on the ultra-large, custom development, database-driven projects like the bigger firms do. Yet this means that we also don’t have the overhead of larger firms! So we’re able to pass along the savings and offer a cost-effective, professional solution to small businesses and organizations who need more than a DIY approach, but don’t need to pay a team of 20+ creatives.
At Pixel and Hammer, we’ve worked with everyone from schools, to startups, to financial firms, to mom-and-pop shops, to downtown associations, to townships, to nonprofits, and beyond.
If you’re ready to have a website that matches the quality and expertise of the work you do, let’s talk!
Many factors impact the length of time it takes to build and launch a new website. For businesses we work with, the average timeframe from “I’m interested in a new website!” to the official launch is around three to five months. The two biggest factors we’ve found that impact turnaround are:
Yes and no. We bake SEO into our website content, direction, and builds. However, we don’t offer standalone SEO services.
SEO is constantly moving target. Search engines like Google are constantly updating their algorithms. When it comes to SEO, the bottom line is this:
Search engines like Google prioritize sites most likely to provide value for a user.
Fortunately for everyone, gone are the days of having to build out 400 super-specific webpages and repeating keywords hundreds of times to get Google to notice your website. Nowadays, search engine algorithms are far more sophisticated than than they were even five years ago. SEO is no longer concerned with hitting a checkbox of specific information and is instead looking for quality.
In other words, search engines prioritize sites users are most likely to find helpful.
This means, for example, SEO goes up if:
You bet! We design and test every website to meet ADA accessibility standards.
Yes!
We offer hosting for all websites we develop. While we don’t require you to host with us, the vast majority of our clients choose.
When you host with us, you get direct access to our Pixel & Hammer support via email & phone. Should any issues arise, because we’ve developed your site, we’ll know exactly how to troubleshoot or even solve the problem before we hang up the phone.
If you host with another company (e.g. GoDaddy, HostGator, etc), you might get someone on the phone who knows what they’re doing if you ever need support. Your call whether the headache is worth it!
Hosting starts at $450/ year. Pricing is subject to change from year to year.
At Pixel & Hammer, we take website security seriously. We’ve partnered with one of the top WordPress hosting companies online to offer you top-notch safety, security, and reliable.
We build and host your website in a completely dedicated environment. This includes:
The answer is that it depends.
One of the main issues with sites like Squarespace and Wix is that, often, the templates you see and start out with are not what the end result winds up resembling. These companies have paid teams of talented designers to make their website templates look beautiful.
Many users are surprised to find their “professionally designed” template winds up looking a lot more amateur when they’re done than they had anticipated.
If you have a background as a designers and a strong understanding for how elements like typography, organizational hierarchy, color accessibility, and overall user experience interplay to make an effective and compelling website, Squarespace or Wix may be a great option for you.
The other main issue to be aware of with this approach is site longevity. These sites are marketed and designed primarily for the DIYer/ start up/ entrepreneur with relatively simple needs (i.e. basic portfolio, forms, simple e-commerce). We’ve had many clients come to us wanting to upgrade from Squarespace or Wix site to a more customizable, professional solution.
Finally, the drag-and-drop user user interface Squarespace and Wix use adds a lot of back end “bloat” in your site’s coding. These leads to slower page load times, which detracts from you SEO, leads to higher user bounce rates, and ultimately a less effective website.
