How to Design Websites for Small Businesses
The episode discusses web design strategies for small to medium businesses, emphasizing that design is only part of the solution. The hosts argue that choosing the right service offering (full custom, theme-based, or pre-made) based on client needs is crucial, and that many small businesses waste money on unnecessary custom designs when templated solutions would better serve their actual business goals.
Summary
Matt and Mike from HTML All The Things explore web design for small to medium businesses, starting with the fundamental concept that web design involves much more than aesthetics—it includes technical considerations, UX, information architecture, and business strategy. They stress the importance of determining what design services to offer before meeting with clients, presenting four main approaches: fully custom designs, versatile popular themes, pre-prepared websites, and remaking on modern platforms. The hosts emphasize that small business owners typically have finite budgets and specific business objectives (lead generation, bookings, etc.) rather than aesthetic preferences. They argue that overselling custom design to businesses that don't need it is a disservice, using examples like small-town hairdressers and bakeries who would benefit more from cookie-cutter templates than expensive custom work. The conversation highlights a maturation in their agency's thinking—learning to focus time and resources on what actually generates value for the client rather than indulging in design for its own sake. They discuss how lengthy client meetings can lead to scope creep and wishlist inflation, recommending that agencies bring conversations back to brass tacks by identifying primary business objectives. The episode covers gathering brand assets, understanding brand identity (serious vs. playful), and various design directions. The hosts also touch on emerging AI tools that can help create more custom-feeling designs by combining pre-made options with AI generation and manual tweaks, allowing agencies to compete with established competitors using older templates. Throughout, they stress the importance of setting boundaries, saying no to projects outside your expertise, and maintaining integrity in service offerings to avoid becoming a liability to clients.
About this episode
Learn how to choose the right design approach for a small business website - from fully custom builds and versatile themes to pre-made websites and modern rebuilds.
Key Insights
- The hosts argue that spending full custom design budgets on small town businesses like hairdressers or accountants is almost always a waste of money, and that agencies doing so are actually doing those clients a disservice regardless of design quality.
- Matt and Mike claim that the majority of small to medium business websites should be non-custom, template-based solutions because the actual value comes from lead generation, content, and user functionality rather than custom aesthetics.
- The speakers observe that in lengthy client meetings, scope and feature requests tend to escalate dramatically into unrealistic territory, requiring agencies to actively manage conversations back to core business objectives.
- The hosts assert that templated websites from successful agencies serving 200+ small business clients often generate better recurring revenue than custom design shops, because they understand that design matters less than what the website does for the business.
- Matt and Mike argue that many early-career designers make their own egos the priority by insisting on custom design when simpler solutions would better serve both the client's needs and the agency's profitability.
- The speakers contend that choosing not to offer services outside your expertise and turning down projects is better than delivering mediocre work that makes you a problem for the client rather than a solution.
- The hosts claim that for artistic businesses in competitive niches (like photography studios competing with others in a tourist town), design does matter and differentiation may be necessary, but this is an exception rather than the rule for small businesses.
- Matt and Mike observe that understanding whether design itself is core to a client's business (photography studio) versus peripheral (tax accountant) should determine whether to invest in custom design, and that many agencies fail to make this distinction.
Topics
Transcript
Did you know that web design and more importantly for this episode anyway, web design for small to medium businesses is actually a little bit of art and a lot of other stuff. You might think when you hear the words web design, you're like, oh, we're getting the wireframes out. We're getting the prototypes out. We're getting the colors. We're getting the branding. We're getting all those things. And we are to an extent, and we are sometimes getting really into it as well, but other times we're not. And there's a lot of other things that we have to design in order to make that website do work for the small to medium business. And so we're going…
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