A very common question we are asked by customers is what is the definition of a brochure style website. Put quite simply a brochure style website is just that, a brochure to show the world what it is you do and who you are as a business.
The word brochure as a definition derives from a paper document, often folded, advertising you as an organisation and what products and or services you provide. This of course is still the case for physical advertising but the web design world adopted the word brochure to symbolise the fact that the website is simply and advertisement of your company and its services and or products you sell.
Just like a brochure, a website is only as good as its distribution. The main difference of course, is that physical brochures can be left in shops and or counter tops whereas a website cannot yet be simply left somewhere for someone to pick up.
A physical brochure is essentially a document that has been designed, often glossy, to attract potential customers to purchase services and or products from a business. The design process is exactly the same as a website, with content and images giving information to the reader on page early.
Designed in almost exactly the same way as a physical brochure, websites are often laid out in a brochure style format for the developer to build in a 2D manner. The main difference is that further information can be obtained by the reader by simply navigating the website to find out more about the business and its products and services.
Distributing physical brochures is a time consuming exercise and care must be taken to get the brochure in front of the right audience. This is normally done by thinking about the audience and distributing to venues that you audience is likely to attend. Websites, on the other had, can be easily directed to the right audience by using analytics.
Brochure style websites normally sit within three categories:
Lets discuss standard brochure style websites. These can be anything from a simple one page website through to around 20 pages. Ordinarily, this type of website, would contain a straight forward menu system consisting of Home – About – Services – Contact. The remainder of the pages are made up of information spidering off of the main pages and in some cases via menu drop downs. So in this example you may have a number of services dropped down under the services main menu entry.
The front end of a website is often called a UI which in short stands for User Interface. This is what the customer sees and the back office system namely CMS (Content Management System) is where the website content is developed.
Standard brochure style websites normally consist of a single page website through to 20-25 pages depending on the business and its services and products. It is true that search engines favour websites with more than one page, this is because the content can then be easily dissected into readable content for the search engine bots to crawl.
It is super important to think about your menu structure before you develop and deploy your website. A badly laid out menu is not only confusing to the visitor but also can lead to loss in rankings within the search engines. Pages should be accessible on average between one and two clicks from the home page. Any further in can put visitors off navigating the rest of the website content.
Most website builders will contain on page WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) content editors. WordPress is a great example of a back office content management system which is where the pages are built and content added. This is then transposed onto the front end for the visitor to see and read via the user interface within the internet browser of their choice.
This style of website can often include additional elements such as a booking form for services and or training sessions. This type of form can also include a payment gateway for subscribers to pay for services and or training sessions.
Another type of function of an advanced brochure style website may be a full blog system which can be categorised by subject matter and or areas of interest such as latest news and events.
In terms of page numbers, an advanced brochure website can be anything from 25-50 pages in depth. This will include form pages and initial blog pages. There can also be an element of content and data entry included within an advanced website of this type.
These can take various forms, from a simple book and go system to a fully developed interactive form. Design of a form needs to be set out at the beginning prior to any development taking place. This is an important step to ensure that the form is developed right first time. Forms like this can also include payment options for the customer.
A full blog system is almost a website within a website. Including categories and filter options, each blog post is rather like a page on a website and includes written content as well as images. Search engines do like a good blog post and as long as these are written in the correct way can increase your website ranking within the search engines.
Within the world of websites, page depth relates to how deep the website goes with its content and pages. The more pages you have the more content and images can be used for onsite SEO, which again, the search engines love. This also gives the visitor a real journey, not just through your website but through your business offering as well to further understand the business.
This is where a web design company can really add value to your business and web presence. Normally carried out in a consultative way, project based websites are built in a project planned way. Looking at all aspects of the business to ensure that everything is captured on screen along with all content being created around the objectives of the organisation itself.
Most websites of this type are designed along side a PR company and or Graphic Design agency. Working as a team to ensure everything is done right and in line with the company requirements.
A good example of a project based website would be a business with many arms to its organisation and these would need to be portrayed onto a website in a conformed way to match the ethos of the company. Often comprising of many hundreds of pages this type of website is often built with many stakeholders involved.
It is important that project based websites are designed and developed in a consultative way with the client. Getting an in depth knowledge of the client is so important to get this type of website right. With larger scale businesses often having more that one particular service and or product, knowledge is going to play a big part of the design and development process.
Web Design companies will often work in conjunction with PR Agencies and or Graphic Design companies or individuals to get the job done. This is especially the case when working on a project based website. Working together with 3rd party agencies will ensure that the website is built and designed to the exact client requirements.
Where as standard an advanced brochure style websites often have a limit on page numbers, project based websites are unlimited in their structure. From hundreds to thousands of pages, depending on the business, these websites are large in scale and can grow in size over time. Because there is so much content to get across this can often run into 3 to 4 deep menu systems.
Below you can see our web design and development prices from basic through to more complex e-commerce style websites.
If you have any questions about anything on this page, please feel free to use the contact form below or call us on 01202 937080.
We have 3 package prices which we have illustrated below. Our talents don’t just stop there, we also build bespoke project based websites to match exact client budgets and requirements.
Nothing is standard about what we do, each website is designed to our client design remits or we can design from scratch. Includes multiple pages, built on WordPress which is the number one content management system used world wide. Benefit from a modern looking website without the cost.
£475 +vat
Everything that is included in our standard service but can include additional functionality that you require to run your business. We can development additional elements such as a booking system and dynamic forms. These can then be linked into your internal systems such as CRM and members area.
£850 +vat
We provide this service on a full consultative approach in terms of a web presence solution. This can include customer journey flows through to full colours, branding and video content. Website will be built in an SEO friendly process including content to improve SEO prior to the site going live.
£POA +vat
Once your website is built and live on the web, we offer comprehensive support from simple day to day technical support through to on site content and design updates as and when required.
We offer two levels of support:
Fixed monthly cost which allows our customers to budget this in to their business. This includes all technical support and changes to the website depending on what fixed cost is agreed. Hosting and SSL security certification are also included.
Standard Brochure £35 +vat per month
Advanced Brochure £50 +vat per month
Project Brochure POA +vat per month
Ad-Hoc support can be provided, but as with all of our services we like to be fully transparent with how we work. With Ad-Hoc support we will provide technical support for the website and changes to the website on an as and when we can get to it basis, dependent on our contracted customer demands at that time.
£45 +vat per hour (Minimum 1 hour)
£99 +vat per year hosting
£99 +vat per year SSL Certificate