When Building an effective online presence you should never be considered your website a ‘cost’ to your business. If your website meets your business goals and objectives and converts visitors into enquiries and sales, then it should be considered an investment.
That all sounds nice and easy, but there’s a lot of work that goes on behind the scenes to make sure you have an effective website. In a recent blog we talked about the importance of getting the pre-planning stage right. We even created a New Business Website Checklist to help you get a website that works for your business.
An experienced Web Design Company will work with you to ensure that they fully understand your business and its objectives. A website is much more than a few pages of text and some fancy pictures…well to us it is!
Take The Sting Out Of Your Project ‘Costs’
Even though we’ve said that you shouldn’t consider your website a cost…we’re fully aware that budget needs to be available for your website project. If you are looking for some help to take the initial sting out of your project costs, there are ways to get help with funding your move to a digital platform.
We have worked on a number of occasions with the Leeds City Region Enterprise Partnerships (LEPs) Digital Enterprise Program both for ourselves and with clients. We are also on their supplier list and one of the Top 100 Digital Businesses in the area.
These programmes cover the LEP area which includes Bradford, Calderdale, Kirklees, Leeds and Wakefield, Barnsley, Craven, Harrogate, Selby and York.
Digital Enterprise can help you in a number of ways…
“You may be looking to undertake a digital transformation project so that your business can grow, such as introducing new IT hardware or software, upgrading your digital/broadband to a faster, more reliable connection, developing your website, commissioning a new CRM system or installing internet telephony. Alternatively, you may be looking to improve your knowledge and skills so that you can take advantage of the digital opportunities available. Digital Enterprise 2.0 can help you become digitally savvy and cover the costs of your digital investment.”
You can check your eligibility to the program using the Digital Enterprise Eligibility Checker.
What Help Is Available?
Digital Growth Vouchers
Worth between £2k and £12.5k. The funding can be used to help businesses to improve their digital capabilities. Things such as new hardware/software, upgrading digital connectivity/broadband, developing websites, creating apps, or installing internet telephony can be included.
Connectivity+ Vouchers
Connectivity+ Voucher scheme. This offers between £500 and £3,000 of funding and can help you to cover the cost of upgrading to faster, more reliable digital connection/broadband.
Digital Resilience
The new Digital Resilience Voucher, worth between £500 and £5,000, has been created to help small businesses with under 50 employees to become more resilient in times of crisis, to help them adapt and be more flexible and ensure they can continue to operate effectively and provide a high level of service to their customers. – This grant is currently closed but well worth keeping an eye on.
In addition you can tap into the Digital Knowledge Exchange. This gives you the opportunity to access to knowledge, expertise and advice on deploying digital solutions. These solutions can help you develop your business via workshops, digital audits and mentoring.
There are a number of other grants that are available from different sources. Make sure you take a look at your local councils’ website for the latest available. Drop us an email [email protected] if you are looking for assistance in a particular and we will see if we can point you in the right direction.
If you think this information would be useful to somebody you know then please pass them a link.