Modern business cannot work successfully outside the Internet. At whatever stage it is, an online presence is a must because it shows the company’s readiness to keep up with the times and adhere to up-to-date technologies and conditions. Nevertheless, startups do not hurry to enter the online space and create a website due to the limited resources and small budget. Of course, in their situation, it makes no sense to invest in a complex project, like, for example, an eCommerce site with many integrations. However, to attract more customers and grow brand confidence, they can create a simple website or brochure website. It does not require much time and effort and is a perfect way to present the company to the online world. This article will take a closer look at what a brochure website is, what it consists of, and what benefits it brings. Also, we will list the pros and cons of such a site and determine its cost.
What Is a Brochure Website?
A brochure website is an electronic analog of a printed brochure. In turn, a printed brochure is a mini-catalog that provides information about the company and briefly presents its services. The primary purpose of the brochure website is to talk about the company, show what it does, and provide examples of its works, services, or products.
But, how is a brochure website different from other sites?
First of all, due to its simplicity. A brochure website is a set of several pages (usually 4–5) that contain relevant information about the company. A typical brochure site includes:
- Home page
- About us page
- Catalog
- Blog
- Contacts
Unlike the eCommerce site, it does not have a payment gateway integration which means the customers cannot buy the product directly from the site and pay for it online through a credit card. Besides, the brochure website does not have account creation and authorization functionality. This is because it does not imply adding products to favorites, creating wish lists, or filling up the shopping cart. The user does not need to enter personal data, such as name, address, card number, because they cannot shop online.
In fact, the brochure website is a webpage created by the HTML/CSS specialist. All the logic of such a page is embedded in the HTML code, so no backend developers are required. Two people may be enough to create a simple brochure website — a UI/UX designer and an HTML coder. With their help, you will get a beautiful online cover for your business in the shortest possible time (usually 1–2 months).
Who Needs Brochure Website?
As mentioned earlier, a brochure website is a win-win solution for a startup business. It does not require much investment and helps novice companies strengthen their brand through an online presence in the target market. A brochure website is suitable for any type of business activity:
- retail
- wholesale
- cafes / restaurants
- legal services
- beauty salons
- hospitals
- consulting
- etc
The UI designer will work out the unique website style to communicate your company’s philosophy and properly advertise the product/service you offer. Further, you can (and should) take a direct part in filling it with the necessary content:
- suggest texts (or describe what they should be about)
- provide live pictures of products, the process of their production (if it is relevant), the provision of services and received results, etc.
- post photos of employees, office, moments of corporate life
- add useful links, tips, articles
- embed media files content
Once it is ready, introduce your website to existing customers and encourage them to share it with friends. This will help spread the word about your product, make your company recognizable, and increase brand loyalty.
Brochure Website Advantages
The main and undeniable advantage of a brochure website is its low cost and high speed of implementation. With a minimum effort, you can quickly push your business online and introduce your brand to a broader audience. Besides, your simple brochure website can bring you a lot of other benefits, such as:
- an extra way to tell about your product
- a chance to make a good first impression on customers who first finds you online
- low to no efforts from your side to support the website
- an opportunity to increase ROI even without online sales
Brochure Website Disadvantages
The main disadvantage of a brochure website is its weak SEO efficiency. Typically, such sites are far beyond the top 10 search results. So, if you do not invest in its promotion — post relevant content, optimize keywords, monitor technical performance — it is useless to count on customers base growth. Therefore, before investing in such a project (albeit a small amount, but still), you should understand that the brochure website will not act as a generator of new customers unless you constantly work on its optimization.
Is It Possible To Fulfill Brochure Website With Advanced Features In Future?
Definitely, yes. A brochure website can be developed and transformed into any more advanced web product to meet the needs of your growing business. The launch of a brochure website is, to some extent, the launch of MVP. You use it to watch users’ reactions and decide whether it is worth moving towards more advanced and expensive technologies.
Let’s imagine you are a small retail business owner. You run your business offline, but create a brochure website to grow your target audience. With the help of the site, you tell customers about the full range of products and let them order even those goods that are not currently in stock. Soon, your customers start asking why they can’t place an order directly on the site. After all, it is much more convenient to buy and pay online rather than call by phone or go to an offline store. Realizing that you have a formed online audience, you can start filling your site with extra features. In the case of eCommerce, you will need the following functionality:
- User account. Here the customer can fill in personal information, delivery address, and link a credit card.
- Shopping cart. This is where the customers will put the items they want to buy.
- Online payment. This allows customers to pay for goods and services directly on the website page. To implement such a function, you need to integrate a payment gateway.
You can also consider creating a wish list, filters by parameters, related items, online chat with a live operator or chatbot, and many others. Different features may be added and upgraded along with your business growth. Thus, you can gradually transform a simple brochure site into a powerful tool for generating profit.
How Much Does Brochure Website Cost?
The price of a quality brochure website is approximately $3000–5000. Of course, you can come across prices that start from $500, but such figures are not realistic. Firms that offer such a cost are unlikely to deliver a high-quality product. Don’t forget the mentioned price includes only pure development. If you want to promote and SEO-optimize your site, you will bear extra expenses. If you want to add more features in the future, the cost will depend on the complexity and work scope to be done.
This article was originally published at Softensy.
