Pride First
Do Great Work, Have Happy Clients, Smile
Pride. At the end of the day it’s what matters to us most. What makes us proud? Websites that work. Designs that compel. Clients that love us. Prices that feel reasonable. Quick service. High attention to detail. Integrity. Basic stuff like that.
Consistent Quality
Great Processes Beget Great Websites
In this industry, the best way to avoid headaches is produce consistently high quality websites that make people happy. There’s no silver bullet for this, but over fifteen years and counting we’ve evolved procedures that mean no headaches for us and no headaches for our clients. We see headaches coming miles out and dodge the heck out of them.
If checklists, project management tools, and best practices excite you, you’re in the right place (but you might be boring to talk to at parties!).
Just the Right Cake
A Metaphor About Custom Web Design vs. Template-Based Web Design
In my family, birthdays meant box cakes. They might end up looking like a toy car’s race track or doll’s hoop skirt, but they started in the grocery aisle. You know what? People like box cakes. They’re homemade, sort of. They’re fresh. They taste great. They don’t cost much. No one ever complains about a box cake.
Except at weddings. Those get a special cake, professionally made to please the happy couple. They’re tailored to a specific taste, and if done right, the appearance and flavor contribute meaningfully to the story of the day.
At Austin Web and Design, we mostly make custom-designed, “wedding cake” sites. However, just like a wedding cake is overkill for a kid’s birthday party, so is a custom-designed site inappropriate for a client whose ROI doesn’t justify the cost of a custom design. For those folks, we do template-driven designs with Wix, SquareSpace, WebFlow, and Shopify.
Here’s the Story
Of a man named Isaac.
The founder of Austin Web and Design, Isaac, was once Director of Marketing at an Austin law firm, where, like any business, it was important that the website convey competence and success. When it came time to redesign their website though, all the local web design companies were either too expensive or weren’t offering much in the way of website design. Sound familiar?
Later, Isaac discovered that you can actually build a really nice website pretty affordably, and Austin Web and Design was born. Never again will a perfectly good small or medium business have to settle for a so-so website.
Pretty Sells
Passing the smell test.
It’s funny. The same realtor who would never take his clients around in anything but an immaculate Lexus is perfectly happy with a website they built themselves with Quicken. The same attorney whose lobby is a showplace will let their website resemble an exhibit of late ‘2000s web faux pas.
Pretty websites sell for the same reason pretty everything else sells. Would you trust a business more if they looked successful, demonstrated good attention to detail, and appeared to be passionate about their field? Would you pay more to work with a company that looked like they really have it together?
Nothing succeeds like success.
Our Guarantee
Risk is the enemy.
If you’re shopping for a creative service, you usually don’t know what you’re getting until after you’ve paid for it. Since you don’t pay us anything until after you’ve fallen in love with your homepage mockup, that’s not really an issue with us. Your website will look a lot like the mockup (or template if it’s in Wix or Squarespace or Weblow or Shopify).