It may seem like there are an overwhelming number of choices when it comes to building your website.

There’s everything from DIY services to boutique studios like ours, agencies, contractors, in-house developers and everything in between. Answering a few simple questions can tell you which type of service is the best fit.

Does cost matter more than anything else?

If so, DIY web-hosting services like Squarespace or WIX are probably best for you. They are inexpensive, reliable and if your needs are simple, pretty easy to set up. They are a great solution if your needs fit within what they offer. Their main downside is that your site will look and behave like many others. And if you need to customize something beyond what they support, it very quickly becomes difficult and expensive.

Do you have a large budget and need an integrated marketing strategy?

If so, an agency like Orbit or 8-Bit, can be a great solution. Chicago is lucky to have some of the best web agencies in the country. If you’ve got the budget, they can deliver a great solution tailored to fit your needs. They typically require a budget starting at $25K for a very simple site to over $200K for a more complex site and integrated marketing and branding strategy.

Are you building an app?

If so, you’ll need a team of in-house or contract developers. Some businesses try to use a contract developer simply to build their website, but forget that without ongoing hosting support it will be their responsibility to keep their site updated, secure and available to customers. Building a site without a plan to update and operate it is like building a boat in the middle of the desert. It may look nice, but it’s totally useless. Sadly, this is not uncommon.

Do you want to have to choose between cost, reliability and customizability?

Nobody does, but that’s what most other boutique web studios force upon you by relying on old technologies like WordPress and discount third-party hosting providers.

Do you want a unique, easy to use and memorable experience for your customers on a limited budget?

You used to have to choose between reliability, cost and customizability. These are now solved problems, but those best-practice solutions are not yet commonplace. Doublebond gives you a complete solution with:

  • Best in class standalone CMS services like Contentful and Prismic, making it simple and intuitive to edit your content from any device.
  • Serverless static site generation with Amazon’s Lambda and S3, giving you literally the most reliable hosting platform on the internet.
  • Fast, secure, global content delivery with CloudFlare, ensuring your site loads fast for every customer, every time, anywhere in the world.
  • Handcrafted, pixel-perfect user experience, unconstrained by templates or hosting frameworks.
  • Complete branding solution, including logo design, color palette, imagery and messaging.
  • Curated tools to manage your site and connect with customers with services like Google Analytics, Mailchimp, LiveChat, Stripe Payments and more.
  • We can even help buy your domain name and set up your email with Google if you don’t already have those.