FAQs
Find answers to commonly asked web design questions. We aim to provide transparency to our clients and strive to maintain clarity in our process, recommendations and pricing. If you don’t find the answer you’re looking for here, please contact us.
Here at Pixel, we have recognized various needs that are not being met within the tech industry.
Pixel was founded out of frustration with other digital agencies not delivering the fundamental experience that clients deserve, therefore tainting the digital transformation experience. Our expertise lies in the development of eCommerce stores; utilising cutting edge technology to help us create performant and scalable solutions to solve your problems.
We're experts in developing bespoke custom solutions that solve complex problems and help businesses scale. We're also experienced in developing high converting eCommerce stores built to sell.
We've spent time perfecting our hand-crafted experiences, so much so, that our clients cannot help but tell everyone they meet.
All in all, we're romantics at heart, and love putting smiles on our clients faces.
We're confident that we're the digital partner you deserve.
Our team of expert web designers have built a successful five-step website design process over nearly two decades working with clients across Australia. We encourage our clients to play an active role in our development pipeline as we believe in partnership.
No one understands your business and customers better than you do and the experience and information you bring to the table are a key part of the discovery and strategy phases of our workflow. Using Google Analytics and other data to inform back our decisions is fundamental to our web design and development process and achieving success in growing your online presence.
Learn more about our six-step web design process and how we live and breathe web design.
There are heaps of options, and it might be hard to choose what best suits your needs. Some of your best options are:
- Wordpress.org – globally, is the most popular CMS on the market and powers nearly half of all websites on the internet. A very flexible system that’s built for freedom. Remember this service is different to wordpress.com (the hosting platform)
- HubSpot CMS Hub – this is a fully integrated system that’s designed for business owners. Simple to use, no need for technical skills and various smart features and built-in security features to drive the whole system home. This is a paid CMS with various tiers: starter, professional and enterprise.
- WooCommerce – this is a plugin run through Wordpress, so you will need Wordpress to utilise it. Very flexible and easy to manage. You may need to purchase more payment gateways though, as it only comes with PayPal and Stripe by default.
This is just a few of many, we recommend jumping over to our blog to some more research before making a final decision.
CMS is what’s commonly known as a ‘content management system’ – a piece of software helps the build process of the website with little understanding of code required.
Most websites are written in programming languages like HTML, JavaScript, or CSS. You’d also need to know these programming languages to maintain the website.
To choose the right CMS you want to look at; how easy the software is to use, what website design templates exist and how customisable they are, if the date importing process is simple and streamlined, if extensions can be added on to the existing software and the level of customer support offered.
The cost will vary also, some platforms are free while others will charge you a monthly fee. Be wary that the free options will often require payment of extensions, designs and web hosting.
There are heaps of options, and it might be hard to choose what best suits your needs. Some of your best options are:
- Wordpress.org – globally, is the most popular CMS on the market and powers nearly half of all websites on the internet. A very flexible system that’s built for freedom. Remember this service is different to wordpress.com (the hosting platform)
- HubSpot CMS Hub – this is a fully integrated system that’s designed for business owners. Simple to use, no need for technical skills and various smart features and built-in security features to drive the whole system home. This is a paid CMS with various tiers: starter, professional and enterprise.
This is just a few of many, do some more research before making a final decision. Our blog post for eCommerce stores is a great resource to start with.
The best way to understand headless CMS is to first understand traditional CMS. As explained in the FAQ above, traditional CMSs are all inclusive, meaning you throw everything into a mixer. The issue with this is that it’s near impossible to re-use any of the content, as it’s intertwined with code and very hard to separate.
As the digital world has evolved, the need for more flexible solutions has become apparent. Digital agencies are developing bigger and better things and rely on their infrastructure to keep up the pace.
This is where headless CMS comes in. Headless CMS separates the body from the presentation layer “head”. To deliver the content housed in headless CMS across various displays and devices, you need to use an API (application programming interface). Although headless CMS requires more work, you have more control over the site and the content within it.
If you’re a business owner, you’ve likely heard of Shopify.
At its most basic definition, Shopify is a cloud-based, all-encompassing online platform built for selling and requires a monthly subscription for its use.
The reason Shopify is so popular, is because its perfect for smaller business if they’re still in their start-up phase and looking for low overhead costs. Better yet, it’s easy to use.
Depending on your needs, you can opt for the right subscription level for you – starting at the basic tier, and skyrockets to an advanced Shopify subscription at $299 per month.
There’s a Shopify Lite option for those for businesses that do not need a full online store. And for those retail giants with triple figure sales, Shopify Plus is the way to go.
While there are many pros, keep in mind that Shopify is known for its limited functionality without development. We recommend getting in touch with a Shopify expert (like us) to help you get the most out of Shopify.
If you’re looking for something more customised with a touch of personal flare, a bespoke web application might be the route for you – here at Pixel, this is our bread and butter.
Laravel is an open-source PHP framework that is utilised by some of the worlds biggest companies; like Disney, The New York Times, and Twitch.
It boasts an incredible amount of in-built features which let's our talented developers deliver projects quicker, helping us to achieve reliable results and projects at a high quality quickly.
Here are just a few of the biggest reasons why we utilise this amazing Framework for our bespoke web applications:
- Open-source: Any developer can contribute to adding new features or fixing bugs, so confidence in numbers is a real winner here.
- Stable and popular: Laravel is used by thousands of developers around the world. This means Pixel can always find more developers to work on our applications.
- Enterprise scale without complexity: A vast library of packages maintained by the Laravel team means confidence when we develop new features.
No website is the same. Each will vary in complexity, design requirements, functionality and purpose. While some businesses may only require a website that costs a few thousand to build, custom bespoke solutions may cost significantly more. Of course the price will also depend on whether you decide to use a web builder and pre-built themes; or outsource the build and design to a digital agency.
The best way to find out what you’re up for, is to have a very clear idea of your goals and the intended functionality for the website. Get in touch with us once you have this and we’ll generate a quote to fit your specific needs and budget.
When it comes to website maintenance costs, the rate will be highly dependent on the type of website and its requirements. If you’d like an accurate price, get in touch with us and we’ll discuss a monthly quote to suit your needs. Remember, personal websites will be easier and cheaper to maintain than e-Commerce websites, purely because the functionality required is more complex.
All web pages on the internet undergo evaluation by google. Core web vitals are a set of three specific factors; loading, interactivity and visual stability, monitored by Google and used to score the overall user experience.
Additional factors relating to the user experience score is mobile responsiveness of the website and safe browsing. Although core web vitals do form the largest portion of the score, and therefore have the most influence over it.
We don’t normally use themes.
This is because we have talented designers that curate bespoke custom themes for you, tailored for your needs and prospective audience. That being said, if you find a design that you love, we’d be happy to work with this instead.