What Marketers Should Know about Website Hosting
Few things intimidate a bank marketer like the esoteric terminology of IT, so here are the basics of website hosting in plain English.
Get a bank website proposal that covers all the bases
There’s still time to request a bank website estimate for your 2022 budget!
11/10/21
With the deadline for submitting 2022 budgets looming, you shouldn’t have to bother with a long and laborious process for gathering vendor proposals.
To help you avoid hours of busy work, BrownBoots provides banks and credit unions robust estimates — promptly and painlessly.
We offer two options for bank website design estimates:
- We can provide a broad ballpark figure for context and comparison with other vendors.
- Or, with only a 30-to-45-minute phone call, we will deliver a detailed estimate with line items to show the specific scope of the project.
(As a full-service bank marketing agency, we can also assist with many other bank marketing services.)
Of course, even after you have a few estimates in hand, you still have to decipher them.
Here’s a quick checklist to make sure you’re comparing apples to apples and getting the most out of your marketing budget when choosing a bank website vendor:
1. Responsive Bank Website
Every website must function flawlessly on desktop computers, tablets and phones. Period.
If an estimate doesn’t address mobile optimization, throw it away.
The days of separate mobile sites are over. The leading approach to mobile optimization is responsive web design, a development technique that flows the contents to fit whatever screen is displaying it and ensures the website can be used on any device.
The BrownBoots stance: a responsive bank website is the only way to go.
2. Custom Design vs. Templated Approach
Is the website vendor forcing you to choose among a handful of widely used templates or giving you the latitude to create a layout unique to you and your brand? The answer to that question makes a big difference in both the final product and the associated price tag.
Taking the templated approach shaves a lot off of development time. Conversely, if you want a website to have specific features and functionality — not to mention an online branch that doesn’t look like everyone else’s — custom design is for you.
Frankly, it’s about control, and control costs more.
The BrownBoots stance: stand out for all the right reasons with the best bank website design.
3. Content Management Systems
Speaking of control, there are two main approaches to making website updates: you can depend on your web vendor to make the changes for you, or you can manage your own website with content management systems (CMS).
If all updates must go through your vendor, you might end up waiting a while for a response. You might also end up paying more if edits are billed individually. A CMS, however, gives you instant access to your content, allowing you to add and remove pages, update rates on the fly and post the messages your customers need to see when they need to see it.
The BrownBoots stance: manage your own website with a simple CMS.
4. Secure Web Hosting
Does the hosting fee include a content delivery network and 24/7/365 monitoring?
Are you paying for an SSL certificate? What about Extended Validation SSL?
Is the data center SSAE-16 certified?
Not all hosting options are created equal. Banks and credit unions have a responsibility to protect their customers’ information with secure web servers, so make sure you understand the features included — and not included — in your hosting costs.
The BrownBoots stance: demand the most secure web hosting from your web vendor.
5. ADA Compliance
The U.S. Department of Justice is expected to establish website accessibility standards in 2018, but web vendors should already have a very good idea of what expectations will be and use an ADA compliance website checklist. These regulations will ensure that people with disabilities can access and engage in online services.
Accessibility has always been an important factor in web development. Soon, it will be the law. If your bank website proposal does not address ADA compliance, you will likely end up scrambling to fix the site later on.
The BrownBoots stance: ADA compliance and web accessibility are not optional; they’re essential.
6. Post-Launch Relationship
Whose responsibility is bank website upkeep after your site goes live?
At the bare minimum, someone needs to monitor the website analytics report to make sure everything remains in working order. That can be you, your vendor or, better yet, a combination of both, but website analysis should always be on someone’s schedule.
A neglected website is an ineffectual website. If your bank website estimate does not mention website review or at least outline a continued relationship after the launch, demand more.
The BrownBoots stance: your website vendor should be a partner not only during the project, but also long after launch.
It’s not too late to request an estimate for a credit union or bank website for your 2022 budget!
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