Something to Celebrate
Brownboots launches a fresh new website for Farmers National Bank in Ohio.
Get a bank website proposal that covers all the bases
There’s still time to request a bank website estimate for your 2024 budget!
9/18/23
With the deadline for submitting 2024 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.
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. 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 a custom bank website design.
2. 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 our proprietary CMS.
3. Secure Web Hosting
Does the hosting fee include a content delivery network and 24/7/365 monitoring?
Are you paying for an SSL certificate?
Is the data center SSAE-18 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.
4. ADA Compliance
Last year, the U.S. Department of Justice issued an updated statement about its perspective on websites and the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), leaning heavily on the existing Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG). WCAG 2.2 introduced additional updates earlier this year. As a whole, these regulations ensure that people with disabilities can access and engage in online services.
Accessibility has always been an important factor in web development. 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.
5. 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 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 long after launch, which is why we created a Post Launch Success Plan.
It’s not too late to request an estimate for a credit union or bank website for your 2024 budget!
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