Website design: sites built to convert, not just to look good

A website can cost anything from a few hundred euros for a simple DIY site to several thousand euros for a professional, custom-built one.

As a benchmark, the French market barometer published by La Fabrique du Net, based on budgets reported by businesses, puts the median showcase site at around €3,500 to €4,000, with half of projects between €2,000 and €8,000.

What drives the price:

• the number of pages and templates;
• the design (off-the-shelf or custom);
• features (booking, client area, multiple languages);
• copywriting and SEO.

At Comeleon, we quote after a first conversation, based on what the site actually needs to achieve.

An online store usually costs several thousand euros, and often more than €10,000 when an agency builds it with custom design and features.

According to La Fabrique du Net's barometer (reported budgets, French market), the median is around €11,000, with a typical range of €3,000 to €40,000. A quarter of stores go above that.

The budget mainly depends on catalogue size, payment methods, logistics and integrations with your tools (ERP, CRM, invoicing). These are market ballpark figures, not a quote. A well-scoped project mostly saves you from paying for features you will never use.

A landing page can cost from a few hundred euros if you build it yourself with a dedicated tool, up to a few thousand euros for a custom page with copywriting, tracking and testing.

The price depends less on the number of sections than on the upstream work: audience research, conversion-focused copy, CRM or email tool integration, and event tracking.

A landing page is a directly measurable investment. If it receives paid traffic, a few extra points of conversion mechanically lower your cost per lead. These ranges are indicative and vary a lot with scope.

To build a website for free, use the free plan of a platform such as Wix, WordPress.com, Google Sites or Canva.

It is a good option to test an idea, run a personal project or put up an event page. But free plans come with limits, which vary by platform:

• a subdomain address (yourname.platform.com) instead of your own domain;
• often ads or platform branding;
• little control over technical SEO, speed and tracking;
• missing or limited e-commerce features.

Go professional as soon as your site needs to generate revenue, reassure customers or rank on Google.

Allow roughly 4 to 8 weeks for a custom showcase site, and 2 to 4 months for an online store or a more complex platform.

That time is split between discovery, design, development, content integration and testing. A landing page can go live in one to two weeks if the content is ready.

The main cause of delays is rarely technical: it is content availability (copy, photos, reviews) and approval cycles. We set a schedule with clear milestones from the start, so everyone knows what to deliver and when.

Website maintenance typically costs from a few dozen to a few hundred euros per month, depending on the technology, how critical the site is and the service level you need.

It usually covers:

• security updates (CMS, plugins, dependencies);
• backups and uptime monitoring;
• small changes and bug fixes;
• performance monitoring.

A custom site with few dependencies often needs less corrective maintenance than one loaded with plugins. Hosting and the domain name are billed separately. These figures are indicative: always ask exactly what is included.

Choose a web agency that takes the time to understand your business, shows work comparable to your project and commits to measurable goals.

What to check:

• live sites you can test yourself, especially on mobile;
• a clear method with defined steps and deliverables;
• real expertise in technical SEO and performance;
• a named point of contact, not a chain of intermediaries;
• ownership of your site, content and domain;
• support after launch.

Be wary of quotes sent without a single question about your goals. At Comeleon, the free 30-minute discovery call is about understanding what your site needs to bring in.

The right choice depends on your budget, the complexity of the project and how much support you need.

• A no-code tool works for a simple first site, if you have time to build it yourself.
• A freelancer makes sense for a well-defined project that needs one core skill.
• An agency brings several skills together: strategy, design, development, SEO and tracking.

A small agency like ours offers the best of both: the agility and direct contact of a freelancer, with the range of a team. What really matters is the ability to ship a site that hits your goals.

A website brief should cover your goals, target audiences, required features, technical constraints, budget and timeline.

The essentials:

• business context and goals (leads, sales, awareness);
• personas and their journeys;
• the planned sitemap and available content;
• must-have and nice-to-have features;
• integrations (CRM, payments, email marketing);
• SEO, accessibility and GDPR expectations;
• budget and deadlines.

No need for a 50-page document. A clear two- or three-page brief is often enough, and we can build it with you during the discovery workshop.

No, being local is not essential, but it makes workshops easier, helps with understanding your local market and supports a long-term relationship.

Most web projects run perfectly well remotely, with regular video calls and shared tools. Proximity becomes an advantage for discovery workshops, photo shoots or when your business relies on local customers.

We are based in Paris and work with Parisian businesses such as Maison Lutetia and Kurry Up, as well as remote clients. What matters most is a responsive contact and a transparent process.

You should own your domain name, your content and, ideally, your site's code: make sure the contract says so in black and white.

What to check before signing:

• the domain is registered in your name, not the provider's;
• you receive access to hosting, the CMS and analytics tools;
• the transfer of rights to designs and code is included;
• you can switch providers without rebuilding everything.

Some website-rental offers include everything but keep you dependent. Ask for a written list of the access and files handed over at the end of the project.

Ask about method, deliverables, site ownership, performance and post-launch support: the answers tell you more than the portfolio.

A few examples:

• Who will actually work on my project?
• How do you measure the site's success?
• Do you use a template or a custom design?
• How do you handle SEO and redirects during a redesign?
• What is included in the price, and what is not?
• What happens after launch?

A good agency answers precisely, without unnecessary jargon, and asks you as many questions as you ask it.

For e-commerce sites, public benchmarks put the average at around 2 to 3%, with France tending towards the lower end, around 2%.

These averages hide large gaps depending on the industry, product price and traffic source. Impulse purchases convert better than furniture or luxury goods. Email traffic usually converts better than cold traffic.

For a lead-generation site, the rate depends even more on your offer. The best benchmark is your own history: measure your current rate, then improve it step by step instead of chasing a theoretical number.

To increase your conversion rate, sharpen your message, speed up your pages, remove friction from the journey and add proof that reassures.

Actions that often have the biggest impact:

• a value proposition people understand within seconds;
• a primary CTA visible above the fold;
• shorter forms;
• reviews, case studies and guarantees close to buttons;
• faster load times, especially on mobile;
• a dedicated page for each campaign.

Start by measuring where visitors drop off. Then test one hypothesis at a time. That is exactly the approach we follow after every launch.

A landing page is a page designed for a single action, such as getting a quote, a sign-up or a purchase, usually tied to a specific campaign.

Unlike a homepage that points to many destinations, it removes distractions: no full menu, a message aligned with the ad that brought the visitor, and one CTA.

You need one when you:

• run Google Ads or paid social campaigns;
• launch a new offer or event;
• want to test a message before adding it to your main site.

A well-built landing page also makes your campaigns measurable, because each conversion is tied to a source.

Core Web Vitals are three Google metrics that measure real-world user experience: loading speed, responsiveness and visual stability.

The thresholds Google considers "good" (web.dev documentation):

• LCP (main content display): 2.5 seconds or less;
• INP (responsiveness to interactions): 200 milliseconds or less;
• CLS (layout stability): 0.1 or less.

They are assessed on real Chrome user data, at the 75th percentile. INP replaced FID in March 2024. We design our sites to target these thresholds on mobile from launch day.

Yes, speed is one of the page experience signals Google takes into account, but it does not replace content relevance.

Between two pages of similar quality, the one with the better experience can get the edge. More importantly, speed directly affects your visitors: a slow page loses people before they even read your message.

The most common gains come from poorly compressed images, too many third-party scripts and bloated themes. That is why we build without templates: we only load what the page actually needs.

A/B testing means showing two versions of a page to randomly split visitors to measure which one converts better.

You can test a headline, a visual, a CTA, form length or section order. The rule: a clear hypothesis, one major variable, enough time.

The traffic you need depends on your current conversion rate and the size of the difference you hope to detect. With low traffic, a test can run for weeks without a reliable result. In that case, we favour user testing, heatmaps and qualitative analysis before running A/B tests.

To get cited by AI answer engines, your site needs to be accessible to crawlers, technically clean and structured as clear, verifiable answers.

Good practices in what is now called GEO (Generative Engine Optimization):

• paragraphs that answer a question directly, in the first sentence;
• FAQ pages and headings phrased like real search queries;
• Schema.org structured data;
• consistent information about your business across the web;
• a robots.txt file that does not block these crawlers, if you want to be included.

This is the approach we apply to our own service pages, including this one.

WordPress suits content-heavy sites and tighter budgets; custom development makes sense when performance, design or features go beyond what a theme can do.

WordPress offers a huge ecosystem and a familiar interface. On the flip side, a site loaded with themes and plugins can become heavy and needs regular updates.

Custom development gives you lightweight code, a unique design and features built exactly for you, like ISI Pizza's immersive experience. It usually requires a higher upfront budget.

We recommend based on your project, not our habits. Both can convert well when they are well designed.

Shopify is the easiest to launch, WooCommerce the most flexible within the WordPress ecosystem, and custom builds the best fit for unusual business models.

• Shopify: hosted, quick to set up, monthly subscription and fees depending on the plan.
• WooCommerce: free WordPress plugin, highly customisable, but hosting and maintenance are on you.
• Custom: relevant for a unique journey or a product bundled with a service, like VKARD, which combines a store and a SaaS.

The right choice depends on your catalogue, ambitions and in-house resources. We work it out during discovery, with numbers.

Choose hosting that fits your technology and traffic, with HTTPS, automatic backups and servers close to your visitors.

The main options:

• shared hosting, affordable, for small sites;
• VPS or cloud, for more power and control;
• modern platforms with a CDN, ideal for fast and static sites;
• all-in-one hosted solutions (Shopify, Wix), where hosting is included.

For a European audience, hosting in Europe also makes GDPR compliance simpler. We advise on, configure and, if needed, manage hosting for you.

Yes, any website that collects personal data from visitors in the European Union must comply with the GDPR, including a simple showcase site.

In practice, this means:

• a legal notice and a privacy policy;
• a cookie banner that collects freely given consent before setting non-essential trackers, as recommended by the French data protection authority (CNIL);
• forms that only collect necessary data;
• properly governed hosting and third-party tools.

We build these requirements in from the start, including tracking: reliable, privacy-friendly measurement is possible. For detailed legal questions, rely on specialist legal advice.

Since 28 June 2025, digital accessibility has been mandatory in the EU for many consumer services, including e-commerce, under the European Accessibility Act.

Micro-enterprises providing services (fewer than 10 employees and annual turnover or balance sheet not exceeding €2 million) are exempt. The public sector already had obligations before that date.

The technical reference is the EN 301 549 standard, which incorporates WCAG 2.1 level AA. Beyond compliance, an accessible site is easier to use for everyone. Check your specific situation with a legal adviser, as national transpositions vary.

Technical SEO covers everything that helps search engines crawl, understand and properly index your website.

It includes:

• site architecture and URL structure;
• headings and metadata;
• Schema.org structured data;
• XML sitemap and robots.txt;
• speed and Core Web Vitals;
• mobile compatibility and HTTPS;
• redirects, canonical and hreflang tags.

It is the foundation your content needs to rank. We build it in from the design stage rather than fixing it afterwards.

Consider a redesign when your site no longer generates leads or sales, is slow, hard to update or no longer reflects what you offer.

Tell-tale signs:

• a clumsy mobile experience;
• Core Web Vitals in the red;
• a brand identity that has moved on;
• a CMS or plugins that are no longer maintained;
• you cannot add a feature without breaking something.

A redesign is not always necessary. Sometimes, targeted optimisation of a few key pages is enough. An audit helps you decide before committing a budget.

To keep your rankings during a redesign, preserve your high-performing content and 301-redirect every old URL to its closest new equivalent.

Key steps:

• inventory existing URLs and their performance (traffic, backlinks);
• build an old URL to new URL mapping table;
• avoid redirect chains and mass redirects to the homepage;
• keep the tags and content that already rank well;
• monitor 404 errors and Search Console after the switch.

A temporary dip can happen even with good preparation. We include this migration plan in every redesign.

Yes, if the project includes it: a CMS or admin panel lets you edit text, images, pages and posts without writing code.

The level of autonomy is defined during discovery. Some clients only want to publish news, others want to create new pages from predefined blocks. We design those blocks so the site stays consistent, even when you build pages yourself.

More technical changes or new features count as development work and are quoted separately.

After launch, the work changes: it moves from building to measuring, maintaining and optimising.

In the first weeks, you need to monitor indexing, errors, performance and the first conversions. Then the data tells us what to prioritise: a page with weak engagement, an abandoned form, content worth expanding.

Depending on your needs, we offer one-off support or ongoing work combining maintenance, SEO, testing and new pages. This is also where our other services, 360 digital support and AI-powered automation, come in.

A new website can be indexed by Google within a few days to a few weeks, but ranking for competitive queries usually takes several months.

To speed up indexing:

• submit your site and sitemap in Google Search Console;
• make sure robots.txt does not block crawling;
• earn a few links from existing sites (directories, partners, social profiles);
• create a Google Business Profile if you serve a local area.

Google guarantees neither indexing nor timing. Consistent content and solid technical foundations remain your best long-term levers.