Websites:
the full overview.

The short answer: what does a website have to deliver?

A good website says within a few seconds what you offer, who it's for and what the visitor should do now. It loads fast on mobile (Google's target: largest element in 2.5 seconds at most), gets found via Google and AI search and leads visitors along a clear path to an enquiry.

For an SME project with 5–12 pages and no shop we plan 4 weeks from the completed briefing. In our project experience, serious quotes in the Stuttgart region are usually between €4,000 and €15,000. Each of the nine sections below summarises one in-depth article and ends with a link to it.

Which article answers which question?

You don't have to read everything. Pick the question you're coming with right now and jump straight to the matching article.

The sensible order if you're right at the start: first check what your site delivers today, then decide between optimisation and relaunch, then settle budget and agency. Whoever talks about colours and providers first often solves the wrong problem.

A website is the digital point of contact where most prospects first get in touch with your company. We measure every project against the same principles: instant clarity about the offer and the target group, a real mobile experience instead of a shrunken desktop layout, one dominant call to action per section, concrete rather than generic trust signals, a CMS the team actually uses, and clean HTML structure.

Many of these points can be measured. Google names clear target values for the Core Web Vitals: the largest visible element in 2.5 seconds at most, response to input under 200 milliseconds, hardly any layout shift. The WCAG 2.2 guideline requires a contrast ratio of at least 4.5:1 for normal text. The article contains an eight-line checklist with target values you can tick off on your own site in 30 minutes.

Tools for the first check: you don't need a budget for an honest status, just four free checks.

• PageSpeed Insights: shows field data from real Chrome users over the last 28 days plus a simulated lab test. The field data counts for more, because it shows what visitors really experience.
• Google Search Console, Performance report: clicks, impressions, click-through rate and average position, by default for the last three months. This shows which search terms you're already found for today.
• 5-second test: show a stranger your homepage on a phone, take it away after five seconds and ask: what does the company offer, for whom, and what would you click?
• Your own test enquiry: send an enquiry through your form from a phone and measure how long it takes and whether the confirmation arrives.

Classic SEO makes sure Google shows your page as high up in the results as possible. GEO (generative engine optimization) aims to get AI search tools like ChatGPT, Perplexity or Google AI Overviews to cite your page as a source. GEO doesn't replace SEO, it builds on it. Google itself says: the normal SEO fundamentals apply to AI Overviews and AI Mode, there are no additional requirements and no special schema markup.

What helps in practice: pages that answer a concrete question directly, one clear key statement per paragraph, real authors with names and evidence for figures. Structured data following Schema.org helps machines understand a page if it matches the visible text. But it's no secret trick. That AI assistants bring measurable visitors is something we also see in our own projects: at Batteriecenter Ludwigsburg, ChatGPT and other AI assistants already contribute measurably to traffic.

The article belongs to our own pillar page SEO & GEO: the full overview. There you'll also find local SEO with the Google Business Profile, an overview of AI crawlers and how to measure visibility in Search Console.

Traffic alone sells nothing. A funnel describes the deliberate path from the first click to the enquiry, through the stages of attention, interest, decision and action. The most common break points: too many equal calls to action, no low-threshold intermediate steps for the undecided, forms that are too long, and calls to action without trust being built first.

A worked example with fictional but typical figures shows the lever: with 2,000 visits a month and a form completion rate of 40 %, 24 enquiries come in. If a shorter form lifts the rate to 60 %, it's 36 – 50 % more enquiries without a single extra visitor. The article also explains how to measure your funnel in Google Analytics 4 with a funnel exploration.

How to start: measure first, then change. Set up a funnel exploration in GA4 with three steps: view of a service page, view of the contact page, form submitted. The stage with the biggest drop is your first lever. If people drop off between service and contact, trust or a clear next step is usually missing. If they drop off in the form, it's usually too long. Only once this path holds is money for more traffic worth spending.

A handful of static pages rarely covers more than a handful of searches. A well-kept blog extends the website with exactly the questions your target group actually asks. That makes it a lever for classic SEO and GEO alike: AI search answers concrete questions, and a website without content on those questions has nothing that could be cited.

You won't find good topics in a keyword tool alone, but in your inbox. Every question customers ask before buying is a possible article: what does it cost? How long does it take? What should I watch out for? In our experience, one article a month that answers one question thoroughly brings more than four superficial ones.

Tool: your topic list in one hour. Collect questions from three sources and write them down word for word:

• Inbox and quotes from the last three months: what did prospects want to know before placing the order?
• Search Console: queries with many impressions but few clicks. You're already being seen there, but your page doesn't answer the question well enough yet.
• First calls: which objections do you hear again and again?

Start with the questions that come just before the buying decision: cost, duration, comparison with alternatives. They bring fewer visitors than general topics, but the right ones.

Design decides how a website comes across in the first few seconds. Language decides whether that impression is confirmed while reading. On one side are visual hierarchy, consistent white space and a coherent design system. On the other are concrete rather than interchangeable wording, active language and honest limitations.

How this works together is shown by the relaunch of Hotel Zuckerfabrik in Stuttgart Bad Cannstatt. The hotel's Art Deco signature didn't come across on the old site, and the transparent navigation was barely legible depending on the image. Today fine serifs, warm gold tones and calm imagery carry the hotel's character. Clear headlines and a visible booking button turn that into a sales argument.

Three questions to ask your homepage: could the headline also be on your competitor's site? Then it's too interchangeable. Does every button look the same and do the same thing everywhere? If not, a design system is missing. And does the text sound like you in a customer conversation? If you'd never say a sentence like that, rewrite it. The article contains a ten-question checklist for this.

Concrete ranges from our project experience: a website-builder template is available from a few hundred euros. A solid SME project, whether a new build or a relaunch, costs between €4,000 and €15,000. Shops and enterprise projects start at €15,000. A typical 8-page project with individual design and its own copy usually lands between €6,000 and €9,000 with us.

The biggest cost driver is rarely the design itself. It's the copy, the photography and the complexity of the CMS. Often overlooked: ongoing hosting and maintenance costs, licences for plugins and fonts, and the SEO setup at launch, including redirects for old URLs.

Cost and time frame at a glance

All values come from our project experience in the Stuttgart region, not from a market study. In the 8-page example the budget splits roughly like this: concept 10–15 %, design 25–30 %, development and CMS 30–35 %, copy 15–20 % and SEO setup 5–10 %. Use this as a grid for checking quotes: if an item is missing, ask who takes care of it. If the copy is missing, you'll end up writing it yourself.

The most common cause of delays isn't the technology. It's unresolved basics before the start, whether it's a new build or a relaunch. The checklist is split into four phases: before the kickoff (goal, target group, content responsibility, CMS requirements), during implementation (content migration, staging, fixed feedback rounds), just before go-live (performance test, form check, 404 page) and the first two weeks after (watching rankings, error pages, user data).

One point counts especially in a relaunch: every old URL that brings visitors or rankings needs a permanent redirect to the matching new page. Google recommends 301 or 308 redirects straight to the target, without chains. Forget this and you lose visitors to 404 pages overnight.

Tool: the redirect list. Before the relaunch, export every page that had clicks in the last few months from the Search Console Performance report. Create a table with three columns: old URL, new URL, checked. Every row gets a target, even if the page is dropped. Then it points to the thematically closest page instead of the homepage. After launch, open every old URL once and tick it off.

Not every agency that builds websites also thinks in results. Red flags: only screenshots instead of figures in the portfolio, the conversation starts with colours instead of goals, conspicuously cheap flat prices without a breakdown, and no clear statement on access rights. A serious quote breaks down concept, design, development, copy and SEO setup individually.

The article contains an eight-point briefing template and a contract checklist covering usage rights, the domain in your name, hosting and access, data processing agreements under the GDPR, acceptance and exit. Plus the question of whether your site falls under the German Accessibility Strengthening Act (BFSG). It has applied since 28 June 2025, among others to online shops for consumers. Micro-enterprises are exempt for services.

How do you recognise a good website agency?

Red flags help you rule agencies out. For the decision you need the counter-check. These six signals speak for an agency:

• It asks about the goal first: who should enquire, what should they do, and how do you measure success?
• References with before and after: what was the problem, what was changed, what happened afterwards? Figures with a time period are better than screenshots.
• The quote is broken down: concept, design, development, copy, SEO setup, plus feedback rounds and a rule for changes.
• The access belongs to you: domain, hosting and CMS run in your name.
• It also says no: for example "a template is enough" or "your problem is visibility, not design".
• There's a plan after launch: who measures, who updates, when do you talk about figures?

A simple test for the first call: ask how the agency will know four weeks after launch whether the site works. A good answer names concrete metrics such as enquiries, click-through rate in Search Console or form drop-offs. A weak answer is "looks good".

Sometimes patching isn't enough any more, and a complete relaunch is the more honest answer. The seven signals from our client audits: a weak mobile experience, slow load time, design and brand have drifted apart, no clear call to action, the site can't be maintained in-house, forms feel bolted on, and often the real trigger: a competitor launches a new site.

One often overlooked signal sits under the hood. According to php.net, in October 2026 only PHP versions 8.2 to 8.5 still receive security updates. If your site runs on 8.1 or older, that's a security risk. The article contains a 30-minute mini-audit table. Rule of thumb from our experience: one signal justifies a fix, two to three an audit, from four on a complete relaunch usually pays off.

Decision aid: relaunch or optimisation?

The rule of thumb counts signals. The table sorts them by the actual problem. Find the row that best matches your situation.

If you're unsure which row fits, do the mini-audit from the article first. It takes 30 minutes and costs nothing. Afterwards you'll know whether you need a handyman or an architect.