How much does a website cost? – Overview
October 12, 2018
Is it the website cost or the value that is most important?
You could ask the question, “how long is a piece of string?” For most people that are venturing out into the business world, having a website is almost mandatory as it truly is the online window to your business. Your companies website has to reflect who you are and what you sell and present your business professionally.
What is most important to realise is that without a good product, a website will not be much good to you anyway. It is critical that you know that your product is good enough to deserve a website. If you can not sell it yourself, then a website or web designer will not be able to do that for you regardless.
Having a website from the beginning is an expense that most startups find difficult to finance. Priorities must be made if there are tradeoffs to be made. Whether it be finessing the product to develop the best product, leasing an office space or developing a website, choices have to be made. However, if the product is ready to market, the cost of a website will depend on what you are willing to spend. It is that simple.
So, when you have come to the conclusion that your product is worth something and that people will use it, this is the time you should consider having a website. So, how much does a website cost?
There are many options available from web design agencies, freelance web designers or of course the “DIY”, do it yourself web builders such as “Wix” or “Squarespace”. Website costs can vary significantly from as less than €100 per year into the €,000’s, and we mean tens of thousands in some cases. It ALL DEPENDS on what you want. Hence, the “How long is a piece of string” idiom.
In this series of articles, we are going to go through and highlight what a web designer actually does and compare it against the other options available to you, the business owner and let you decide which is better for you. Value for money is always at the end of the tongue whenever we are asked: “How much does a website cost?”. It always depends on what you want to get out of it and what you want to put into it. Simple, or is it?
Important questions to ask yourself:
What is the purpose of your website?
Do I want it for people to find, is it just for referral, do I want to generate leads for sales, will it be my primary source of sales generation.
What does your site want to accomplish?
“If it doesn’t make money; it’s art”
What budget do you have?
If you have €100 to allocate toward a website, you can do it for that. We will reiterate, “you can do it”. If you have €1000, you get a freelance web designer to do it easily for that and if you have €10,000 you can get a reputable professional web agency to do it. But which will be better value and how do you know you will receive the best return on your investment. Is the freelance website as good or even better than the web agency? How would you know?
What features do you want for your website?
The more features the more cost obviously. Is it a static site so people can see just what you offer? Do you need a shop on the site? Will it be a global e-commerce site? Does it need to be updated weekly such for upcoming products or events? Do you need a logo or personalised photographs or video?
Will it be managed and updated regularly?
Having a brand new website does not mean the job is done and the money is going to roll in, OH NO!! Very bad misconception there we are afraid. The term “you get what you put in” comes to mind. There are millions of websites out there to compete with, do you honestly think that you are special and will be ranked highly just because you have a website? You are on the bottom rung now my friend. Depending on the competition and your companies trade and location, will determine how much effort is required to put in in order to get ranked higher and higher. The more competition, the more work is involved. This is where the SEO work comes in. “Content is king” and creation of content is no mean feat either, so beware.
Creating content is not the easiest thing particularly when it needs to be regularly updated. Images, videos and even text should be done professionally whether by yourself, or a professional content creator. It needs to be engaging and of course, legal. Taking other peoples content from other sites is illegal and damaging, as search engines such as Google penalise sites for doing so, not to mention copyright infringements that may get you into trouble.
The basics when it comes to being able to create a website are
- Time
- Technical skills
- Design Skills
- Cash
The cost of creating a website yourself will vary depending on how many of the following resources you have available.
Time: the time spent on creating a professional website, has a direct correlation to the success and return on investment of that time. If you do not have the time it will not get done unless you have money to pay somebody for their time. The more time that you spend on creating your site the less time you spend on well, your other business activities. There is a trade-off.
Technical: The question is, would you build a house without an architect or start a business without getting legal or financial advice? Of course, it can be done but it will entail spending more time learning all the ins and outs of either trade. You can do it, but how much do you value your time and how sure are you the final product will be up to scratch? Remember these professionals have spent years learning their trade. What makes you so confident you can do it in a couple of weeks?
Design: If you do not have any design skills then it makes it very difficult to create good content. Templates will get you so far but it is also the content that forms part of the overall design. Photoshop and Illustrator are difficult tools to master and can take weeks to get up to speed.
Funds: Having money solves all the problems above however like many small start-up businesses, cash can be tight.
Weighing up the elements above should make it clearer what is feasible and what is not.
We will look further into this and look at some of the DIY tools available in the next week’s article.