How much does a website cost? – Web Builders

October 19, 2018

 

Being web designers ourselves, we are very much aware of the self build web design techniques and get told often enough from potential clients about them. “Ah, sure I can build a site for less than €100. Indeed, this may be true but there are many factors to consider before doing so. Certain questions need to be asked before making the decision to employ somebody or build it yourself.

Do it yourself management systems

There are many ways to create your own business website and you do not need a web designer to do it. You may see ads for Wix come up every time you open Youtube and there are other CMS systems such as WordPress, Squarespace or even Shopify that can be employed.

What are web builders?

A web page builder is a tool that allows you to drag and drop different types of content onto the page such as images, video or text. All of these systems have a range of templates included which makes life much easier to just fill in content. Templates are by definition reusable and therefore you are unlikely to be the only one using it making originality of design impossible. Builder

Cost of website builders.

As previously stated, it is possible to build a good looking web sites for as little as €5 per month. Depending on the features, one could spend up to €45 per month also. That seems reasonable right? Of course it is and it is difficult to argue that against spending €1,000 or €2,000 on a web developer who you do not know.

Pricing Per Month from: (price in dollars, convert it yourself)

  • Wix – $4.50 – $24.50

  • Squarespace – $12 – $40

  • Weebly – $8 – $49

  • Go Daddy – $5.99 – $14.99

Seems reasonable and you do get a lot of with that. There is a negative image that web developers like to put on these self web building systems because of course they are taking away from their business. This is natural but it is important that everyone has the right facts.

What do you get?

There are many different plans to choose from and it is important to know which is right for your business.

Features included;

  • Themes
  • Responsiveness
  • Custom Domain
  • SSL Security
  • E-commerce
  • Support
  • SEO Ready*
  • Mobile Apps
  • Drag and Drop Builder

* SEO ready means that the builder does not do SEO but is the basics, Titles, Description, Keywords etc.

Advantages and disadvantages of web builders.

Of course, there is an argument for both sides;

Advantages

  1. Ease of use – simple drag and drop content
  2. No coding – no specific ajax, html, php or any weird foreing langauge necessary.
  3. Templates – 100’s of templates to choose from
  4. Apps – can create your own app with the create app feature
  5. SSL security – this costs extra but good to have for online shops
  6. Short term pricing – low costs per month so if it fails, it won’t break any banks. Limited loss on complete failure
    Control

Disadvantages

  1. Long Term pricing (spend indefinitely as opposed to once off spend) Do the math. This is in perpetuity.
  2. SEO – The SEO is basic and does not involve the grind involved in “TRUE” SEO
  3. Learning curve – there is still a significant learning curve involved in building it and doing it RIGHT.
  4. Templates – A lot of these are fixed and you can only have one design if you choose to change at a later date.
    Time – this involves your time too remember.
  5. Headaches – have panadol ready at all time. Nothing is ever as straight as it may seem
  6. Sending money out of your country – Shame on you……
  7. Content – Images, text must be provided and are they of sufficient quality….BE WARNED
  8. No online promotional strategies know how
  9. No help with ;
    • Graphic Design
    • Photography
    • Design Layouts
    • Colour Schemes
    • Logos
    • Fonts
    • Video promotion

Overall
Building your own website from scratch using a web builder is a cheap(in the short term) solution. If you do not have the immediate financial resources or trust in employing a web developer, it may be the right option for you. Spider on Web

What is required however on your part is a lot of time on your hands to create something of quality which is sustainable. There are learning curves but it is a handy solution and if all else fails it will not break the bank if things go wrong. If by then you need to employ a web designer, all that was lost is a little investment and time you put into trying to get it to work.

The next section, we will discuss what a professional web design should(highlight) do for you.

How much does a website cost? Ingredients

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