How Much Does a Website Cost?

It’s a pertinent and perfectly acceptable question but not one I can ever answer easily. You’re thinking, cop out. I’m thinking, keep reading.  Let’s say I told you I could build it for a certain amount. Great. You don’t have any images? Right, so that’ll be a little bit more. You wanted to be able to update content? Okay, that’ll be more. You never mentioned you wanted a form for newsletter sign-ups and data capture. I can do it, but suddenly, that amount we mentioned looks bigger and now I look like a bad, shitty salesman.

So how about we rethink the question: what is your website for?

Is it a shop window? A place to herald your existence to the market at large? Somewhere for people to verify your existence and integrity? In which case, the odds are that you’re looking at a simple static site; a website with fixed content which can only be updated by your web guy (that’ll be me then). There are super-cheap solutions for static sites. There are even free options, but if you’re hoping to look a little less identikit and more astute and professional, then you should think about bespoke web design. By bespoke web design, I mean looking at aesthetics designed to reflect your brand, navigation to best suit your customers and functionality that has been given thorough consideration. I start from scratch with you. I’m not a big fan of bish-bash-bosh.

I’ve found that the folk I work with are becoming more savvy with this interweb guff, and are increasingly learning that content is king. They want to add to and update pages themselves. It may be some or all pages, but what we’re talking about here is a Content Management System, which is bandied around more commonly as a CMS. You manage the content. I make it look pretty. There are existing off-the-shelf solutions (free or chargeable).  For the technophobic amongst us, these can be quite intimidating – all those buttons, options, things to break – which is why sometimes, a bespoke CMS could be for you. They are likely to cost you more but if they’re built to your exact needs and requirements, you could save a lot of time, which you could otherwise spend selling or doing what you do for your business.

So I ask again, what is your website for?

Once you’ve established what you want it to do, odds are you might get excited by the myriad of other things you could do with your site. And all these other interesting little nuggets are likely increase the price tag of your website. A forum, an RSS feed, a Twitter feed, audio, video, file downloads, photo gallery/slideshows, a guest book, press releases, commenting/feedback, specialised calculators, contact forms, polls/surveys, site search, chat, user accounts, multi-lingual support, links – it all adds up.

These are all the things I ask you to think about before developing a proposal. I don’t just build your site, I help to plan it so it’s everything it ought to be.

What about my domain name?

Your URL. That’s going to cost you and will depend on how many variations you buy (.com, .co.uk etc) and where you buy them from. Some companies will buy and manage them for you, and in most cases you can go somewhere like 123reg.co.uk and buy your own from as little as £2.99.

So I’ve planned my site. I know what it’s for now and I know what it’s going to be called. What next?

Well, it’s worth asking your web guys/gals what level of SEO they’ll integrate at the point of building your site. SEO helps you to be seen by more people. More people means more contact means more sales. I can help identify the right keywords for your site, optimise your site and get your site seen. Bingo. You’ll need to keep on top of it for your SEO to be effective (which is why I always include analytical tools to allow you to track visitors, page popularity and to see where your visitors are coming in from). Once you understand this, you can meld your site to better suit their needs.

At the very least, you should be asking if and where your site is going to be submitted to once it’s live. Be ready to market your site yourself, or, be ready to pay somebody to market for you. Yes, more potential costs.

The cost that usually surprises people is hosting, which in essence is rent for the space your where your website will live. ‘Why should I pay for hosting?’ is a question I’ve heard a few times. Well, probably for the same reason you pay for your phone line. Are you expecting billions of people to visit? Maybe then you should set a few more pennies aside to allow for the sheer volume of traffic. Talk to your web folk about your options. If you’re a local business, touting for local people, then you could assume that you don’t need the all singing, all dancing cloud computing, versatile solution.

It costs how much??

I know your mate or your cousin’s mate’s Dad’s workmate can build it for a seeming fraction of what I might propose. I know that you could get a template and try do it yourself. What sets me apart is the level of service, expertise, skill and experience.

There is no doubt that your site is going to take longer to build than what you had hoped. People often underestimate (and often perilously so) this crucial element of the design process. As much as you might hate to hear it, yours probably won’t be the only project I’m committed to while it’s being built. That doesn’t mean it will receive any less attention than it deserves – what it means is that I won’t be delivering your site in 3 weeks as you’d hoped.

So when you’ve built it you’ll add bits to it for me, right?

Of course I will, if we’ve agreed to a Service Level Agreement (SLA) beforehand. In short, this is a document I develop which outlines a mutual agreement regarding subsequent updates already factored in,  costs, services, priorities, responsibilities, guarantees and warranties. My SLA’s are tailored to our client’s needs and requirements to ensure everyone’s happy. This is definitely an area to bear in mind if you’ve found yourself an ?ber-cheap designer to knock your page up.

How much does a website cost then?

If you want a site that is designed, coded and implemented by a qualified designer, that takes into account usability, functionality and accessibility, which complies with current regulations and applies current techniques, who takes into account the implications of social media on business, then you’ll be looking at very similar costs to mine!

Get in touch and we can have a chat about what you want, what you need and indeed, what it might cost.