Website Cost is the question on most people’s minds when they think about designing or redesigning their websites. The first questions to ask yourself are “Do I actually need a website and what do I want it to do?”
Do you actually need a website or just a web presence? Something you can put on your business cards and point clients at but it won’t do a good job of actually acquiring new clients.
You may have seen TV adverts where they make it look so easy to build your own website for under a £10 a month. However this isn’t really a website – it’s is a web presence.
If you really have decided that you need a website, a good marketing tool and something that will potentially grow your business, then read on to understand the cost of a website.
Keywords are your crystal ball into what your clients are thinking. When they come to your website they need to know that their problems will be solved, questions answered and challenges addressed. This means that you have to carefully consider your content, have it planned and mapped out and captivate your audience within seconds.
This is literally how the pages and navigation is best planned so that people are able to navigate around your website really easily. Ideally we need to be able to do what we want to do on a website within 3 clicks!
What is your call to action and is it easy and useful? Fill in a form, make a purchase and so on and so forth.
This is where most delays and procrastination occurs when building a website and if you use a copywriter it can add considerably to your website cost but it can also enhance your website for the future and your visitors. It is much better to have the content planned, if not created as this will inform the design and structure of the site. It is far better to design and site around the content rather than have to shoe-horn the content into a design!
It doesn’t matter whether you are going to do this yourself or hire a specialist, copy and text needs to be considered and written.
You have to have your images and photos taken, created, resized and organised and maximised for the website whether you are doing this yourself or getting someone else to do this for you. If you don’t provide this it can add a lot to your website cost depending on how much imagery you need.
You need to put careful thought into the ‘look’ of your website and what should go where. How is the header going to look. What information is to go ‘above the fold’?
This is the area, on an average screen, that will be above the bottom of the screen. What is to go onto the prime real-estate of your website? This is the top right or top left of the screen and usually where the eye is initially drawn to.
What is to be the location of the footers, side bars, boxes, menus, social media icons etc. The location of all the elements that could stand the best possible chance of converting visitors into clients.
You need to make sure that you have good quality coding so that the website doesn’t crash, break, cause errors or break your website completely. This code also needs to be kept up to date and checked regularly.
Links within the site also need to be checked as these can also break without warning.
The Internet and browsers are regularly updated and your website needs to be regularly updated as well to ensure that none of the above occurs.
This means testing and fixing on a regular basis.
You must make sure that your website is able to be viewed on screens of different sizes and on all or as many of the media devices possible. Tables, mobile phones etc. The site must still be able to be read clearly on different sized screens. Mobile is now considered an integral part of a website build and will not be an extra part of your website cost. At least it really shouldn’t be.
Successful online businesses will make the best of social media including Facebook, twitter and Google+. So someone needs to ‘socialise’ your website and integrate your social media accounts into your website and create easy methods to share your content with others.
Someone has to buy your domain name, install your site on a hosting server, set up the DNS, get your analytics, webmaster tools and sitemaps and make sure everything is working.
It’s a long list of things that need done to ensure you get the best possible website. These haven’t been listed them simply to justify putting a large price tag on the cost of a website.
It is essential, however, that you have a better understanding of the tasks that a web designer has to carry out in order to determine the cost of building your website.
Build it and they still may not come…
Although new tools have enabled website builders to keep their costs down (hurray we hear you say!), it is also tougher to get your website noticed and attracting visitors to your site. Web build costs are stable but you need to be allocating much of your budget to promoting and marketing the website in a myriad of ways.
Making sure the site is optimised at all times so that Google and other search engines can find it and rank it well.
Making other people know, like and follow you so that they advocate your work and send others to your website.
So… How much does it cost to build a website we still hear you ask?
Cost to build a website: basic, commercially effective, custom website up to £3,000
Basic customisation of an existing theme branded to your company requirements based on WordPress, Joomla or another CMS (Content Management System – which means exactly that… you can manage the content!) framework.
Content and image sliders
Partially customised e-commerce design £3,500 to £10,000
At this price point you can expect an e-commerce website or a website with some other exclusive features using a customised theme that matches you corporate brand. You can also add responsive design.
As above plus….
What you won’t get included in this cost to build a website:
Fully customised design £7,000 to £20,000
You can expect more customised functionality that is tailored to your exact needs. You could also add in keyword research and basic search engine optimisation. You may also get some copywriting to ensure you get the correct message over to your target market.
As above plus….
All inclusive website £10,000 to £30,000
At this price level you will be able to sit back and relax and let the design team look after almost everything – such a content creation and branding.
£30,000 plus will see you into a completely bespoke website – this may or may not include the copy and content depending on complexity and time restraints.
So, we hope this goes some way to answering that all consuming question about the cost to build a website. Essentially, nowadays anyone who builds a really good website will be transparent about what they are doing and time and expertise they have available.
You should be prepared to be involved in the process as no one knows your business or your customers like you do.
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