Website Cost for small business
It is clear that building a website costs money. Doing the development yourself is an alternative, but as the hours tick away, it soon becomes clear that money is indirectly spend as well. We will try to shed some light on website cost for small business.
For a small business, questions often come up about the importance of a website, how good does it need to be and what is the optimal amount to spend. At W3 Website Design we see more and more businesses realizing they do need a website to stay ahead of the competition, or to catch up!
Customers get more and more used to the convenience of a good website of their preferred businesses. Visitors of a cafe or restaurant check the menu before booking or before arriving: Does the cafe have my favourite milk for the cappuccino, is there food I like? What is the price for an average meal at the restaurant I want to visit tonight? How long is the hairdresser open today? Can I make an online booking with my favourite doctor in the group practice? Does the shoe store in the local mall sell a brand I have been told about by my friend?
What makes the difference in cost of a website?
There are a few factors that make the difference:
- Technical complexity of the website: A very simple website, containing only a few pages of text and a few pictures, is easy, quick and therefore cheap to put together. It gets more complicated and expensive when there are things like databases to be integrated, contacts forms to be put on different areas, links to different systems. Everything that goes onto the website needs to work together to make sure the customer has a seamless experience. To ensure this takes time…and money.
- The amount of content: Everything on the website, from pages to pictures, videos to graphs needs to be put on, often needs some adjustment and afterwards needs to be maintained in a way. This is especially time consuming and therefore a part of the website design cost that is noticeable.
- Type of content: Straight text and some pictures are cheaper to upload and maintain than lists with products, categories of different articles, order forms and pictures that can be zoomed in on etc.
- Hosting: Good hosting, fitting for the website, is important as it defines the speed and the security of the website. The size and complexity of the site and the number of expected visitors determines how expensive hosting needs to be. This can vary in price from 10 dollars a month to several hundreds.
- The Design: Designing the website can be very time consuming. The right ‘feel’ for the site can be a mayor factor for certain businesses, and therefore may take extra time to get it right. Website Design Australia is different from website design anywhere else in the world. It is a local affair, and can take time and therefore money.
- The Content Management System: There are now many open source systems that are inexpensive and are widely used. This can help to keep the website cost for small business low, as a custom system for very large websites can cost thousands to develop and usually also the same to be maintained. Luckily open source systems (like WordPress) are in most cases an excellent choice, as they are flexible and good quality.
- The future of the business: Depending on the plans of the business for the future, it may be necessary to chose for a more expensive website now, so later on there is room to expand without having to rework everything and have massive cost then. So plans for the future can make it necessary to spend more on the website now.
- The Web design Company: Every company has different rates. This starts with the hourly rate of the web designers and developers themselves, but often there is also an uplift depending on the name of the company. You need to wonder how important it is to have a design company with a brand name. Another thing to look out for is the technicality of your website design company. The more technical the people are, the more they will feel like customizing the website. This pushes up the cost and is not always really necessary, as explained above.
We hope we have been able to shed some light on Website design Pricing and the website cost for small business in general.
To discuss your website requirements, please Contact Us
