What percentage of your digital marketing budget should you spend on website design?
Is it really that costly to create a website?
While some people use the general appeal of a website as a criterion for its price, this isn’t always the case. You can obtain a beautiful website for free and yet compete with the finest of the best out there.
However, how much does a website cost? Or, to put it another way, how much does it cost to create a website?
This guide was created to assist you in determining how much to spend on web design services for your business, whether you’re planning to build a new website or improve the one you already have.
Website Production Costs
The price of developing a website
goes beyond the design of the structure
as well as the development aspect
The scope of your project will help the digital marketing agency you’ll be working with figure out how much time and effort they’ll need to devote to it. A creative or web design brief is frequently provided by agencies to identify the scope of your project and provide you with a cost estimate for web design.
The amount of time and effort put into web design work are significant aspects to consider when determining whether you’re getting your money’s worth:
HOW CAN THE AGENCY ASSIST YOU?
The expense of creating a website extends beyond the design, programming, and hosting aspects. A portion of it will also address project management to keep you informed at all times. You’ll need the following items to get started on your website development project:
- Deliverables – These are the steps that the agency will take to build your website.) This should display a breakdown of your website’s development into smaller segments.
- Delegation — While most digital marketing organizations will assign you a website development manager who will work as your point of contact, it’s still a good idea to inquire about who will be in charge of constructing your website.
How Much Time Will It Take To Create A Website?
You need to know if you’re getting the most out of the hours you’re paying for, which is why your site’s development should have a clear timeline:
- How long will it take to construct the design?
- What is the average time it takes to code a website?
- How long will it take you to finish the website’s content and images?
Knowing the timetable helps you and your developer clarify expectations in terms of whether the features you want are still within the scope of the project and can be completed on time. If you have special requirements that will take more time or make the task more difficult, the firm may charge you extra for the additional web design work, which will increase the final cost of your website development.
Website Expertise Costs
How much does a freelancer charge for a website? How much does it cost to employ a website designer?
Keep in mind that web design experts charge differently for their services, which is often determined by the level of technical and creative expertise required. When comparing the work of a single freelancer to that of an agency, the difference in skill becomes more obvious.
Independent Contractor
For web development work, the majority of freelancers will charge you by the hour. The higher the costs, the more features you want in your site – this is primarily due to the fact that an individual freelancer will take longer to complete the project.
If you engage a single freelancer, you may need to hire additional professionals for some of the work you need done for your website, such as content writing and graphics design.
Consultancy
What does it cost to have a website developed by a digital marketing agency? When you hire a web design agency, it’s a very different experience than working with a single freelancer.
While companies may charge by the hour, the majority of them provide web design packages to pick from. Work will be outsourced to several personnel, implying a more severe project completion process. Most significantly, hiring an agency eliminates the need to seek out other professionals to help with some of the work because you’ll have all of the experience you require under one roof.
Design Construction
Despite the availability of web design templates, the design and development phase of your website costs a substantial amount of money. For the overall website creation cost, the agency or freelancer you select will most likely include the following:
- Website themes – While some website themes are free, you should not scrimp on this component if you want a great-looking, responsive website.
- The prices of website themes range from $15 to $1000.
- Development — What is your vision for the site’s functionality? Not every website is designed to have five pages. Your site will have different features depending on the goals and type of your business, such as contact forms, secure transaction pages, discount portals, and chat options. Although some website themes provide such functionality, if you want more customization choices, you may need to hire a developer.
Designing Graphics and Content
The cost of a website is also determined by the quality of the graphics and material used on it. Although some digital marketing organisations include high-quality content writing and graphic design as part of their site design and development packages, you may want to set aside a budget for both.
- Content creation – Do you have a new website in the works? Or are you just looking to improve your current site? The amount of content you’ll need to populate the website may affect the price. Long-form material can cost anywhere from $15 to $20 for a regular 300-word blog.
- Graphic design – To make your website look nice, some web designers use premium stock photos. Some websites provide free stock photos, while others charge a reasonable fee. For example, Shutterstock has a monthly subscription option that costs roughly $200 to $250.
Search Engine Optimization
Websites may be SEO-ready, but it does not guarantee that they will begin to rank. Once your website is up and running, you’ll need SEO to help it stand out online. As an add-on to their website design and development, certain agencies may provide SEO services. Others may provide it on an a la carte basis.
- Keyword research: You should rank your website depending on how you want clients to locate your company, which involves the keywords you’ll use.
- On-page optimization entails improving all aspects of your website for maximum efficiency and improved rankings.
- Link building is a technique for gaining momentum on the internet by increasing your website’s authority and obtaining links from authoritative websites.
- The cost of SEO services might range from $300 to $1000, depending on the SEO and web design strategy your company employs.
Website Technology Costs
Of course, the tools and platform utilised for website construction are included in the final website price. Your web designer will be able to come up with a solid estimate on your website prices by analysing the features you need against the features you want.
Preparation
This includes the domain name, hosting, and platform for your website. These are your website’s technological foundations; if you don’t have them, you don’t have a website.
The domain
Because the domain represents the address of your website, it’s critical to pick a name that’s specific to your company. The cost of purchasing a website domain varies depending on the domain extension (.com,.org, or.info), but in general, you may purchase a domain for $5 to $20 per year from a registrar site.
If the domain name you desire is already taken, you’ll have to purchase it from the current owner. The disadvantage is that pre-owned domains can cost as much as $1000 (or even more!).
Organizing
Web hosting is required to have a server for your website so that your visitors may access it online. But, how much does it cost to host a website? This is determined by the sort of web hosting provider you choose:
- (Shared Hosting – With this sort of hosting, your website will share a web server with many other websites.) Shared hosting costs anywhere from $2 to $10 per month.
- Dedicated Hosting – With this sort of hosting, your website will have its own server. You should expect to pay $75 to $100 per month for this.
- VPS (Virtual Private Server) – This is a hybrid of shared and dedicated hosting that provides more server capacity at a lower cost. VPS hosting costs anywhere from $20 to $100 per month.)
Hosting can range from $10 per month (Digital Ocean and the like) to $30 per month (WPEngine, which specializes in WordPress hosting) depending on the site’s size and performance requirements. If the site is hosted by one of the major cloud computing providers, such as Amazon Web Services (AWS), Microsoft Azure, or Google Cloud, the charge may be greater.
At the platform
What platform will your website be built on? This is one of the aspects that can influence your web design costs, as different platforms can provide different features that meet your website’s needs.
- WordPress is the most popular platform for business websites. WordPress is absolutely free to use; the only cost is website hosting.
- Wix — A simple website builder with a large number of templates. It’s free to use, however there are paid subscriptions for additional features ranging from $5 to $25.
- Shopify is the most popular platform for businesses looking to launch an ecommerce site. Depending on the functionality you desire for your website, Shopify has monthly rates ranging from $10 to $100. The total cost of developing your Shopify site will also be determined by the agency that builds it.
- Custom Build — This could include PHP frameworks, NodeJS, Ruby on Rails, and other programming languages. We recommend sticking to the formers if your job is simple and doesn’t require a lot of heavy lifting.
Costs of Maintenance
Your website will always be a work in progress, which means it will need to be maintained on a regular basis. This is why you should think about how much it will cost to keep a website up to date. This could involve the following:
Your website will be available at all times.
It’s still a work in progress…
- Troubleshooting – If an update to your site causes it to crash unexpectedly, you must know what to do and be prepared.) Having a backup system that allows you to restore any data in the event that your website crashes is an important part of this. Some companies charge $50 to $350 per month for website upkeep, depending on the technical skills you require.
- Plugin updates – You’ll need to add or update some plugins if you wish to improve specific aspects of your website. While there are dozens of free WordPress plugins accessible, you may want to spend a few dollars on premium plugins to get the most out of them.
- Security updates – In order to prevent harmful activity, any website must have security updates. An SSL certificate can be added by your website developer to secure your site, and the cost of these security measures can range from $10 to $300 each year.
Setting Your Professional Website’s Expectations
It’s critical to establish your expectations from the beginning. We prefer to use the wedding analogy when communicating website costs versus expectations to businesses:
Consider getting a website designed like arranging a wedding: it can be inexpensive, beautiful, or quick. Only two of the three options are available.
A website can be inexpensive and quick, but it will not be attractive. It may be beautiful and quick, but it will not be cheap. It can be inexpensive and attractive, but don’t expect a website to be built in two days.
To set your expectations and have a thorough grasp of the complete project, you don’t need a sophisticated website cost calculator. You may immediately set expectations based on the budget, schedule, and quality of your site design by using this analogy.
Are you concerned about the costs of website development?
Don’t be that way.
Your website is a financial commitment. It’s your digital business card, and having one that’s well-designed and built to attract more customers can open up a lot of doors for you. So, whether you’re intending to remodel your website or obtain a new one, it’s important to know how much you’re going to invest in this project.
We’d be pleased to address any further questions you might have.