A few weeks ago we published an article about why it’s important to own a website. The top 6 reasons included:
- Your competitors most probably have a website.
- Having a website can increase productivity and reduce calls.
- Proving credibility as a business.
- You’re advertising 24 hours a day, 7 days a week!
- Professional Email Addresses.
- Showcasing recent projects in an online portfolio.
After looking into these reasons, and why it’s so important to have a website, you might be wondering what the cost is of having a website. You may be thinking you may not be able to afford to have one as there are ongoing costs that go with maintaining a website, which is why we thought we would delve further into this topic.
In addition to the design and development of the website, for a functional website, you will need the following:
#1 – A Domain Name:
A domain name is the address of your website (ie: www.mywebsite.com). Domain names are normally registered every year or two. The cost of domain name registration can vary, but usually ranges between $60 – $100 every two years, depending on what sort of domain name you have (ie: a .com, .net, .net.au, .com.au, etc).
#2 – Hosting:
Hosting is the process in which your website files are placed on a server to make them accessible to visitors of your site. Hosting pricing can vary, depending on which company you go through. Generally, if you’re looking at hosting in Australia, for a small standard website, you’d probably be looking at around $300 per year and for a large website, you should expect to spend around $600 per year. We recently published a blog on what to be aware of when finding a suitable host. You can read this here. There are cheaper options available, but you need to be wary of their conditions and inclusions.
#3 – Design and Development:
Besides the ongoing costs of having a website such as the domain name registration and hosting, you will need to seek a design and development agency to provide you with your website, if you aren’t prepared to build one yourself. This is where the bulk of your investment is.
Before having a website designed and developed, put together a list of what you need in your website (for example: contact form, online shop, blog, news, etc). Knowing what you want initially will ultimately save you money in the end. The main aspects that make up a website are design, website features, content & imagery.
Design:
Before you make a decision to contact a website development agency, you should look through your competitor’s websites and other sites you like the look of and know exactly what you desire, as this will enable your designer to provide you with an accurate quote for a design based on what you like and want. If you want something basic, the price you pay for your design will be lower than if you require a customised design, as there are a couple of different ways that designers could put together your design. Sometimes a basic design will only need a simple theme that will be customised easily to fit what you’re after, and other times a custom design may need your designer to start from scratch in Photoshop designing every element for you, which will take more time. Some designers could quote up to $1,000 for a customised design in Photoshop, where others may only quote $400 for a basic template customised to suit you.
Website Features:
If you are looking for a website which doesn’t require anything other than links to the basic pages like Home, About Us, Our Services, Our Team and Contact us, you probably won’t require any additional features other than a content management system and a contact form. However, if you aren’t sure what you need, your developer may see the need to provide you with a quote full of features like a Blog, a News Feature or a Photo Gallery, which will all increase the price of your investment. If you’re selling products online and need a shopping cart included in your website, you should expect to pay more for a feature like this and also know roughly how many products you want to showcase. The basic website featuring your Home, About Us, Our Services, Our Team and Contact us pages could cost you around $2,000 and a site that has a shopping cart could increase your website investment to around $4,000. But these costs are estimated minimums as there are a number of other factors to take into consideration when quoting.
If you know that the content you are planning to place on your website will change, then it’s a good idea to invest in a content management system, which initially may make your investment dearer but ultimately will save you the cost of contacting your developer each time to make changes, should you choose to maintain the website yourself. Each time you contact your web developer, you will pay for each change they make to your website (this could be in 10 or 15 minute increments).
Content:
Before contacting a development agency, it’s best to have a think about the content you want to display on your website and decide on the page names you need so you know the exact number of pages you need on your website. Providing this to your website developer during the quoting stage could also save you a few hundred because the amount of content may not be as much as your developer was envisaging.
Sometimes website developers will also provide additional quotes during the development stage if what was quoted initially changes. Content placement is usually quoted at a certain amount per website page and isn’t as simple as copying and pasting from Microsoft Word onto the website either, as it involves a lot of styling.
Images:
If you don’t have images to go onto your website, don’t panic or take them from Google either! Your developer may just need to source some stock images for you. These will come at a cost though, so it’s best to let your developer know during the quoting stage, as you don’t want to receive an additional invoice or quote halfway through the development stage and not be able to afford the images purchased. The price of stock images can vary. Sometimes between $20-$30 per image (sometimes more, sometimes less).
All in all, make sure you know what you need and do your research to ensure you are provided with accurate quotes.
If you are interested in updating your website or a new website , our Digital Media Team will be happy to assist you.
