Starting a new business can be both exciting and daunting. When it comes to your website design and development, you may think, “The internet has the answer for everything these days.” It’s true that the web has made it easy to get a new business website off the ground quickly and with very little cash. For example, you could suddenly have a great idea for a website and find a domain name for £10, an online hosting package for £150 for 2 years, and a WordPress theme for £40.
£200 to start a business? And you don’t even need a designer? “JACKPOT!” And for some businesses, this will be fine at first. Once you get past the initial stages of the website, you will notice that the theme you purchased isn’t doing all that you want or need it to do. Many technical people will start looking at plugins to try and get it running the way they want, but ultimately, this is adding on unexpected additional costs and the site is going to look and act like every other commercially themed site out there. Plus, trying to get in contact with the online hosting provider for any slight hitches can take hours if not days. In other words, it would be a nightmare to do it this way.
To differentiate your site you’re going to need much more. We’ve put together a list of useful information you should know when it comes to your new website and its costs…
First up: What does your new website need?
The first thing you need to know when trying to budget web design costs is what you’re going to need. There are a number of things that can cost you money. Here’s a bombardment of questions that you’ll need to consider:
- Is this a new site or a redesign?
- Do you need blog or content management functionality that will allow you to easily add or amend content, images and add articles or news items to the website?
- Do you have graphics already created for the site? Or do you require custom images created?
- How are you planning on servicing mobile customers? Do you require responsive design so that your site automatically adapts to suit the size of the screen it is being viewed on?
- How much content do you have and how much do you need to create?
- Do you have appropriate images or require professional photography?
- Do you need other special features like social media, SEO, ecommerce, membership forums, FAQs, newsletter signups or something else?
- And who is going to maintain the site?
…Answer these questions and you’ll be a lot closer to working out your costs!
New Websites often cost more than Redesigns
When you’re starting from scratch, so is the web designer. They have nothing to work from because they can’t look at your site and get an idea of what you already love or hate. The advantage of starting from scratch is that you can work more closely with the designer to get the exact site that you want for your budget.
Don’t assume that if you already have a WordPress theme it should be cheaper. Many themes are sold as-is and designers are not licensed to change them. Often, the cost of purchasing a theme that can be modified is as expensive as just building a new theme from scratch.
Content Management and Blogs
To improve or maintain your search engine ranking, your business has to remain relevant. A strong, user friendly Content Management System will help keep your content fresh. This also invites external contribution such as comments, forum, likes – an integral component in staying relevant and improving your search engine ranking.
Website Graphics
Graphics are tricky because they can be difficult to create, yet the cost of buying stock images definitely adds up! You don’t want to skimp on this area of your site, however graphics can cause you more grief down the road if you’re not careful.
Don’t assume that if you’ve already got a template you want to use that you won’t need any images re-done. Customizing templates can take time, and you want to be sure that the designer has the rights to customize the images in the template. And don’t forget, you will also probably need icons and buttons created to go with your design.
Mobile Website Designs
The best designs are responsive to the device viewing the page, but creating that type of design is difficult and will cost more than a simple site for a desktop web browser.
The best sites are designed to handle at least three different device sizes: smartphones, tablets, and desktop computers.
Special website features always cost extra
You might think with all the elements we have outlined above, you will have a website that most people would agree is sufficient. However, there are a lot of extra features that many designers can provide that will up the price, but can also improve your business and the effectiveness of your new website.
And Don’t Forget Website Maintenance
Websites don’t just build themselves, and the best are changing all the time. Maintenance is something that most businesses forget to budget. Or if they remember, they think that they’ll just do it themselves. But the first time you delete your entire home page by mistake and lose eight hours of sales trying to get it back up and running, you’ll wish you’d spent the extra money on a maintenance contract.
Maintenance contracts vary greatly depending upon what you expect from the firm. The benefit of a maintenance contract is that you have a designer and developer on call if you have a problem that you can’t fix. And additional work such as creating new images, adding new content or newsletters, etc. can also be included.
So, tell me, how Much Does a Website Cost?
Web design prices are very much dependent on your requirements and the size and scope of the overall project. We are happy to discuss alternative options and prices to suit your budget.
If your company requires a professional online presence please Contact Us to discuss how we can help you, on Dungannon 028 3754 9025 or Belfast 028 9002 5050.
