Summary: In this article we will discover and examine some different pricing and options, as well as dos and don’ts, when it comes to finding and working with website design and development agencies or creating websites from templates on your Big Box type of website resources.
Website pricing can vary greatly and for good reason. When you go to buy a vehicle, do you buy it from your nephew who says he built a car once? How much would you price a car entirely made of thin plastics and sub-par materials? A well-made highly-engineered factory car? A luxury sports car with hand-tailored leather seats? Pricing varies, typically based on quality, functions, and performance. Websites and services are no different.
Set it and forget it is a way of the past. We’ve seen many changes in the web design industry. One of the biggest changes that is never really talked about is the need to have an on-going website service that will continue to add to and make changes to your websites. Unless you are tech savvy or pay for a website builder and Do-It-Yourself, you are going to want a web design company that will continue working with you month-after-month and year-after-year. The days of buying a website once, setting and forgetting it are far gone in the year 2021. Let’s talk about some more factors about websites and the costs involved in creating and maintaining those websites.
Website services for businesses should be long-term: If you never add to your website or offer any new information about relevant topics, services, or products, where should your website be just as relevant as someone else’s website who is constantly adding relevant content with useful information that people are looking for?
You must be relevant. Want to be last decade’s leading lady or today’s greatest actress? If you haven’t been in a hit movie in a while, nobody will see you. How do you do it? You make a lot of movies and some turn out to be really great movies. By staying in front of eyes, you stay relevant. Relativity and perception are not just mental logistics anymore, they are quantifying metrics being measured and used to create a better, more relevant internet. Creating a website is just the beginning. To stay relevant, your business should be thinking about creating content for the web in the long-term. Creating content costs time. Having someone else create content also costs time and money. The best results are a marriage of a company creating a lot of content and professional copywriters polishing the company’s content, ready for publishing by your web designer or developer.
Do I need to create a website? You don’t need to. If you just need people to find the most very basic info, you don’t even need a website. The only thing you really need to be found in search results is to be part of the best directories and have a “GMB” or Google My Business page.
Here are four main typical types of website costs and project sizes:
1. A small website project for a small business, 1-10 pages, basic functions, easy to create and maintain. $2,400 – $4,800 per year. This is for very small businesses that don’t need anything fancy. An interactive business card of sorts with a little SEO (Search Engine Optimization) and these company websites are good to go.
2. A medium website project for a medium business 10-25 pages, more interactive functions, some animation, more crafted or customized. More involved to maintain. $4,800 – $7,200 per year. This is where most small to medium sized companies competing on the internet should find themselves.
3. A large website that is highly designed, has a very involved setup, programming and advanced functions. Strictly maintained. Larger and faster hosting. More security. $7,200 – $15,000.
4. One-of-a-kind website designs. Highly-customized development. Professionally designed custom graphics and animations. High-traffic servers. Top-security. Large-e-commerce websites. $15,000 – $100,000.
So, do you want your next family vehicle to be made fast and cheap or made for quality and performance? Do you want your next sports car to look like everyone else’s sports car? As you see, pricing varies greatly. Talent costs. Pay accordingly.
Don’t forget, just because someone made a car, if nobody markets it, how will anyone buy it? Create a yearly budget of $2,000-$50,000 for online advertising. The more you present your company to people, the more opportunities you create to gain a new client or customer.
Have any questions?
We hope this article helps shed some light on some of your questions about website pricing. Please comment and let us know if you have any questions you would like us to cover in our next update or article. Thank you for reading about business website tips at upgradewebdesign.com!
