Factoring Cost Can Help You Project Revenue
The cost of a website depends on a multitude of things. The startup process ranging from hiring a professional or even a team of professions that will handle website designing and development phases has an initial set of costs. Then there are the periodic fees that are required in maintaining your websites such as monthly or annual domain name and server requirements. Another aspect that factors into the whole cost is the content of your website and how much work has gone into it. Knowing how much your site will cost can also influence your methods for how to make money using your site.
The cost of a website that merely displays relevant information about your business such as contact information, service rates, and product prices will usually be a fraction of the cost of running a dedicated e-commerce website which naturally requires a lot more content. Here’s a useful list that will guide you through the costs involved for each stage of the process.
Website Development Costs
Hiring A Professional – Before you think about creating a website by yourself even if you’re not proficient in coding, take into consideration the time it takes as the entire process from start to finish will take dozens of hours. You’re better off hiring a professional that is actually knowledgeable in website development so that you as a business owner can focus on developing your entrepreneurial skills. The average small business website can vary in price based on features and needs but on average will usually run in the $2000-$5000 range. I’ll explain later as to why the rates vary. Another factor to consider when hiring a professional is their portfolio. Reputable website design companies will naturally charge premium prices as they have the results to prove it.
Content And Features – Going off from the last section, the amount of content and level of functionality you need out of your website will contribute greatly to the overall costs. If you’re a small business owner and just concerned with an informative website with a few web pages that provide relevant information about your business, then $2000 to $5000 will suffice. If you’re a medium to large business owner, then expect rates up from $10,000 to even $50,000.
Medium to large businesses not only need more content but also customizable but user-friendly schemes that allow the owners themselves to alter and maintain their website. Businesses of that size generally need features to accommodate more pages on their website as their enterprise grows.
A good example would be e-commerce websites. E-commerce websites naturally require more content as they need to exhibit hundreds of product inventories along with their respective rates and shipping options. E-commerce websites also need security features such as SSL Certificates with least 128-bit encryption since such sites will frequently be handling confidential information.
Visual Design – Apart from content, the visual designing of the website can be considered its own dedicated process that contributes heavily to the overall costs as complex designs will naturally demand higher fees.
Periodic Maintenance Costs
Domain Name Registration – After the development phase, comes registering a domain name and associating it with the site. Domain name registration typically around $10 to $20 a year depending on your chosen domain name registrar. However, just registering a domain name will not yet get your website online. You must then upload your website and associate its domain with a web hosting company.
Server & Web Hosting – Web hosting companies lease out server space in their data centers for websites to be available on the World Wide Web. Fees generally depend on the content of your website, the environment you need whether it is shared or dedicated to just your website, and the level of user traffic your site will receive.
Conclusion
The varying rates between website developers and web hosting companies are just one of the list of factors that total your entire website bill. As stated earlier, the cost of your website can vary greatly depending on your goals and the type of business you will be running. Medium to large businesses, especially e-commerce stores, are naturally going to pay more for their website. In the end, the cost of your website reflects entirely on what kind of content you have, and what kind of features you want it to include. It usually makes the most sense to book a consultation with a reputable web design firm to get a better understanding of the costs involved to launch your website.
