How much does a website cost? This is often one of the considerations of a new business and a question that has so many answers that range from nothing to millions of pounds. Like so many business expenses, it is easy to get caught up in the cost of things rather than trying to assess the value for money and return on investment.
What would you rather do? Spend £50 for a return of £100 or spend £5000 for a return of £20,000? Although the answer is obvious, many of us business owners are careful with our money and are often reluctant to spend more than we have to.
Although the cost of web design varies greaty, for the ease of illustration I will discuss 3 common budgets and what the advantages are for each one.
There's no such thing as a free lunch, the same is true for websites.
There are a number of companies who can offer you a great looking website and not charge you a penny. Why then would you spend your hard-earned money when nice looking websites are available for free?
The first downside is that a free website will not include a domain name. So instead of www.yourbusiness.co.uk your website address is something like www.yourbusiness.freewebsites.co.uk. Such a domain name does not create a great impression I am sure you will agree.
But wait. Domain names cost from just a few pounds per year so why not buy a proper domain name and point it to the free website? Well yes this can work (if the company agress to do it) but a free website will more than likely contain advertising and in some cases that advertising is intrusive.
Your website is often the first impression of your business to new customers so this option although free, is unlikely to help your business.
These can cost from only a few pounds per month. You get a proper domain name and the design looks good and is free from advertising. Also, you can update it yourself, a service that many web designers do not provide!
This seems tempting but there are many reasons why this will devalue your business.
The reason why web designers restrict what you can change on a website is that we take the time to lay out a website and ensure consistency in text, fonts, graphics and photos. Do this all yourself without experience and it can be immediately evident to your customers that the website has an amateur feel about it.
Also, templates are not exclusive and so there will be many more, possibly hundreds of businesses out there with an identical design. As soon as your customers notice, your business is cheapened immediately.
Costs here can be from a few hundred to many thousands (millions in the case of large corporate websites). At Net Quality we charge between £395 and £795 for a basic website, from £1395 for an ecommerce website and anything upwards for bespoke functions and options.
What you are paying for is our experience in creating websites that are up-to-date and also designed with your business in mind. Before any part of it is designed we discuss your business requirements and what objectives you have for the website.
This means it will be designed to achieve what you want and any cost you pay to us should be more than recouped in benefits to your business.
We can provide statistics and tools that allow you to measure how well your website is doing as well as providing the best advice on how to promote your website through advertising and search engine optimisation.
So although these costs can be many times the costs of the cheaper options, your return should be so much higher that in effect, it works out much cheaper.
That is the value in investing in your website.
Are you serious about your business? Then it is time to get serious about your website.