How Much Does It Cost To Build A Website In 2014?

This question is the one which I have to answer everyday.

I have decided to write about the factors involved when giving a price on a new website to direct our new clients to when they ask the question,”How Much Does It Cost To Build A Website in 2014?”.

Website Cost Factors / Varied Web Design Costs

On average the costs involved in building a website for a small / medium size business can vary:

Website Address – URL/Domain Registration (i.e. www.mywebsite.com)
£5/£15 per yearThe website domain registration price can vary significantly depending on where the domain is register through. The options include but are not limited to the following domain companies: Godaddy, Hostgator, 1&1, and Bluehost.From time to time these companies will offer domains for as little as £5 per year, but when it comes time to re-register the domain for the second year you will usually charge full price which is around £15-£20 per year per domain.
Website hosting – This is where your website will be stored online
£100 / £3000 per year

Website hosting costs depend entirely on the size and needs of the website needs.
If your website host is going to receive only ten requests to see your website per day then you will be pleased to hear that your website hosting should only cost around £100 per year.

If you are expecting your website to be handling heavy web traffic (example: 5,000 hits per day+) then you should try to get the best hosting available, and perhaps even a dedicated server for your website.
A quality dedicated server will set you back around £200 per month or £2400 per year.

What should you think about before getting a quote on a new website?

Is your site a completely new website or is it a redesign?
How much information have you got ready to give to your website designer?
Do you have graphics, photographs, and text (website content) ready?
Do you want to manage the website yourself or have someone else manage the content for you?
Do you want to have checkout facilities for people to buy from your website?
Does your website require any media such as video, graphic design, or interactive elements?
Will the website require search engine optimisation tools to optimise your website content?
Who will maintain the website once it is launched?

All of the above questions will not only speed up the process of having your website built, but will also help you to understand how much your website will cost to build. The more work expected of the website designer, the bigger the cost of developing your new website. Try to get all of the above question about website design answered before speaking with your website designer.

Website advertising / promotion
£250 – £2000 per month

SEARCH ENGINE / CONTENT MARKETING – The process of using website content to get website traffic is nothing new, however, in recent times content marketing is exploding with most website owners posting at least once per day online. A good method to get traffic is to write article or tips to give your customers a reason to come back to your website on a regular basis. If your website does not change very often, then why would your clients keep coming back? And how would they know you have new content on the website?
How do I let customers know I have new website content? = Simple! Send them an email newsletter, shared your new content on social media platforms like twitter and facebook! If this sounds like a lot of work, then will understand why many businesses simply employ a website marketing company take care of this side of things.

The costs for content marketing include:

Content Creation – (Videos, Articles, Blogs, Stories, News, Audio, Photography, and Graphics)
From £15 per article to £500+ per professional video production) And anywhere in between for each piece of content.
Website Content Sharing and Search Optimisation – (Getting your content out to new and exisiting customer is a tricky job as you don’t want to bombard your existing customers with new offers and news every single day into their email inbox. This will just p*** your customers off and no doubt they will unsubscribe from your mailing list, so you have to have tact and offer customer something which isn’t just special offers all the time.How much does it cost to market web content? From £25 – £500 per month depending on how many hours you want your website content marketeers to spend sharing and optmising your content for the web.

GOOGLE ADWORDS – In 2014, the world of online marketing is a busy place. The prices for advertising your business on services such as Google Adwords begins at as little $1 per day and depends entirely on the keywords you are bidding on.

For example, if you are bidding to have an ad to your website on Google search for the keyword : “Home Insurance” then expect to pay around $15.00 PER CLICK! But you may only pay 25 cents for a keyword like “Gardening Equipment in Cheshire”.

This is because “Home Insurance” is a valuable search term and is highly competitive among insurance companies, “gardening equipment in Cheshire” is likely to be a less competitive search term and so you will have a greater chance of getting a lower cost per click for this search term.

How much does it cost to run a successful Google Adwords campaign?
Expect to pay between $100 – $5000 per month depending on your business industry.

Maintenance Costs – How much does it cost to maintain a website?

Let’s face it we arent all website designers with a flair for writing website code in HTML and CSS on a daily basis, but for some businesses it makes sense to employ an in-house website designer. But for the most part many small and big companies just outsource their website work as it allows the company to depend on much more experienced web designers at a fraction of the cost of employing one full time for at the least £20,000 per year depending on experience and knowledge. A quality website designer will need to have a range of skills so for many businesses it is best to go with a website design company would will look after all the website affairs including website builds, content management, marketing and ongoing web maintenance.

Final Notes

As a final note on the subject of website design costs in 2014, we need to consider all of the above factors and csots involved in the production of a quality website. Just like business premises or other highly crutial business runnning costs, it is safe to say the people who are making the best of thw esb with their website are the ones who are spending time, effort and money on their website on a regular basis.

A website is often compared to your online equivalent of physical business premises, but is seen by way more people than you can fit in your physical location.

Website Costs – How much does it cost to build a website in 2014?

If your business is to gain customers and retain them online then you can see that your website is going to be a significant part of your business. If you get a good website built but then do not market it then it could cost your more money than just spending that little bit more each month to have it maintained and marketed.

Expect to spend around £2,000 – £20,000 on your website (depending on features such as eshop, content management, blogs, or corporate style websites) with ongoing and maintenance costs going down after the initial website build.

PLEASE NOTE: If you spend less than the expected website design build costs, then you are probably wasting your time and money because without all the costs we have discussed above you will never see any return on investment on your website build.

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