Understanding the Complexity of Website Development Costs

A website can be a simple one-page affair hosted on a free server. That would certainly keep website development costs down, but don’t expect it to do much for your business. In fact, expect it to actually harm your business. Would you trust a company who presented such a cheap image?

In general, things have changed for the better with website development. Costs charged for the average website are understood to be necessary these days, unlike in the early days of the World Wide Web. Back then it was fairly common for a new business to spend tens of thousands in building their bricks and mortar store, but only pennies on their website.

The facts of the matter are simple: if you want a good website design that will significantly increase your business profile and your business profits, then expect website development costs that are commensurate with the kind of website that can achieve that level of success. Website developers can work magic in creating a highly profitable product for you. With this in mind the pricing is actually a bargain.

Even a simple website is likely to have website development costs for things you have probably not thought of. For example, it will all start with a needs analysis. This is a simple meeting where you can discuss your needs and the website development company can tell you what is possible and even advisable. This could cost you around £200.

Once your needs are understood and agreed on, the design of the website comes next. This is a very important part of the procedure as it determines the look and feel as well as the navigation qualities of the website. Properly designed websites can make it easier for the pages to rank well in the search engines.

Even with simple websites created by professional designers expect the pricing to be around £750, with an additional £500 in fees for a template created from the general design.

Keyword research is necessary to determine which keywords will work best for your website. These are actual keyword phrases that people use to search for what your website offers. You can expect the price for this service to be around £200.

Your website needs copy. This is the words that visitors will read. Properly structured web copy for a simple site will cost around £300. You can expect prices in the region of £200 for search engine optimisation for your simple site.

Websites should never be finalised. They should grow over time, evolving as your business does. This means you will need to learn how to add new pages when you want to. Training for this will will incur costs of around £500.

Adding new pages is not the same as growing your website with a view to making it work towards increasing your overall business profits. For training and coaching to achieve that expect the pricing to be around £200.

With software setup fees around £250 and quality hosting costing about £200 a year, that brings the total for simple website development costs to £3,300. That would be for an excellent high quality, but a simple and basic, website. A more complex website with 100 plus pages would cost much more.

One final thought: next time you see a company advertising a brand new fully functional website for £199.99, ask yourself what you could possibly get of any lasting value when the website development costs equate to virtual peanuts. However, you have a choice!

By David A Robinson

David A Robinson – Red Evolution (Aberdeen) Ltd

Specialist advice on all aspects of Web Design