How much should I pay for a website

First lets think about the goals you want to accomplish with your website. What is the job of your web page, besides look pretty?

What type of website are you looking for? Here’s a list of of different websites:

1. E-Commerce Website – Tool for selling products online.
2. Business website – Simple website to let people know what services and or goods your company offers.
3. Blog or Personal Web page – This type of website would be used to brand yourself as an expert in your field and possibly get business and or generate a following.
4. Non-Profit Website – You either have or maybe starting a non profit company and you want to accept donations online through PayPal or any other payment gateway such as authorize.net.
5. Online Portfolio Web Page – This website would be used to showcase your work, it also can be used as a resumé for job search.

So before you start looking for a company to build your web page, know what type of online presence you need to be successful online. Next we will dig into typical components that drives cost for web development. Lets examine a illustration. Lets say you wanted to hire a full time employee to work for your company at a salary of $25K per year. Your employee is allowed the weekends off, 2 weeks of vacation, 1 week of sick time. So that’s a total of 125 days which is 4 months and 5 days, that this employee will be not working and on top of that you have to pay this employee that same amount every year.

Now lets examine a website. Lets say you spent the same $25k on web development. Your web design is an employee of your company, it’s hired (created) to make sales, generate leads, showcase the information that you need it to get across to a potential customer/client. This web page never sleeps, it’s always on time to work, never ever gets the information wrong, and it works 24/7. Your website never calls in sick unless it gets hacked, but you took the necessary precautions to make sure the website was secured for the companies use and for it’s users. After 3 years you only paid $8,333 per year for your website and it’s still works just as much as it did when it was first created.

I’m not at all saying that you should $25,000 on your web page or that you don’t need employees, but what I am saying is that you should be willing to invest as much as it takes for your web page to be successful because it is there to work and will be your best asset. Now lets breakdown cost components for getting a new web page.

New web development cost breakdown

Informational E-Commerce web page

1. Planning
2. UX Design (user experience)
3. UI Design (user interface design) Or Visual Design
4. Programming
5. Content writing or support
6. Client Training
7. Web page Testing & Launch

Other components your web page will need

• Domain – This how your URL and how your website will be reached online, whether its by .COM, .ORG etc.
• Hosting – Without hosting your web page can’t be viewed online.
• Marketing – This is the effort in attracting traffic and potential clients/customers to your web page so that you ran increase your ROI (return on investment)
• Web Page Maintenance – Your web page needs maintenance to stay working and to make sure your code is up to date with browsers. Some times your maintenance can be negotiated with your hosting plan.
• Security – Keep your web page safe for both and your users.