How much do your websites cost?

How much should a website cost? That question is like determining how much a car should cost? It can range from a discount lower quality hatchback to a high quality, fully loaded SUV or sportscar. Both are able to get you from point A to point B, so why spend more? Like cars, websites and web design and development firms offer different levels of quality, performance and support. In a nutshell, you get what you pay for...as long as you are buying a new car, anyway.

When shopping for web designers, you need to look at many different factors such as;

  • Quality
  • Price
  • Experience
  • Style and Design
  • Technology
  • Marketing
  • Turnaround time
  • Support

  1. Quality is a very broad factor and basically covers all realms of functionality, appeal and compatibility. When you shop for a media or web design company to create your website, look at their previous work and see if they have designed any styles similar to what you would like and then take the time to click through the pages of previously designed sites and make sure they are relatively easy to navigate and the look and feel flows throughout all the pages. Try their websites out on different computers and different browsers such as Firefox and Internet Explorer for PC and Safari for Mac. Often websites will look different on each computer but the most important thing is that they still look good. If it looks bad on any browser, you could loose a lot of business!

  2. Price is going to probably be the first thing you will look at and will probably be the main factor in who you decide to choose. This is a very touchy matter because, like vehicles, there are several features and qualities that can make the prices change drastically. Here is a general breakdown for a cost of a 10-15 page, custom designed, standard web page with no heavy programming and development.

    • Large, highly qualified, experienced firm: $5,000 - $10,000+
    • Medium sized, experienced firm: $3,000 - $4,000
    • Small, skilled, experienced firm or freelancer: $1,000 - $2,500
    • Skilled, unexperienced freelancer: $500 - $750
    • New, unexperienced, low quality: $200 - $400

    Those figures are very broad and there are definitely exceptions to those numbers. Under the $1,000 mark you will typically get either an unpolished, hastily developed website, that poorly reflects your business efforts. Like most things, you get what you pay for! Up past the $1,000 range you will have a much more effective and targeted site with qualified people to back it up. For a basic 10-15 page website, I would advise not to spend more than $6,000 and you should expect all the bells and whistles for that price!

  3. Experience reflects the overall knowledge that the freelancer or firm has. Some freelancers will have loads of experience from previous work, but larger firms can be a sure bet that your website is truly quality work.

  4. Technology is used to refer to the back end components of the site. A qualified firm or freelancer will develop your site with the latest and most efficient languages and be valid in all W3 standards. This is typically a problem in inexperienced freelancers or individuals who have not been trained in web development or do not have enough experience. Poor efforts in this realm could result in bad indexing within Search Engines, poor Internet browser compatibility, and bugs – to name a few.

  5. Marketing aspects of Web design include Search Engine Optimization (SEO) as well as a plethora of offline and online advertising techniques such as ensuring that your web address is displayed prominently on all of you writen matterials, other online programs such as Pay Per Click (PPC) and various other Search Engine Marketing (SEM) efforts. Although strong SEO marketing tactics are not common in "standard" web site development, it is extremely beneficial that your website is SEO ready and has the basic elements of SEO incorporated into your website, no matter how standard or basic your website is. When you communicate with a potential web developer, be sure to ask if basic SEO elements will be placed in your site for future compliances.

  6. Style and Design is just that – the face of your web site. It is what people will see first and will have the strongest impact to your visitors about your company. A lot of weight goes behind a web site's design, a poor design and visual appeal quickly will indicate a poor company. Although a bad design may not always mean a bad company, your visitors may think that, but the number one problem that web sites will have is navigation. I've seen highly polished websites that are almost impossible to navigate. If a user cannot find the information on your site, they will leave.

  7. Turnaround time is the time it takes for your developer to create your web site from beginning to launch. Turnaround time is not a direct factor to the quality of the web site, but it is often a factor in the overall cost of your project. Typically, a larger, qualified firm will develop a site quicker, but that is not always the case. Very commonly, slow rate of completeness will come from outsourced firms such as India due to communication barriers. For a basic web site consisting of 10-15 pages, it should be completed in two to four weeks.

  8. Support is a severely overlooked factor in web development service. When a development firm or freelancer creates your website, you need to insure that they will assist in all aspects of launching and maintaining the site. If you need a change done to your site and you don't have the technical knowhow or software to change it, you should be able to contact your development firm and they will make the changes within 24 hours or in emergency situations, much sooner. Before you deposit any money to your group, make sure you understand the rules of their support policies.

Design goes far beyond visual appeal, it digs psychologically into the visitors and reflects the business it represents in a dignified matter. The smallest hole-in-the-wall shop can appear to visitors as a fortune 500. Only qualified firms and teams of designers, trained in online marketing, general marketing, interactive design, and with technical know how can effectively harness this power - not cheap inexperienced freelancers.

To sum it all up in one easy sentence; You get what you pay for. A quality website with proper use of technology requires a decent investment with an experienced firm. A website is an invest to yourself, and your company and will be used on all of your other marketing material so make sure that you are working with the right firm and that you have answers to the above eight questions.

If you'd like more information on how much your website will cost, simply give us a call at 604 495 6848 or email us at info@blacktiegraphics.com for a free project consultation. After hearing your desired specifications and requirements, we will happily provide you with a written budget and proposal for your project.