What Contributes To New Digital Business Website Cost & How To Optimize It
Even if the business is small, starting it is nothing less than a huge feat. There are so many things involved, from the actual service or product to the marketing of the goods. One such crucial step in the small business process is the Website.
There are numerous, high-quality website solutions available for small businesses like personal trainers, bakeries & cafes, beauty & spas, network marketers, and professional consultants via Wix, Weebly, Squarespace, and more!
Sure, these do-it-yourself website builders are easy-to-use, inexpensive & secure. But, do you realize how much you may be losing on recurring maintenance costs of such websites?
The website serves as your space in the digital world, where you highlight your services and your portfolio in the best possible manner. Therefore, creating a website is a big decision. Naturally, for any business, especially a small business, the cost of everything matters.
| FREE | $0 to $300 | $750 onwards | $1650 onwards | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Website Design Options | Do it yourself | Generic templates | Small design agency | Small design agency |
| Quality & Value | Not professional, ad-on costs for premium features | Not professional, ad-on costs for premium features | elite quality, original designs | elite quality, original designs |
| Who needs it? | Personal use | Personal use | Small businesses with simple product displays OR For appointment booking integration, etc. | eCommerce shopping solutions, SaaS startups, and online payment solution providers |
Here is our recommended approach on how to build a website for new online small businesses in the most cost-effective manner.
Website Design
- Design is possibly the most significant factor that will impact your website cost.
- If you have any theme or templates ready and have an idea about how the final website must look, you can hire a freelance developer to help you fulfill your vision at a fractional cost.
Save extra by debunking these common website design development myths.
- However, if not, or if you want a customized design for appointment booking integration, live chat support, simple automation for customer query handling, or secure payment integration, you will have to hire a UI/UX designer. And it may inflate your website cost.
Website Type
Your website type is decided by your business type.
- If your business model is common, then there are templates or models ready for you to use. However, for a unique model, it won’t be this easy.
- The website developer will start everything from scratch and make a whole new structure for your website. It is definitely going to cost more than the websites that have ready-made templates to choose from.
Website Pages
Your website is not only the home page.
- There are so many more aspects to the website. The gallery, the added blog page, your services explained in detail, the page about your business, and so much more content are required.
- This will require a content strategist who will work on the content, and of course, these pages will have to be designed as well.
- Naturally, as the number of pages increases, the website cost also increases.
The good news is that smallbusinessweb.co is a full-service website development, content, and digital marketing that specifically caters to the small business clientele.
Adding Extra Website Features
The use case for every website is different.
- If your website allows people to purchase a product, you need to add payment methods. Furthermore, for payment to be completed on the website, there need to be additional security measures taken while developing the website as well.
- Some websites require their users to register when they visit their website to maintain their data and get personalized details in a specific manner. For example, the European Union mandates any business to comply with its GDPR rules for the privacy of its citizens.
- Now, if it is an e-commerce website, then it will also require an internal search engine or a directory so that people can search for the products they want. So, if your business requires a search engine, then that would also cost more.
So, in these cases, more features need to be added while creating the website. That’s not all. There are various other features as well that can add to your website costs.
Syncing the Website with Other Entities
- More often than none, your website is not the only part of your business. There are mobile apps, other websites, various management software, etc.
- If the website is not integrated with these platforms, it will create a nuisance for your users.
- For example, a business has an app as well as a website. Now. If a user makes some changes in their mobile app, but it is not reflected on the website, it will put a damper on the customer experience.
So, while creating a website, the cost to connect all platforms needs to be factored in as well.
Language Versions
- A lot of businesses offer multiple languages and the website needs to be available in all the languages you offer.
- That means, if there are three languages, then there will be three home pages, three website pages, etc., which means triple the cost of making website pages. That’s not all.
Multiple languages make the structure more complex, which also impacts the cost of the website page.
SEO
Making a website is not the only aspect. That website needs to reach more and more audiences too.
- Natural referencing techniques help in increasing the visibility of your website.
- An SEO specialist will help with it. And investing in this will impact your website-making costs.
Apart from these factors affecting the website cost, there needs to be a budget for timely updating the content and maintenance. Moreover, there is also the possibility that the website may break down. So, we need to factor in the repair costs as well.
smallbusinessweb.co is equipped to work on tight budgets and has optimized our services to suit your business requirements.
For instance, our small business Graphics Design Package starts from $179/month where we offer outstanding visuals for social media posts, blogs, infographics, brochures, banners, flyers, business cards, e-books, and many more.
Our SEO starter pack starts from as low as $199/month which includes optimization of On-Page Metrics, Google Search Console, Social Media Profiles, Google MyBusiness, and more. You may try out our Social Media Marketing pack that starts from $139/month and promises daily posts, landing page designs, infographics, and strategy building.
About the Author - Manav Gupta
Manav Gupta is a full-time CopyWriter at Small Business Web, where he works to benefit both professionals & enthusiasts in the field of Digital Marketing, Branding & Web Development by creating engaging content. Prior to joining Small Business Web, Manav was responsible for managing & executing content projects ranging from sales collateral to web content, ad copy to letters, business proposals to sales plans, and training manuals.
