Website Costs

Free or Expensive Website Costs

Website Costs can be virtually free. On the contrary, your website costs could amount to thousands of dollars. This gives evidence to not judge a business website’s worth by simply looking at the design. Website costs vary widely depending on a developer’s knowledge, time, and design skills. Prices will be significantly steeper if the developer lacks the resources to design a website successfully.

We will explain the variables that contribute to the cost of creating and running a website. The article will also detail the fees of creating a website without professional help versus the costs of professional service.

Non-Monetary Costs Of Designing A Website

So what variables contribute to the cost of running a website? Time, technical knowledge, and design skills may be associated with the costs of creating and running a website. For example, time is more valuable than money to some people. If a busy person does not have the time to create a website, they will pay instead. Likewise, the developer will also pay for a professional if they are not interested in creating and maintaining a website. Lastly, if the developer has no design skills, They will spend precious time learning.

New Web Developer

If a new web developer is willing to go through the hoops of creating and maintaining their website, there are many online resources to help them. First, there are plenty of ways for a designer to improve his skills. Watching tutorials online, taking web development courses, or reading blog posts specified for learning web design may be some of the many ways to learn. A new developer may also visit a designing-oriented website such as Wix.com to create their website. Websites such as Wix allow people to quickly design a website with little to no design skills for low prices. The emergence of free designing websites has eliminated the high cost associated with developing a website on your own.

Monetary Costs of Creating and Maintaining a Website

From a monetary standpoint, creating and running a website involves plenty of costs. Financial prices may vary widely depending on the type of website you are making. The main costs of running a website may include paying for hosting, a domain name, designing, and plugin costs. Other extraneous prices may involve paying for specific software related to the website or even advertising expenses if the developer wants to advertise on their website. Before you pay for anything, the first two things you buy include a domain name for your website and web hosting.

Web Hosting

So, what is web hosting?  The web hosting “is a service that allows organizations and individuals to post a website or web page onto the internet” (www.website.com). Hosting requires a large server and specific technologies to post a website. Because of this, many web hosting companies have emerged to help new developers expose their websites to the world. You can pay for web hosting for a relatively low price.

The cost of web hosting increases when companies offer many more services. The most popular companies to provide web hosting for under $10 include GoDaddy, SiteGround, InMotion, and Bluehost. Companies such as Word Press, DreamHost, and Pagely may require up to $400 a month to provide a better web hosting experience. One valid reason a developer would pay such high prices for web hosting could be that he expects many visitors to his website. This is because as the traffic through your website increases, the maintenance required to keep it operational also increases.

Domain Name Costs are part of the Website Costs.

Before you even pay for web hosting, many web hosting sites require that you have an available domain name. Buying a domain name can be bothersome for new and seasoned web developers since the domain name you want may not be available. Out of the many types of domains, the most common variety of domains people buy is called TLDs (Top Level Domains). Top-level domains such as .com names may be purchased cheaply from domain-selling companies such as GoDaddy or NameCheap. The cost of a domain name may differ depending on several factors, such as the probability of the name being searched in search engines and if it’s a memorable name (premium domain name).

Search Engine Keywords and Domain Names

The more popular a search engine keyword your desired domain name is, the more expensive it will purchase. Domain names may also be purchased through auctions. You can buy and auction off your domain names through websites like eBay. Auctions may have the edge over domain buying services because you could get a domain name cheaper.

Lastly, you may purchase a domain name by directly contacting the owner of it. This method is beneficial when the desired domain name has not been active for several years. In this case, there is a good chance the owner no longer uses the domain name and is willing to sell the name for relatively cheap. Hence, An independent transaction within a domain registrar such as GoDaddy may require a separate fee.

Professional Website Developer

Another possible expense of creating a website includes designing the website. Developers may design their websites if their resources and technical skills allow it. What if a developer has the money but lacks the resources, time, or knowledge to create a website independently? In that case, hiring professional web developers to create a website is possible. One option for small businesses willing to pay to obtain a website is to visit web designers specializing in WordPress.

Several free pre-made website themes are available for use on WordPress. WordPress offers premium themes with more functionality options if people search for more upscale themes. Premium themes from WordPress come at a cost compared to the free themes provided by the site. Several web design websites also offer theme memberships allowing buyers to access various premium themes.

Hire a Professional Website Developer

Imagine a large company that desires to hire professional developers to create a new website to put things in perspective. Although a custom website is an option, it often comes with hefty prices. Hiring a professional developer may also be an option if a buyer wants a custom-made web design theme that explicitly fits their interest.

Building professional websites for large companies may require “months of planning, research, consulting, database design and implementation, software development and integration, site quality assurance and testing” (www.atilus.com). As a result, the costs of creating a website of this magnitude may range from $20,000 to over $100,000 in expenses.

Plug-in And Extension Costs add to the Website Costs.

One of the final financial costs of building an essential website includes all the plugins and extensions for running the site’s functionality. Plugins provide endless functionalities that may be added to a website. Many plugins for a website may be found online for free or at a low cost. For example, the Monster Insights plugin allows your website to be connected to Google Analytics, an application that analyzes web visitors’ actions on your site. This is helpful to the cost of a business’s website because it will allow the company to obtain information helpful in optimizing customer and visitor needs. This optimization provides more efficient use of time and resources, directly affecting website maintenance.

Backup Plugin for WordPress

On another note, a plugin that backs up your website may be essential to prevent losing your site if it becomes corrupted or hacked. A backup plugin will quickly restore a corrupted website and save a website owner some stress. Another essential plugin for websites looking to generate revenue may be a forms plugin. A forms plugin allows businesses to collect information from customers to provide services to them later. Forms and backup plugins usually require users to pay a certain amount to use their service. Although the plugins may cost money, they provide essential services to the websites that need them.

Beyond a simple website, we have other miscellaneous costs that may only be applied depending on the direction a developer wants a website to go. For example, E-commerce is defined as “commercial transactions conducted electronically on the internet” (Merriam-webster.com).

An E-commerce website goes beyond the cost compared to what a traditional essential website would cost. To create an E-commerce website, they must first buy an E-commerce business license. In addition to the license, many more functionality options must be placed on the website. These functionality options include buttons for customers to choose the product they want and a payment field for them to pay. Customers will also not pay if they do not believe their payment information is not safe.

E-Commerce and SSL

Creating an e-commerce website may be daunting for most new developers with all the needed functionalities. For this reason, many businesses decide to pay other developers to develop a website for them instead. This results in e-commerce websites requiring security seals if they want customers. According to Atlanticbt.com, running a small e-commerce website with little traffic may cost up to $12,000 annually. This cost is attributed to the year’s licensing, hosting, design, development, configuration, training, and maintenance costs.

Website Costs could also entail Adverting.

Another miscellaneous cost of running a website is advertising your service or product. Promoting your website is not required, but we can’t emphasize that attracting customers requires one channel or another. For example, you can advertise or opt for Search Engine Optimization (SEO). It is almost necessary to do so. Pushing through to advertising allows more traffic to go to your website and will generate more revenue in an e-commerce website. On the other hand, SEO will push your site to rank higher based on keyword searches. Services related to advertising include:

• Cost-per-click (CPC) pricing
• Cost-per-thousand impressions (CPM) Pricing
• Cost-per-acquisition (CPA) Pricing.
• Search Engine Optimization

First, CPC pricing allows Google to charge the customer for every click on an advertisement. This pricing method would be best suited for businesses that desire a lot of traffic to their website. Next, CPM does not charge for each click of an advertisement but for every thousand views of one. Lastly, CPA pricing is a method that charges the business every time the ad leads to a sold product. This pricing method benefits companies looking to generate revenue through online sales transactions.

SEO Services (Search Engine Optimization)

This is something to consider, especially once your website has gone live strongly. That is making sure that your website is prominently positioned on search engines. Any local Seattle SEO agency could assist you. It would make sense to do your homework when identifying reputable Seattle Washing SEO companies.

Website Costs Summary

Creating and running a website may be expensive or not cost much at all. The developer’s end goal is the main factor in how much a website costs. Designing a website may cost little to nothing if a developer uses a template. A website may cost several thousand dollars if a large business desires a well-structured and well-protected site.

Web hosting, domains, plugins, and design play into a website’s ultimate price. A website will cost more as the developer adds more functionalities, such as advertisements, website forms, and backend features.

Hire an effective website builder from Visualwebz, and don’t make the mistake of getting an amateur website developer to end up with one of the worst websites. Whether it’s a website rebuild or web support, we handle it with care and quality. Check our reviews and see what our customers say about us regarding web design and SEO. Call us today at (425)-336-0069.