Creating your website is a huge part of a small business’s marketing strategy. Search engine optimization opportunities are still huge for even brand new entrepreneurs. Even if you drive business predominantly through referrals, a website can be your digital business card. Your prospects can do a quick reputation check, and the results that show up will at least be under your control.
The problem is…
How much should you pay, if anything, to get your website built?
I’ll give you the quick answer:
It depends.
Wait! Don’t go! I have a more complete answer for you, but I needed to give you the honest one first, because it’s hard to nail down prices for websites. Personally, I have been involved in projects where the purchase price on the website development was over $50,000. Don’t worry, that’s probably not going to be the case for you. If you are anything like the majority of readers on this site…
You are likely to pay between $1,000 to $10,000 for your basic website.
I’m assuming you are running a smaller operation with simple needs for your site. The prices escalate as your needs get more specialized.
Here are common reasons your website development price can climb:
- You are in a dense geographic region in a competitive niche
- The theme is built from the ground up, rather than using and building within a template
- The site has an add-on requiring login permissions, such as a membership site or client portal.
- You need lots of specialized pages, such as lead generation landing pages, set up
- The website developer is also going to do copywriting for the site
- Moving an old site to a new platform, such as going from Wix to WordPress, and have a lot of content to move over.
- You want an e-commerce shop, invoicing, or other payment system attached to the site
- The new site has a different “architecture” than the previous site which changes how the URLs appear, such as changing article categories or not using categories within the URLs
This may sound like a lot of money for something as commoditized as building websites.
After all, you can just set up a site on SquareSpace and call it a day, right?
In some cases, yes. If your website is for a hobby or side hustle, setting up the site yourself is feasible. If you are completely new to the website game, starting up a low-stakes site, and have the gumption (plus basic technical chops), you should start by building your own site. It’s not as hard as you think. This site was DIY’ed by me on WordPress.
However, many marketers and small business owners prefer to work with an outside developer.
I get it.
There is a technical barrier to entry. Websites are not as simple as setting up social media accounts.
Plus, you don’t want to go down the DIY road and end up at a stopping point, unable to take the project any farther, and in need of hiring someone anyways.
Local or SEO-dependent businesses don’t want to go down this route. The stakes are just too high. (The one exception is if you have the real skills to set up the site for yourself.) Remember, being a great content writer doesn’t automatically make you good at setting up a site. Yes, content will be important, but…
Web developers help you with technical SEO that may determine whether your site sinks or swims.
There are many ranking factors considered by Google. Frankly, there are more than you can realistically consider. If you spend all your time individually focusing on the 200+ ranking signals used in Google’s algorithm, you will go insane.
Part of the work is done when the site is developed. It will frighten you to know that just one mixup by your web developer could cause your site to never rank. There are files on most sites while under construction that tell Google, “Don’t index this site!” This allows developers to test the site without Google making early decisions about its ranking. After all, you want the site to be considered by Google only when it is ready for the limelight. Sometimes, the developer will forget to delete this “please don’t look at me!” file when the site goes live. Then, you’re left wondering why you don’t show up. (Don’t worry, this is rare. However, it is the digital equivalent of, “Check to see if you turned it on.”)
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The web developer is critical in making sure you have strong site/page speed.
One of Google’s major factors in your SEO ranking is page speed. Oftentimes, the load time is affected by the setup of the website and early design decisions. (Do you really need that parallax scrolling image?) All the plug-ins, all the images and videos, all the gadgets and gimmicks… These bog down your site in a big way, and you need these monitored and corrected for during the development phase.
BIG OLE WARNING: Page speed is definitely one of the things that gets kicked by the wayside when you go cheap on your website build. The developer will prioritize something that looks “pretty” to you over something effective.
As you can imagine, you want your site to load fast, especially on mobile. You’ve experienced the problem of slow pages before. Long load times are a major turnoff, and Google knows this.
If you have an existing site, you can test it at the following link: PageSpeed Insights
There are many common issues with page speed that you can resolve, including:
- Shrink image files sizes. This is a common crime. Big images take time to download. I know you want to use that extra-high-definition headshot, but that 78 MB file size is going to kill your page load times. You want your images to be 2 MB or less in size whenever possible. For this site, I keep most images under 500 KB in size. Don’t worry, you will still look good. Plus, most of your web traffic is on mobile, right? So the images show up small anyways. (On the flip side, I am more generous with image sizes on my leather goods online store, because I don’t want the products to be pixelated!)
- Get rid of unnecessary pixels and tracking codes. You may be shocked by the number of tracking codes that get loaded every time someone drops by your website. You probably even have duplicative tracking codes. Remember that time you hired someone to help with your Facebook Ads? Then you hired someone else? Oh, and you tried to DIY them as well? It’s possible you have the FB pixel loading three separate times on your site, slowing it down dramatically. Also, there are load times for Google Analytics and Tag Manager. Yes, Google is costing you page load times. But do they care? Nope. Just the cost of doing business.
- Be careful about plug-ins. There are so many plug-ins you can use on your website. However, every one of those adds load time. I’m not saying you should get rid of all of them. Just weigh the benefits. For example, if you use HelloBar on your site to capture leads, make sure it is actually bringing in leads for you. And if you decide to stop using HelloBar, take the program off your site entirely! Simply deactivating or stopping your usage of a plug-in or software doesn’t mean it leaves your website.
- You may be underpaying for server space or hosting. Your website may be on a server shared by a lot of other sites and competing for bandwidth. Avoid going with the absolutely cheapest route for your server/hosting, because you will get what you pay for and pay for what you didn’t get.
In general, the advice “you get what you pay for” is correct.
Additionally, “you get what you put your time into” is also true.
Your website cost isn’t just about the money. It also has to do with your time. If you can spend time learning how to do some DIY work on your site, you can save some money. The simplest thing to do is make sure you have your content ready. You can also limit the scope of work done by the developer if you know how to do some setup yourself. Then, you’re really paying for the design work and infrastructure, knowing you will handle setting up the extra pages.
There is money to be saved up front as well. You can plan out the site on something as simple as pen and paper or use a wireframe program like wireframe|cc.
There are plenty of options in between as well, including sketching on an iPad. The more precise your vision is, the easier it is for a developer to jump right into the work, rather than kicking around ideas in the design phase.
The final way to save money is by not spending on what you don’t need.
If you build on a well-known platform, like WordPress, you can add functionality later on. Many developers will get you to buy something you don’t need today but might be something you want in the future. You’ll have to make your own call here. Just don’t get pressured into the fancy add-on. Go into your developer meetings with a precise vision whenever possible, or find a site they already created you like and want to mimic. Know your “bells and whistles” before signing any contracts.
Ultimately, your website is an investment.
I like to imagine this process as “buy and hold” – just like stock market investing. Don’t purchase something trendy. Get a site you can see owning 3-5 years from now and build it on a strong foundation.
Spend the right amount of money up front, and you can get a big yield from your website. Skimp, and you may find yourself wondering why you’re not getting business online. (I have coached many folks who say “the internet marketing stuff isn’t working for me,” only for me to find out they spent money on the digital equivalent of a bucket full of holes.)
Do you have a website vendor you really like? Let me know, because I will keep a list of those folks to recommend. Plus, they may get featured on this website!
Charley
I help small business owners, freelancers, and marketing DIY'ers get an edge up against the 800-pound gorillas in their markets. Like your business, this site is a DIY project showing you how to do what I've done in other businesses, including a law firm and a major coaching group for law firm owners.
Get FREE access to my SITE BUILDER CHECKLIST - designed specifically to help the marketing DIYer and small business owner GET MORE CUSTOMERS!
