Having a website involves five basic costs:
1. site design,
2. the development of the site,
3. hosting of the site,
4. maintaining the site, and
5. registering the domain name.
Site design deals with the way the site looks. The development of the site is the actual build, or putting together of graphics, text, links and code to make the site works as expected. This is usually the largest of the five costs and can range in price dependent upon the size of the site and/or the functionality (eCommerce, special database activity, etc). However, the cost of getting a functioning website is generally the same as putting a colour ad insert into the local paper a couple of times a year, which may be seen but then it’s gone. The website is a one-time investment for a tool that you can continually use for communication and marketing indefinitely; it’s always there, and it’s always accessible.
Site hosting refers to the rental of the server space needed to keep it active on the internet. Hosting costs vary but start at around £10 – £20 per month, which is based on the site’s memory requirement, security, traffic activity and bandwidth usage. Service varies widely as well. The main thing to ensure though is that the space provided on the server should offer ample provision for high traffic / bandwidth. When a site doesn’t have enough bandwidth, the site becomes slow to load and may prove problematic to access.
Site maintenance is important, as it needs to be kept up to date to make sure that all of the different components continue to work seamlessly together and offer no holes for any prospective hackers to pick at. An updated site is a happy site! Quite often on smaller sites, maintenance can be rolled in with the hosting service.
Registering the domain name involves the purchase of a unique web address that can be associated with your web site (www.companyname.com). This is done through a public registry service and can be dealt with by the web developer.
A website has a pretty similar cost structure to a company’s telephone system. The website design and development costs are like the cost of the phone and installation (pay one time and the equipment is yours); the hosting and maintenance costs are similar to the monthly phone bill (payment for continued use of the service); the domain name registry is the same as the phone number (a unique way to get in touch with you and only you).
There may be some additional costs if you choose it, such as email services with multiple email accounts and / or special requirements, internet marketing services that will help you to promote the site and get the maximum visibility, so drawing more visitors to the site.
As we’re not town / city centre-based and we’re efficient, we have far less overheads than several of our more prestigious neighbours, and can therefore afford to offer our services at a fraction of their cost. I can also assure you that our service is personal, far superior to the big boys too, and it’s FREE – unlike theirs!
Give me a call to find out how much it would cost you to get your own fantastic looking website. You’ve got nothing to lose and everything to gain! Chris 07939 134494
Look out for our next article – “We already have a Facebook page, so why would we need a separate website?” Coming soon.