COST OF A WEBSITE:

HOW MUCH A WEBSITE COST –

When it comes to website designing, there are lots of factors that may influence the price clients may have to pay for a website. These prices may vary between companies depending on the benefits a company offers to its clients, the company’s reputation, designers’ skill sets, overhead and SEO, domain registration, and et cetera.

Whether you wish to design your website with a reputable company or just a novice, the same factors are going to affect the amount of money you are going to pay for that particular website. Let’s take a look into these factors and I will explain how each and everyone one of these factors affects the price of a website in South Africa. Before I can list the factors affecting the website’s cost, I think it is significant that I explain why it is necessary to have a website when running a business.

The Significance of Owning A Website As a company, it is nowadays of utmost importance to have a website . In a way, it is more like creating an online identity, thus your target market can be able to know more about your company. Your clients are able to access the information they need about your company and the services your company offers with ease, thus improving customer service and also making them feel welcome and included.

A lion’s share of your customers will visit your website before making a purchase. From the little I have mentioned, clearly you can see that a website is a performance booster for a company. By just simply being accessible online, your website can create traffic, thus clients also, infact this is more effective as you can reach more prospects in other places other than the one you are based in. A website can give you more insights on behavioral patterns and actions your visitors take on your website, which in turn helps you optimize your website for the best possible conversions.

In this era, it should be a company’s priority to have a website. Knowing the little bit of what comes with owning a website, all those benefits are not for free. This expense is nothing compared to the benefits that come along with having a website.

FACTORS AFFECTING THE PRICE OF A WEBSITE:

1) DOMAIN REGISTRATION

Registering a domain is a significant cost, usually ranging around R220 per annum. Depending on the hosting company you are working with, if you are using their services, you might be able to escape this cost. There are certain hosting companies that offer free hosting and It is very crucial that you be very careful with this because these free sites are usually connected with spam and some uncomfortable sites.

Imagine buying a used domain with the intent to post updates about the church affairs and the like, without knowing only to find out later that the website has a ton of backlinks all coming from porn sites and betting platforms. That would hinder the reputation of your website and your website would not rank that high because it does not have relevant content.

With domain registration, there is another way to escape the registration fee. This can be achieved by using free domains such as example.company.site; example.wordpress.site and etcetera, of which sounds good, but the danger comes in when your business is successful and you wish to upgrade. This will mean that you will have to get a new URL, thus losing your previous customers because the search engines won’t be recognizing your new domain name, it will be more like you are now starting from scratch. It is thus important to have a domain name that you have paid for, just to be on a safe side.

2) HOSTING

Hosting a website is not for free, it is another expense that you can’t escape paying for. More like you buying a stand, hosting a website can be compared to that because when you host a website, you are actually owning a space on the web, a place that you are going to build your website on and thus it is not for free.

It is advisable that you host your website with a well-reviewed company just so you can get professional advice on which packages may best suit the purpose of your to-be-hosted website and preferably a hosting company that is well close to your location for a lot of technical reasons.

Web space is limited. Let’s take for example, you are running a blog, the storage disk space you may need on the server may not exceed 5GB, but if you are running an active forum, you may need way more than that. From the example I have given, you can clearly see that it is significant to be quite clear with the type of website you wish to run and know how much space and the other requirements you may need to avoid unnecessary costs in the future.

You may also have to put the bandwidth into consideration. It is necessary to have a well planned monthly budget because the more visitors your website receives, the more bandwidth gets used up but some hosting companies offer infinity bandwidth depending on the hosting packaging you wish to take.

3) OVERHEAD

This may not seem like much of an issue but it is actually an influential factor in the amount a client pays for a website. Look at it this way, client “A” wants a blog designed by a reputable company, well-reviewed and having the best designers, working in well-equipped offices with electricity, running water, air conditioners, and fine toilets. The owner of the company has to pay the bills and also give the designers their monthly salaries.

On the other hand, take for example, client “B” approaches a Computer Sciences student and asks him to create a website for him. The student lives with his parents and he has no bills to pay. Now, using common sense, one of the two clients is going to pay more for the same kind of website between client “A” and “B”. The client that obviously pays more is client “A” for obvious reasons. It is therefore noticeable that professional service costs more but despite that, it offers the best services and when working with professionals, there are less chances of mistakes, unprofessional gibberish and falling victim to spam.

Professional websites generate traffic thus improving your company’s income. Your website will be visible online because it appears on the search engine and your target market will be able to access it. A website with a professional touch is more look-able and professional, keeping in mind that how your website looks reflects on your company.

A website, therefore, has to look great and satisfying to the visitors because it is the first impression you are going to give to your customers without actually meeting them in person. By looking at your website, a client may even assume how much they could pay for something, accurately. It’s simply standards.

Many other factors are minor, but it is advisable that these factors shouldn’t be taken lightly unless you are working with reputable professionals. It is also necessary to be considerate of the packages the hosting companies may be willing to offer you, in that way you can be able to identify which hosting company will suit you best, and by doing so, this also gives you a sense of security, safety and satisfaction knowing that you are going to be spending your money on something that is an exact blueprint of what you want.

Like a building, a website requires maintenance now and then. Sometimes a website may need improvement, an upgrade. One wouldn’t be wrong by looking at this as an expense because it is. Well, the hosting company may be able to assist you with that for free or at a price. They can automatically update the servers and php scripts and the like without your trouble, if maintenance was part of the package they offered you, but if maintenance was not part of the package, then you would have to pay for that.

Usually reputable hosting companies would do that for you for free. In some cases, you can pay the designer to maintain the website and do updates to the website. Quite frankly, you can see one of the many benefits of having a professional to do your website.

4) REPUTATION

Reputation is a big factor. For example, you just can’t expect a local brand to cost the same amount as the top-dogs like Coca-Cola or Calvin Klein. Whether the product is undesirable or not, as long as it is printed on that overrated label, that is going to change everything. The same applies to creating websites with reputable companies.

A reputable company offers professional customer services and is good at its job, and therefore will charge you more for their services than a novice who has the ability to create quality websites but having no fore professional experience.

Paying more to a professional website designing company is really worth it. It also saves you time since professionals know their jobs very well, they can swiftly sweep through a task.

5) SEO

To be frank, just having a custom website and updating amazing content will not attract and increase the traffic . A professional web designing company takes it to another level and does SEO for your web pages. On location and off-site optimizations methods are also used to market your website. Through it you’ll be able to get better rankings on the search engine, meaning that your prospects can easily find you.

A quality website alone cannot be sufficient in selling products or services. It is therefore necessary to rank on the top of the search engine optimization pages. Most of the organic traffic comes from there, about 94 percent of the organic traffic a website gets.

SEO experts will promote your website using a variety of SEO strategies, for example, writing and submitting relevant articles, blogging and forum submissions, PPC advertising campaigns, banner and link exchange, social media marketing, web directory submission, social bookmarking, promotion via emails, and the like.

Apart from that, a website designing company will also thoroughly research and choose your niche keywords, and use them in your web page content, and for promoting your business online. This will be helpful in establishing your website’s exposure.

December Special: Need a website?

---