How Much Does It Cost to Build a Website for a Small Business?

Are you ready to build a website for your company? Congrats! That’s an important step to legitimize your digital appearance & strengthen your marketing as a whole. 

A website is on the must-have table for most small businesses in this modern world. A website is now the main shop front and first touchpoint for generating new customer inquiries and sales leads.

At this stage, you probably have the same question as other small business owners how much does it cost to build a website for a small business. 

So, Let’s Drive into that know in detail:

How Much Does It Cost to Build a Website for a Small Business? 

There are honestly a lot of things to do and a lot of rules to maintain for creating a website whether it’s a small business or not. So, have patience and let me tell you how you are going to do that successfully. The segments you are going to invest your money:

DOMAIN NAME

If you start a website from scratch, you need to buy a Domain Name. You can do so from several sites like GoDaddy, Domain.com. Ensure your domain name auto-renews to avoid losing URL and breaking hard-earned links in the manner.

WEBSITE HOSTING

After purchasing the domain name, you need to choose the host of your website. You can do that from several sites like Bluehost, Hostinger. You can even purchase shared hosting if bandwidth is alright, but the budget is not. Shared hosting lets you split the costs and server space with other websites. Still, shared hosting is secure and only potentially impacts your site speed & it is cheaper.

WEB DESIGN & DEVELOPMENT

Website design and website development are not synonyms. They are two very different things. 

A web designer is responsible for the look and feel of a website [like an architect] & a web developer manipulates the applications and functionality of the site [like a contractor who builds the house].

The cost of web development and web design depends on:

1. The amount (and quality) of artwork and graphic design to create the site
2. The number of website pages
3. The volume and complexity of content
4. Features that need to add to the website, such as a store and content management
5. The number of images and photos
6. Stock-art and photo purchase and royalty costs.
7. The quantity (and quality) of charts, graphs, icons, and high-resolution images that need to add
8. Audio and video editing and preparation
9. Incorporation of Flash (scalable animation)
10. The experience and competency of the website designer

Some companies do both web designing and web development & also they will provide domain & hosting by themselves. 

COST CALCULATOR

Depending on your requirements, building a website can cost anywhere within $500 and $2000 for small businesses. If you need a unique, customized website, it can go as high as $30,000 or more.

DOMAIN NAME

A domain name usually costs around $14.99 per year.

WEB HOSTING

Web hosting will cost you $7.99 per month. 

Collectively, starting a site will cost you as low as $110.87 annually.

Small Business Website Maintenance Cost

There are some core thighs for which website maintenance costs can go up and down. Depending on what you think about a small business is. Though there are 5 things comes when talking about small business website maintenance cost: 

1. Domain Name

Depending on your choice what type of domain you take, com, org, net, co etc various domains are different prices. Though it will not go more than 30 dollars if you don’t choose some premium domain. It is better to buy a domain for at least 3 years.  

2. Web Hosting

YES! Hosting is a big problem and needs to find out a good solution, it needs some extra money as well. It will take $2 to $850 per month. 

There are various hosting services but it will be better if you choose any agency to do your web design work and tell them to choose a good hosting. As they know the best, what will perfect your small business.  We added it to website maintenance as all your website is depending on things. If hosting is bad all the hard work will be crushed on water. 

3. General website Update

From the user experience to the user perspective, you need to maintain your website every now and then. It will improve SEO and give a boost to the search engine.  

Keeping website maintenance improves the security of your customer on e-Commerce and buying most of the product online. On that note, you have to make sure all payment information is secure. 

For that, you have to regularly maintain your website. For the maintenance cost, it will take $15 to $105 relying on how many problems you have. 

The general website upkeep those are: 

1. Webpages 
2. Content
3. Media
4. Navigation
5. Files
6. Links
7. Forms
8. Background images
9. Colors

4. Regular Content Update

Most of the cost and money take in the content updating as most of the traffic or visitor comes through content. Your Content which is now 1st page will not be continued on the same page all the time for you to have to update regularly can’t be on the 1st page all the time. So for that, you have to keep working on your content every month and year.  

5. Analysing the Performance

Keeping track of your website performance is very important. Every month or week you need to keep looking at your performance so that you set up a new plan or find a loophole in your work. And, you can continuously improve your working. 

In website maintenance, website analysing plays a key role which we all forget all the time. So, keep in mind when you are going to choose an agency for website maintenance services. 

WEB DESIGNING & DEVELOPMENT

You can DO IT YOURSELF (DIY) OR you can HIRE A WEB DESIGN AGENCY to do the tasks on your behalf.

1. DO IT YOURSELF (DIY)

You need to have a basic understanding of web technology. It will be very time consuming (nearly 30-60 hours) & if you need enough knowledge about how to build a website and how to maintain it. If those are true for you, then this is a viable option for you.

• SSL Certificate: Whether you plan to sell from your website or not, you will need an SSL Certificate. You can have an SSL certificate for $10/year or as much as $200-300/year. However, you can have a free SSL certificate from some web hosting companies if you host your site with them.

• Website Theme: You need to spend $100-$150 for a quality theme. You can get that from Studiopress or Templatemonster.

• Premium Plugins: You can have quality plugins from Gravity Forms or Envira Gallery for $100-$200.

• Stock Medias (Images): For $50-$100, you can possess all the high-quality, royalty-free photographs to make your site look more attractive.

• Education: As google change their algorithm regularly to rank websites, you need to update your tactics regularly. You will need to learn more and more about web designing and development. You will also need to adopt modern-day trends to stand out. Learning HTML/CSS or Photoshop or others will cost you $50-$300. 

In total, you are realistically looking at about $500-$700 in expenses to get up and running. But the main cost is your time because, even for a “simple site”, you have to put a lot of effort.

HIRE A WEB DESIGN AGENCY:

Package: A package contains every essential thing to create your website. The web design agency may provide you with a variety of offers based on,

• The amount (and quality) of artwork and graphic design to create the site
• The number of website pages
• The volume and complexity of content
• Features that are to add to the website, such as a store and content management
• The number of images and photos
• Stock-art and photo purchase and royalty costs
• The quantity (and quality) of charts, graphs, icons and high-resolution images that need to add
• Audio and video editing and preparation
• Incorporation of Flash (scalable animation)

The price will typically be $1500-$6000 for proper business websites. However, this price will depend on the type & the size of the business, and for a smaller and local business, it may not cross $1000 sometimes. 

• So, what is the benefit of hiring a web design agency?

Answer is- 

• They can usually get the job done quicker, better, and cheaper (including the maintenance process and fees, it is lower than you think) than you could do. 

• You are getting the help of a professional and experienced web designing and development team.

• As your business expands and develops, your website might need more advanced functionality. An agency will work for that with you and keep you updated with modern trends to stand out from their competitors and yours too.

• A web design agency can provide you an SEO friendly content management service.

• You can avoid annual licensing fees by working with a web developer that has a developers’ license for the premium WordPress plugins used on your site. Because their developers’ license covers your annual licensing fees. For example, a premium form plugin like Gravity Forms has a license fee of $59/yr. A highly image gallery will run in $69/yr. However, taking the service from the agency they will add all premium license free plugins without any cost most of the time. 

• Your site also requires ongoing technical maintenance to install updates and security patches to WordPress core files and WordPress plugins to protect your website from being hacked. Yes, even small business sites are targets for hackers. An agency will keep that in check.   

• Your site also requires ongoing technical maintenance to install updates and security patches to WordPress core files and WordPress plugins to protect your website from being hacked. Yes, even small business sites are targets for hackers. An agency will keep that in check.   

Now it’s time to make a decision about how your budget will look like.

MY SUGGESTION

Following this guide, you may have understood how much it cost to build a website for a small business. In my point of view, You should hire a professional because it’s the effectiveness that counts. For example, you made a standard business website where people would register for the services & then 5% of traffics decided to register. However, by hiring a decent designer, you were able to create some magnificent designs, you get some good developers to work on that, and in the end, you got to 15% traffic. Moreover, those people share your website, and you got 5% more in total traffic. See the difference between those two scenarios. Let’s not make you suffer in the future for today’s withholds. 

You should invest right now, to make some modest landing page. Then, determine the sign-up rate, the profit, and decide how much money you are willing to put in and create the site.

Overall, this proves to be cheaper over time than giving big money directly to WordPress.com. In the future, if you decide to invest in boosting your Web presence, you can put that on this website you already own, so you can upgrade your site however you want. However, you have to remember you need a trusted professional for a sincere installation. So, hiring a web design agency is the best way to set up your website.

However, hiring a web design agency is not that simple. There’s a lot to follow. Check out this article and follow the guidelines to do it correctly. 

Remember, A lot of agencies are out there & not all of them are going to make you succeed. Don’t fall in the trap of the lowest price. Remember, the cost will never be lesser than that of the work required. Finally, create your budget remembering all the necessary information about small business website design costs & that will ensure MONEY WELL USED. 

FAQ

References

• https://en.wikipedia.org
• https://en.wikipedia.org
• https://godaddy.com
• https://www.domain.com/
• https://shopify.com/