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If you’re wondering how much a website costs, there are several factors that govern the final cost of a website. The significant factors include – your own expectations, the design and the content.
When building a website the cost is highly dependent on your company goals and expectations. Click To TweetCouple that with the agency size and hourly rate, will make significant differences to the cost of a web design. However, there are also different benefits and pitfalls to each level of web design agency.
How much does web design cost? As the person in your business, responsible for getting your company in front of as many people as possible, no doubt, you will look to hire a web design agency or website designer and you’ll need to know how much a website will cost you.
In all likelihood, you’ll contact some different agencies around and you’ll receive back a whole host of different prices. You may wonder why there costs differ so much. Throughout this post, we’ll give examples of the processes and costs that are involved in creating a website and show why there can be different pricing from different web freelancers and web design agencies.
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The first thing that varies greatly between web design companies and freelancers is the hourly rate. Depending on where your chosen web design business is both in experience and geography, there can be a significant difference in web development costs. It’s fair to say that you could stand 5 web developers next to one another, fundamentally each of whom do the same job, but whose pricing could vary massively.
You could stand 5 web developers next to each other and each would quote a hugely different price – but each would have a vastly different outcome. Click To TweetIt’s fair to say that websites can take some time to create – and that is highly dependent on the work that it takes to research goals and objectives.
As a ball-park indicator, here is a breakdown of some of the differentiating factors that may impact hourly rates:
| Type of Designer Cons | Price | Pros | Cons |
|---|---|---|---|
| New Web Designer | £5 to £20 p.h | • Cheaper • Value for Money | • Untested • Reliability |
| Freelancer | £25 to £60 p.h | • Cheap • Low Overheads | • No Team • Availability |
| Small Web Studio | £60 to £80 p.h | • Have Specialists • Office | • Salaries • Costs |
| Large Web Agency | £75 to £200 p.h | • Nice Office • Big Skilled Team | • Large wages & costs |
There is a solution for most needs and requirements. If your business “just needs a website” then you may decide to look at the lower cost options. If you need multi-disciplined, full service offering, then a larger agency is likely to be more your cup of tea. But, you’ll end up paying more for the service you get.
Depending on your business goals, you can spend a little or a lot on certain areas of a web design. For example, you may want to concentrate on the aesthetics of a website or maybe you’d prefer something that was going to convert like a machine. Either way, taking the time to devise a strategy that is going to work for your business is critical.
Website goals and objectives are critical for a successful project. It's important to be realistic as to what you can expect for the time, budget and resources you have. Click To TweetGetting the strategy right means that the new website should meet your company goals and directives. Creating a strategy is achieved by looking at what you currently have and identifying where it falls short. For example, you may not be getting any enquiries, in which case, that will need further attention in a new website.
At this stage you are looking at the competition, checking out their strengths weaknesses, opportunities and threats (SWOT) and looking to see how your business can measure up using your new online presence. Most importantly, as an exercise, creating client avatars is something that we’d highly recommend. This allows you to personify an ideal client. Go into as much detail as possibly as to who your ideal client is, what they do, their marital status, whether they have a family, where they shop and everything that makes for a rounded character. This helps, when you’re writing content and when your web developer designs your web pages, they can have your ideal customer in their minds eye.
This is the stage where the web designer comes into their won. Having considered all of the strategy and research, they will produce paper designs of your website. Your web agency will also provide you with a site map – of what pages they would recommend your website starts off with. This may mean that content needs to be written. Establishing how a page reads is important and clarifies the need for establishing your ideal client. It’s also a golden opportunity to give feedback on these aspects too.
the design of a website can be a pivotal factor in cost. A website can be an off-the-shelf theme or a bespoke theme created to just the way you like it. Each comes at a different price point Click To TweetNow all of the content and design aspects have been created, thanks to rock-solid research and strategy, now the website can begin to take shape. This means that the theme is designed and tweaked to suit the paper designs and the pages are made to house the new content. It becomes the housing for any existing content and the new content that is being created for the new website.
Your content is they key to a successful website implementation. Don’t scrimp on the content, the graphics, photos or video. This is how you are going to communicate with your visitors for the next few years. Using everything you’ve learnt from the earlier stages, new photos will be taken, videos about the business will be edited together, icons to make it easier to navigate and copy will be written to promote your website and most importantly – your business.
As the content is added to your website, you will see it spring into life. As a business, you will probably have the opportunity to look at the website on a staging or test server. This will help you to visualise what the end result will look like.
You hear it everywhere that content is king. It really is. It makes the difference between a popular site and one that gets any engagement. If you're not a writer – consider outsourcing it. Click To TweetThis is where your web design company will prepare you with training on the admin area and teach you how to add content. There may also be some content or videos that show you how to achieve certain thing on your website. They will also set up monitoring services and analytics to allow you to visualise how successful your website is.
This is where the final adjustments and changes are made. Small changes may include re-ordering the menu or adding some extra text or images onto pages. As soon as the website has been signed off, the site can be launched. Of course, it doesn’t end there. The website needs to be submitted to the search engines – to inform it that there are changes afoot. This is done by adding a sitemap with the revised map of the website and also through submitting individual pages to the search engines if needed.
This part is all to often overlooked. The website needs regular maintenance and updates to stay operational and optimal Regular updates on the website content management system and the content will help to keep the website working at its best.
It all depends on what you’re looking for. Not only that, it’s what your expectations are versus the budget and resources you have. Not only that, but it also depends on how much help you need to get your website live.
For example, you may need content creating, photos taken and videos made. Each of these activities take some time and in some cases specialist equipment. If you’re looking for the best you can get you may decide to have some photos, content and videos created for you. Not to mention the icons and designs that are created for each page.
It’s fair to say that most site visitors can tell if a site has been quickly assembled against a website that has been clearly crafted with an intent to provide a particular product or service.
If you were seeking to commission a business like Flok, we charge £75 per hour plus VAT. We would budget the following for each part of our development:
Total example: £2,925 – £6375. You will also need to make provision for VAT too.
A larger agency whose hourly rate could be £100 ph may cost: £4,000 – £10000. However, you’ll be benefiting from a bigger team, with specialist staff for each service.
