By Guest Writer Gabriel Shaoolian
Virtually every business owner- no matter what the size of the business- has come to the realization that a web presence is absolutely necessary. Your competitors are on the web. Your clients are on the web. Most importantly, your potential clients/customers are on the web.
Your company’s website is your storefront. It is often the first exposure a potential customer has to your business.
Just having a website is not enough. Your website must present your brand in the best possible light.
The design, content and functionality are all key elements to engaging your visitors, while an integrated online marketing program is essential to attracting such visitors in the first place.
Once the decision has been made to create a new website or redesign a current website, businesses must make the decision as to how much they are willing to spend.
What is a Reasonable Price?
If you Google “Web Design,” you will find companies offering $500 website or even $199 websites. When new clients come to our offices, they are often surprised to learn that a sophisticated e-commerce web project can cost tens of thousands, even hundreds of thousands of dollars.
So, how can a person know how much to spend?
This is actually the wrong question. The more important questions to ask are:
- What am I trying to accomplish with my website?
- How will my website enhance my brand?
- What are the bottom line numbers I’m trying to achieve through my website?
A poorly designed and engineered site will not only do little to bring clients/customers to your site, it can damage your brand and reputation, thus jeopardizing relationships with current clients/customers.
So what factors go into the cost of a web project?
The first factor to consider is the quality of work you’ll be receiving. Great websites are created by great professionals. Look for a company with highly trained and experienced designers, managers and developers.
These people are paid for their time, much the same as professionals in any industry. Where does the time go?
- Planning: At the outset of the project, time is invested in learning about your current business, checking out the competitive landscape and understanding the precise ways in which you want your website to work for you. If this stage is not given proper attention, the project is doomed to fail.
- Technical specifications: How sophisticated is the functionality you are seeking? Are you looking for e-commerce solutions? Advanced reporting options? Customized content management systems? Many of these features require complex engineering.
- Design specifications: How much customized design are you looking for? Are you content to have the same basic design for all of the pages of your site, or are you looking for unique design elements for each of the sections of your site?
- Marketing strategies: How much traffic are you looking to drive to your site? Search engine optimization, online marketing and social media marketing all require time to strategize, implement and monitor. A well crafted marketing program can be expensive, but the returns can be enormous.
- Maintenance: How much attention to I want to give to the site once it has been launched? Ongoing SEO, site analytics and adding features and functionality require investments of time and money, but can do a great deal to bring in further revenues.
The amount of time and effort spent in all of these areas can vary greatly from client to client. Every client has different requirements.
It is critical to find a web design, development and marketing company you have confidence in. Meet with them. Talk with them. Test them. If you are fortunate enough to find a group you are comfortable with, then decisions about scope and price become much easier to make.
Gabriel Shaoolian is the founder and CEO of Blue Fountain Media, a results-driven website design and online marketing company based in Union Square, Manhattan. Shaoolian has grown Blue Fountain Media from a one-man operation to a full-service agency with over 70 employees. Clients range from start-ups to Fortune 500 companies. Shaoolian is an entrepreneur who loves working with hungry, entrepreneurial clients. View his full profile here.
Amazing post Gabriel… some people expect to pay a few hundred dollars and get a perfect Wordpress theme or an eCommerce website. A perfectly done website is worth every penny.
Great article. One of the hardest things about running a web design and development company is educating clients about costs. It’s even harder when there are so many companies offering a “$500 Dollar” solution. The fact of the matter is, you get what you pay for. In 2009, we had 4 clients come back to us after getting the “$500″ solution. Web design and development is hard. SEO is hard. SEM is hard. We try to educate our clients about everything that actually goes into a successful website. It’s a lot! Thanks for the article, I hope a lot of people read it!
The actual problem is that websites (and all other marketing vehicles) are viewed as commodities, instead of investments. And we all know, you try to get the cheapest priced commodity because at the end of the day you’re getting the same product.
Not the case with web and marketing work!
No one tells their investor I’d like to buy 2,000 shares of Google for pennies because there are thousands of pennystocks out there!
When a client asks,” How much do you charge for a SEO?” .Its better to ask the client, has he come out with a budget for marketing for his firm or company? If he says yes, then ofcourse you are doing nothing but asking him to spend a share of his marketing budget on online marketing. He questions about returns??
Many web development companies make a mistake to answer a typical client question which is How much returns should be expect out of SEO? How much sales should he expect? to which the answer is that u dont promise that the sales will pick up, but if there are 3000 visitors visiting his website today, in the next 6 months there would be say 7000 visitors visiting his website. You dont promise “sales”, you only promise “traffic”.
Great article. As the owner of a web design firm we have had to turn people away for not having their idea together. I can make your web design dreams come true at a great value but I am not a mind reader. We have many options for every budget and our customers have been pleased with our product.
This blog post = very well put.
There is no “standard” number for how much you should spend – but much like everything else, “you get what you pay for” — that’s for web design.
As for SEO – be careful here… every web design company says they do SEO, but beware, they just started offering SEO because that’s where the market is moving.. they definitely don’t specialize in it.
I’m a bit bias on this next statement as I’m in the industry.. run your site on WordPress.. easily to modify, best for SEO, and FREE (minus hosting of course).
Thanks for your article. I am in the process of getting a website made and was shocked at the difference between what I though was low end and what low end really is. There are a few local professionals I am going to interview this week to see if they fit my needs. Most of them have already said an “ok” site will be around 1500-2000. More than I really want to spend but I am looking at it as an investment like Andre said. Thank you again
I am sometimes amazed at how much work goes into a website and for certain businesses a really high end site is absolutely necessary! However there are a few really professional and functional do it yourself options if you’re just looking for a brochure site with options for a shopping cart, photo galleries, etc. I don’t want to shamelessly plug so I wont post links or anything, however if someone is interested in something they can maintain and update on their own, you can send me an email at lisabrodersen@gmail.com.