How much should a website cost?

A guide only – we charge a lot less than this, but hopefully this will help you to understand the process and what you might expect to pay for a website…

If you’re reading this its probably because you’ve been looking around to get yourself a website, and become a bit confused by the varying costs suggested by huge number of website design companies out there.

I’m John with Pumpkin Web Design in Preston, Lancashire, and this article is designed to explain the website design process so that you can get a better understanding of “how much should a website cost?”. Since the vast majority of our customers are small businesses that require brochure style websites that sit high on Google (most websites you’ll see online are brochure style sites, an online brocure promoting your services), I’ll focus on that…

How much should a 3 – 5 page, great looking brochure style website cost? – you really shouldnt be paying more than £350 for a beautiful HTML based website…

This type of website is perfect for many small businesses such as tradespeople, florists etc. A great looking website with a home page, a services or gallery page and a contact us page. This assumes a one off website design and search engine submission service – not necessarily including on-going support and website amendments…

Whats involved?

The first step is for your web designer to get a good understanding about you and your business, your brand image, the areas in which your business operates, the key message that your website needs to deliver (what is likely to motivate your customers to contact you), which images you would like on your website or whether stock images will need to be purchased, and any legal requirements such as trade associations that might need to be mentioned.

Personally, we send out a simple form asking the key questions that are going to help us put together a website that appears for the correct key phrases, and that is likely to encourage the website visitor to get in touch. Your web designer should be fairly skilled in writing (good written information is essential for SEO) – so with your key bullet point info, should be able to write some reasonably good content. Simple stuff so far…

Once your web designer has everything they need to get started, it really shouldnt take any longer than 3 days to create a website that is in-line with your brand, contains a reasonable amount of well written, unique web content, is well laid out to get good Google rankings (correct meta data, key phrases, SEO friendly tag, correct keyword density, tagged images (alt tag) and contains a “call to action” of some kind – a call out to your website visitor for them to take the next step and get in touch. A website that doesnt call out for action is really missing a trick. It is quite common for a website designer to begin with a great, ready made, compliant template which is then adjusted to suit your individual requirements. Doing this is common practice as it helps your web guy keep costs down, whilst delivering a completely unique finished website.

Now, if your website designer has taken the time to really understand your brand and your business, the first draft of the website shouldnt be too far off the mark. There are always tweeks and changes to make which rarely take too much additional time to adjust.

OK so now we are all happy with the website – Great! What are the costs for this little lot?
Well, 3 days of time spent by your web guy – lets say £300 ish (3 days is more than ample). If your web designer is purchasing your website URL (domain name) on your behalf, you might expect to be charged between £5 and £20 depending on the domain extension (.co.uk, .com, .net, .co). You’ll also need some hosting which for a small website like this should only cost a few quid each year.

OK – So how much should a 6 – 10 page, great looking brochure style website cost? – you really shouldnt be paying more than £450 for a beautiful HTML based website…

A bit bigger, and still perfect for many small businesses such as tradespeople, florists etc. A great looking website with a home page, a services or gallery page, about us, news, testimonials, and a contact us page. This assumes a one off website design and search engine submission service – not necessarily including on-going support and website amendments…

Whats should we do?

Well, not a great deal more than for the smaller website above…. The tricky, time consuming part for the website designer is getting the initial website framework and brand image in place. From here, creating new pages is a doddle. A new page is usually a copy of the last one, with different content, new images and perhaps a slight amend on the general layout.

OK so now we are all happy with the website – Great! What are the costs for this little lot?

Well, 4 days of time spent by your web guy – lets say £400 ish (4 days is more than ample). If your web designer is purchasing your website URL (domain name) on your behalf, you might expect to be charged between £5 and £20 depending on the domain extension (.co.uk, .com, .net, .co). You’ll also need some hosting which for a small website like this should only cost a few quid each year.