If you’re a small business owner in need of a new website or looking to redesign your existing website, you may be wondering how much it costs to create a business website. There are several things you need to consider when trying to determine the complete business website costs. At a minimum, you’ll need the following 3 things: a domain name, the website and hosting/maintenance for your website.
Purchasing a Domain Name
A domain name is the web address that allows people to find your business website online. When purchasing a domain name, here are a few tips to keep in mind when you are deciding on what name to use:
- Think Like A Customer – Consider names in your industry or the location of your business. These names should be easy to remember and not too long. You’ll want to avoid names that are difficult to spell or pronounce.
- Brandable Domain Name – You want your domain to stand out from the competition and clearly identify your service and/or product offerings. You may also want to get creative with a word or phrase that is meaningful to your business.
- Choosing the Domain Extension – The domain extension is the part that appears after the “dot”. Most businesses will want to use the .com extension, while non-profits will want to use the .org extension. If the .com extension is not available, you may want to consider the .net extension but it may not be as memorable compared to .com.
- Buying the Domain Name – There are lots of domain registration companies; a good and inexpensive option is NameCheap.com. You can always transfer the domain name to a different company if you need more features and options.
In general, you can expect to pay around $10 to $20 per year for a domain name. Some will cost more because they include extra options such a domain privacy, URL masking, e-mail forwarding etc.
Creating A Business Website
There are typically two ways to get a business website created. You can either build your own website using one of the popular DIY solutions on the market or you can hire a web design company to create one for you. If you’re tech savvy and have some time on your hand, making the site yourself will definitely save you money in the short-term. Also, if you’re a brand new business with limited funds, it may be a good temporary solution until your business begins to grow.
For established businesses or those that are growing rapidly, you’ll quickly find out that most DIY website builders can only take you so far. You will not be able to fully customize your website’s design so that it matches your brand’s identity. If you need special features or functionality, most DIY options won’t be able to create custom solutions for your specific needs.
We build business websites that are fully customized and unique for each client since no two businesses are alike. WordPress is our preferred content management system (CMS) because of the power and flexibility it provides to web designers and developers. Our process typically includes two main phases; the design phase and the development phase. During the design process, we gather information from you based on what you like and what features you are looking for. We’ll use your company’s logo, colors, fonts, graphics and text to create a cohesive design. If you’re not satisfied with the initial design, we can make up to 3 rounds of revisions to ensure you’re happy with the final result.
Then, we move on to the development process where we will program your website using current best practices and web standards. Your website will be created with a responsive design so that it’s works well for small and large screen sizes. It will also be optimized for fast page loads so it can provide the best experience for your visitors. When the website is ready, you can review the fully operational site on our test server so you can see exactly how it will look and work in the browser.
In general, our standard business website costs have a starting point of $1499. If you have specific features you are looking for, let us know and we will provide an estimate for your project requirements. For an e-commerce website, those will normally start at $1999 and up. Depending on who you contact for estimates, a business website costs can vary greatly. Contact us for a free estimate.
Website Hosting and Maintenance
The final piece to the puzzle is finding a hosting company for your new website. If you’re spending good money to have a professional WordPress website created, I wouldn’t recommend using a cheap hosting provider. Many of these cheap web hosts will cram your site into a server with hundreds or thousands of other websites. This can make your site very slow and will increase the chances of your website going down because of a problem caused by another website on the same server. Another issue with these cheap hosting companies is that they only provide server space for your website but do not perform routine maintenance for your website software.
Our website care program will make sure your business website is running smoothly. We use a cloud hosting provider that is specifically optimized for your site and we don’t overload the server with hundreds of sites. Your website will be fully managed so you don’t have to worry about updating the software or securing the site. When a problem does occur, we’ll make sure to get it fixed quickly so your website is back up and running. Learn more details about our web hosting and maintenance plans.
The professional hosting plan costs $29/month but if you pay annually, you’ll get two months free and will be billed at $290/year. This plan is usually fine for most businesses and if you outgrow it, we can always upgrade you to a higher plan.
Final Thoughts…
A business website costs can vary greatly depending of your exact needs and requirements. If you need an affordable business website, we can help you create an amazing website that’s within your budget. Take a look at our portfolio page to get an idea of other business websites we have created so far.