Intro
I’m going to write this as if you’ve got a company, business and or product and you’re thinking about getting a website built. The size of website does not really matter it could be one page or the size of “Wikipedia”. What does matter is having an understanding of what you need and, probably more importantly, what you don’t need.
I know nothing about cars and thats probably why every time I go into a garage/services my heart rate picks up. I really don’t know enough about it to know if I’m getting ripped off or if someone is actually giving me some information that is going to save me time and money in the future. That is why I’m writing this post, to try to let you know the do’s and don’ts.
Know what you want
The first thing is to know what it is you want. You don’t need to know anything about the web – just write down what information you want people to be able to find.
- Let people know where i am based (address, maybe a map)
- Contact details (a place where people can send me an email)
- The times I’m open
- Information about my product(s)
- Special offers / A place where i can tell people the latest news eg: “we are having a charity event”
- These are the words that matter to my site: London, Chelsea, Car, Oil, Change,
- and so on…..
It’s pretty straightforward, no need to get into the fine details of how this is going to be built. It lets you and the 3rd party know what the most important information is to be delivered to your customers.
Another good idea is to reference some sites that you like the look of, and the main colour of the site. This is helpful but not a must have.
How Much Will it Cost
Ok, how long is a pice of string. I know that’s not what you want to hear but let me explain. I could build you a very simple one page site for $100 USD. You could find someone to do it for less. The same way you could go out and buy a car for $500 or $50,000. Now a one page site is pretty simple and you can’t go too far wrong. But what about getting that page “search-engine friendly” and may be submitting it to search engines, yellow pages…..
How about being able to edit the information easily yourself. There is nothing worse than having a web presence that has incorrect information. Have no site at all if you are not going to keep it relevant and up to date. It takes 5 min to say, “We are opening an hour later this week for Christmas” or “This week get a free oil change with a new set of new tires”.
Yes you might have to spend a bit more to get the above things added but they will pay for themselves.
Also, don’t bother to add an email address unless you are going to be checking your mail at least daily.
Ask the question “If I have a one page site to start with, would it be easy to add other pages and how much would an extra page cost”.
You want your company to be at the top of Google if someone types in your city and name. This can bring in lots of business. More people are using the web to find what they want. So think what words people would type in for your business.
Some people might say I really don’t feel comfortable editing a web site. Well thats fine why not ask if you could pay $20 a year fee to be able to send an email or phone someone to let them know what you would like changing. That way you know your not going to get burned down the road. I know there are companies that will do the first job cheaply and then charge you $50 just to change a phone number (I’ve worked with such companies).
What i’m trying to make clear is that you should be thinking more than just building web pages.
What is it that you want the site to do for you? Cheap is not always best, we know this is the case with most of the things we buy. As I know from experience, a good clear website with a marketing strategy, (I’m not talking pay for click, maybe just getting your website on other local sites) can really pay out in the long run.
Ongoing Costs
There are a couple of ongoing costs to be aware of:
1. Domain name (www.thisIsMyDomainName.com).
A domain name normally costs between $5 – $50 USD per year, depending on whether its a “.com” or “.info” etc, I wont list them all.
You can spend a lot of money on buying a domain name from someone who already owns the one you want. I would just make the name unique to you, eg if “www.cars.com” has been bought you could try “www.johnscars.com”.
2. Hosting your website.
Just as you have a home so does your site. If you have a one page site then this is going to cost between $0 – $10 per year.
If you have, say, a big online shop this could cost up to $20 per month. You are paying more because you need a bigger and more reliable service.
Most website builders will include the domain & hosting as part of their service, just make sure you are aware of what it is going to cost from the outset.
Conclusion
I know that you were probably looking for exact figures but I hope that I have made it clear that just getting someone to build a page or multi page site really is like buying a car and then not putting petrol in. Just a bit more work could really make all the difference.
If you would like to contact us about building you a site please do!