How Much Does a Website Cost?

Nearly every business, regardless of the company's size or function, comes to the realization that an effective online presence can help them enhance their image online and grow. Just as importantly, your competitors are online and they're courting your potential clients, customers, viewers and perhaps even partners.

What should a website cost? Many companies begin the process without setting up a budget and are usually left guessing at how much they should spend.

In order to effectively compete online, your website must have a strong brand presence and a story behind the brand. Our typical customer has been through the web design process once before, with a small budget and a lack of attention given to content. They typically aren't as engaged in the web design process and failed to develop the proper marketing framework that make great websites succeed online. While web design and functionality are key elements, ultimately an integrated marketing campaign will attract those individuals to your website.

Establishing a Marketing Budget

One of the first steps in developing a realistic web design budget is ensuring you have established an effective marketing budget. Experts agree that a budget should fall between 3 and 14% of gross sales depending on your industry.

Take, for instance, that a million dollar company should budget $140,000 for the various marketing components that can help better promote their brand. Budgets can always increase or decrease over time, based on your revenue. Established and thriving companies are likely to have budgets larger than startups yet both may spend a significant amount in order to penetrate their respective markets.

A company should budget anywhere between 35k to 65k for designing and deploying elements that will help position their brand. An agency approach to your marketing needs gives you the benefit of relying on an experienced team of professionals that know how to market you or your business properly.

If you're still having difficulty deciding how much to budget for your specific industry, try reaching out to local business conglomerates and advisory firms. There a number of resources that companies can use to determine which guidelines to follow when setting up a realistic web design budget. Here are a couple:

SBA (setting up a marketing budget) http://www.sba.gov/content/developing-marketing-plan
SCORE (annual marketing budget template) http://www.score.org/resources/annual-marketing-budget-template
INC (setting up an advertising budget) http://www.inc.com/encyclopedia/advertisingbudget.html
Technoarti (developing a small business marketing budget) http://technorati.com/business/small-business/article/developing-a-small-business-marketing-budget/

How Much to Budget for a Website

Today, websites are no longer just static containers, they have become dynamic brand building machines with the ability to attract and retain customers. Over the last five years, websites have become more capable in extending their functionality and use into social media as well as to mobile customers.

Did you know a visitor usually spends three seconds deciding whether or not to stay on a website or click away? Websites are usually the first experience many customers have with your brand and, with the wrong impression, it could be the last.

The Aspects of a Web Design Project you Need to Know

A great website that can effectively convert visitors into prospective customers or followers requires a number of individual components that, together, work seamlessly to deliver your end result; some action by the visitor. And, usually, that action is (at minimum) finding who that visitor was so to properly market to them again in the future. After all, if you're shopping for new shoes or a car you may not buy the first one you see, but often times you come back to some of your original choices.

The Elements that Make Up a Custom Web Design Project

Discovery and Definition research help determine marketing goals and sales strategies.
Custom Home Page Design based on mutually agreed upon creative direction.
Content Management System with a fully integrated open-source CMS gives you a full range of controls for editing your website.
Interactive Submission Forms: integrated forms that make it a snap for visitors to leave valuable contact information.
Customized Landing Pages are highly custom designed pages that give visitors an easily digestible synopsis of what your organization offers and the value of signing-up for additional information.
XML and HTML Sitemaps give visitors and search engine robots access to all the pages on your website.
Instant PDF Downloads offer visitors a quick synopsis of your organization's offerings that can be easily forwarded to senior management or staff.
Local Search Optimization helps your company get listed locally, right away, for the keywords that your customers are searching for already.
Map Listings and submissions ensure that if your customers are trying to find your location at home or on a mobile device your company will be properly indexed and found.
Email Integration helps you connect your customers to your website by giving them the ability to share valuable email addresses while automating the email sign-up process.
Custom Blog is essential these days for communicating externally and supporting your marketing strategies to visitors. A custom blog can easily expand the content on your site in an organized and search-engine-friendly format.
Search Engine Optimization: our SEO services help customers notice your online presence naturally by increasing your website's content relevance to the user's search term(s).
Social Media Integration gives your brand added visibility beyond the website. Integrated site tools allow visitors to share your content and pages while promoting your brand to their followers.
Reporting and Monitoring helps companies determine the success of the marketing web design process with unbiased, transparent and detailed analytical tracking.
Animation, such as cartoons, text or flash, can give your website a real differentiator to succinctly market your products or services.
Expert Copywriting on your website will help ensure that visitors are reading engaging information that gives them a sense of urgency AND that search engines are benefiting from content optimization, helping you get noticed online.
Video Development, from large to small budgets, can help a website stand-out in a crowded environment.
E-commerce Integration allows a company to easily sell products or services online, accept numerous payments and offer secure online transactions.

A budget for your website should be determined by your industry and the functionality that the site requires. When clients approach us, they are often surprised that these individual website components can cost thousands of dollars to even tens of thousands of dollars each. The cost is determined by the level of customization and integration into your overall marketing plan for the website. Occasionally, we are asked to deliver formal researched recommendations for companies that have no idea what components should be used in the next phase of their website.

The range for web development pricing typically ranges by the type of firm: a New York design firm may charge mid six figures to research, design and develop a full-blown website. Madison Avenue firms have earned a reputation for thoroughness along with enormous price tags. Many high-end agencies also prefer to design websites based on their own proprietary web systems that need to be maintained through costly contracts.

The other extreme is hiring a freelancer to develop and design your website. The challenge is that you're relying on a single individual who may have a lot of experience in a couple of areas but may lack significant experience in the other areas that your project will require. In addition, freelancers are typically juggling numerous projects without the support of a team and are often limited in development resources. Usually, these projects aren't full 'web design' projects and involve limited involvement while the freelancer is usually the designer, developer, salesperson and project manager.

The best value is approaching a full-service interactive agency that can take your company's assets and develop a custom brand approach that can deliver on your marketing objectives. These firms can help you select a technology infrastructure that makes sense (such as an open source solution like Drupal), that can be modular and expandable in the future. The cost for discovery, development, wire frames, the addition of a content management system (CMS) implementation and a suite of essential tools will typically cost between $12,000 and $35,000. This range would also include numerous strategic marketing guidance, multiple design options, custom animation and dynamic tool integration that would be able to carry your company for a number of years to come.

Lastly, one of the most important factors to consider is whether or not the agency you've chosen understands your current and future needs or are they just trying to sell you what you need today. The difference can't be understated as a true full-service, interactive design and development partner should help your organization scale for future needs.

At Alliance Interactive, we advise our clients on custom web design solutions. For additional information, please contact us at 888-222-9056.