Many business owners want to know the cost of maintaining a website. Whether you operate a brick-and-mortar operation or a strictly online business, you need a website if you want to be competitive in 2020. However, a web design service in Phoenix can’t tell you exactly how much a website will cost unless they know all the features you want. In addition to the cost of designing the website, there are also maintenance costs and other expenses to consider. Website startup costs can vary widely depending on your business needs.
How Much Does a Website Cost for Backend Infrastructure?
Before you can deliver well-written content and publish high-quality photos, you need to ensure you have the right backend infrastructure. Here are some of the things you need to factor into your website budget right at the start of the process.
Domain Name
The first thing you need to do is purchase a domain name. As part of your website management cost, you will also need to renew your purchase annually. This is not optional since you will lose access to the domain if you don’t keep up with payments. The cost of maintaining a domain name varies but it’s usually between $2 and $20 each year.
Website Software/Content Management System
You’ll need a way to manage your content and this is where content management systems come in. There are three main ways in which you can get a website and each of them comes at a different cost. You can use a website builder, hire a web designer or build the website with WordPress.
Website builders are the cheapest way to build a website but they don’t provide you with full control over the site and hiring a web designer is the most expensive option. However, if you want to have a professionally designed site while retaining the ability to easily publish various types of content on your own, WordPress is the best option. Let’s look at some of the other factors that affect the cost of maintaining a website.
Hosting
You’ll need to pay for website hosting. There are several different hosting companies out there and they offer a variety of plans ranging from shared servers to dedicated servers. Your needs will vary depending on the amount of traffic you expect. Website hosting can cost as little as $24 per year or as much as $10,000 annually.
Website Design and Content
After you deal with the basics, you need to think about how your website will look. There are a variety of themes and templates available via WordPress that allow you to customize the look and function of your site.
Website Template or Theme
If you’re looking for the cheapest way to build a website on WordPress, you can choose a free theme. However, you’ll have more flexibility if you purchase a premium theme for between $10 and $100.
Website Content
You’ll need copy, photos, videos, and other types of content to get your message across. Many people forget about this aspect when coming up with a website budget. If you can’t create content in-house, you may need to pay freelancers or content marketing agencies to populate your site.
SEO and Marketing
There needs to be room in your website budget for marketing. You can’t just build a website and assume visitors will come. You will need to ensure your site is optimized for search engines and that you have a strategy in place for attracting visitors. This must be factored into your website management cost.
As many as 80 percent of shoppers do their product research online and a large percentage of them only look at the first page of results. Therefore, if your company does not appear on the first page or has no web presence at all, you’ll be missing out on potential customers. In addition to SEO, you may also want to use pay-per-click advertising, content marketing, email marketing, and other efforts to get your brand in front of more eyes. Therefore, you need to consider this when calculating the cost of maintaining a website. SEO often costs between $750 and $2,000 per month while PPC can cost around $9,000 monthly.
Additional Costs
In addition to what we’ve discussed above, there are other things to include when working out your website startup costs and your website management cost.
SSL Certificate
A Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) certificate protects both your business and visitors to your website when sensitive information is being transferred. An SSL certificate costs up to $1500 annually.
Apps and Integrations
There may be specific apps or programs that you need to integrate into your website to ensure it does exactly what you need. Include these when working out the cost of a website for your business.
E-commerce Functionality
This includes adding product pages, shopping cards payment processing systems, and shipping options. If you plan to facilitate eCommerce, these functions will feed into the cost of maintaining a website.
Get a Custom-Built Solution That’s in Your Website Budget
Now that you have an idea of website startup costs, it’s time to talk to the Web Design Services professionals at Phoenix Web Design Studio. We work solely on WordPress websites and we can deliver a solution that meets your company’s needs. We serve clients in Phoenix, AZ, and surrounding locations.
