Website design costs
QUESTION: How much should I pay for my website? - FACT: Some websites costs very little and work really well.
- FACT: Some websites cost a fortune and offer little value.
- Why? What is the difference? How can I tell what is good value for money.
This webpage attempts to answer some of these questions, and to explain why websites cost different amount of money.
But first of all it is necessary to consider the purpose of a website as this affects how it is made. Websites can first be classified into several types:
- 1) Cheap websites.
- 2) Websites which (may) look nice, once you have found them.
- 3) Business websites which are effective marketing tools and a valuable business asset.
If you would like a website that looks good only on the browser on which it was created then find a friend or graphic designer to create a design (or have a go yourself), and use some free software (even Word) to create some webpages. Use the free hosting on your ISP (Internet provider) and you have a low cost website, ideal for hobby sites. It will (hopefully) look good on your computer, but may not on other browsers.
Some graphic designers will do the above for you, creating a good (print) design then using poor software to convert this into a website. The result is a better looking website, that costs rather more but is still of little business value. However you may end up with a good (print) brochure.
But the above are not business websites.
A professional business website involves far more than graphic design. In fact the 'visual' graphic design represents a small fraction of the work in creating a professional business website. When Cornish WebServices quote for work, we expect the 'visual website design' part to contribute under one third of the cost for a small website (2-3 pages) and much less for larger websites.
Professional website designers will consider:
- designs that are friendly to the search engines
- market research to find the best keywords to use for your market
- text written and included in the website in an optimum way for website marketing
- an intuitive navigation systems that works
- a layout that encourages the website visitor to take certain actions or paths through the website
- code written to be search engine friendly, with nothing included that could result on your website being banned from the search engines.
Many businesses have brochures and website pages which look identical. This should not happen. The best brochure designs and the best webpage designs require a different layout to take full advantage of the different user behaviour in print and online. Unfortunately many print design companies are unaware of this difference and simply create 'online versions' of your marketing brochure. It may look good, even very good, but it will not bring you extra business and will offer little marketing value.
If you would like a website that looks good, but have no interest in how effective the website can be for your business or organisation, please find another webdesign company. Cornish WebServices are a marketing company and prefer to design professional websites that are a marketing asset to your business.
Website design prices
Prices for website design
Prices for website modification
Prices to make websites accessible
Prices for search engine optimisation
Prices for Reciprocal Links
Prices for Internet Marketing
How to create and market a website as cheaply as possible
Prices for website design
These are indications of the costs of various aspects of a website design. Contact us for a quotation as there are so many different website design options. We offer significant discounts for charities and non-profit making organisations.
Website maintenance is also a consideration. Cornish Webservices make changes to the main contact details for free as it is very important that a website remains up to date. We also offer very competitive rates for enhancing or extending any website designs that we have created.
When considering the cost of a website, you also need to consider the cost of hosting the website. Some web hosting companies offer cut price websites that tie you into an expensive annual or monthly hosting contract. All our prices include hosting on a reliable external server, with provision of web statistics if required. However we do not require clients to use any specific host.
Simple 1 page website prices - £1,000 (yes,this is more than a 3 page website)
Small brochure website prices - usually between £500 - £670
Basic website prices - usually between £900 - £1,100
Business website prices - usually between £1,300 - £2,000
Larger website prices
Database driven website prices
Contact form prices
Online payment website prices
Small Shopping cart website prices
E-commerce website prices
Simple 1 page website - prices
Our cheapest website used to be a simple 1 page website. This included some client supplied graphics and a link through to an email address. It included submission of the website to search engines, and the webpage was created to achieve as high a ranking as possible. An example of such a website was the Canterbury orchestra - www.canterburyorchestra.org.uk, and up until 2005 this remained in the top page of Google for the main relevant searches. (From 2006 this changed to a multi page website to maintain market visibility).
The Internet is now a very competitive market place, and for many markets a 1 page website is no longer an effective marketing tool. The exceptions are specialized interests, or a website that targets a specific geographical region. Approximately 80% of the work in creating such a website is involved search engine optimisation and directory submission and this option now costs £1,000. It is possible to design a nice looking webpage that no one can find for much less, but Cornish WebServices do not offer this.
Organisations are far better opting for the small brochure website with more pages at half the cost.
Small brochure website prices
The price of a small basic website of about 2-3 main pages varies from £500-£670. This includes some graphics, probably a company logo and a link through to an email address. Having more than one page is very advantageous with regards to search engine optimisation.
The exact number of pages in the website does not affect the price very much; the website price is more influenced by the amount of design work required, the complexity of the information required and the manner in which the information is provided.
The website price is a one-off payment (unlike some good looking offers that require an annual fee), and includes hosting for one year if required.
Note that this is for a professional quality website and the majority of our work will be in the marketing side of this work. If you are not interested in website visibility you can get cheaper alternatives that may visually look the same from website designers who do not consider search engine visibility.
Basic website prices
The price of a basic website of about 6-8 main pages varies from £900 - £1,100. This gives a small business or organisation an effective marketing tool and website. This price includes graphics and a link through to an email address, a contact form, and may include other features. The website can be accessible to all and optimised for search engines. It will be submitted to the major search engines and relevant directories. This also includes maintenance for one year.
The exact number of pages does not affect the website price very much. The cost of the website is more influenced by the amount of design work required, the complexity of the menu structure required and the manner in which the information is provided.
Business website prices
The price of a business website of about 20 main pages varies from £1,300 - £2,000. This would be easy to expand to about 80 pages. This gives a business or organisation a very effective marketing tool and website. This price includes graphics and a link through to an email address, a contact form, and may include other features. The website can be accessible to all and optimised for search engines. It will be submitted to the major search engines and relevant directories. This also includes maintenance for one year.
The exact number of pages does not affect the website price much. The cost of the website is more influenced by the amount of design work required, the complexity of the menu structure required and the manner in which the information is provided.
Larger website prices
For larger website prices, contact us for a quote. We have existing clients for whom we have designed large websites with 100's of pages.
The cost of large websites very much depends on the type of information within the pages and how it is given to us. If all the page contents are presented in electronic format, then we can offer very competitive prices for websites with a large number of pages.
There are also a larger number of options available for writing large websites, and a dynamic database driven website may be more appropriate and cost effective. We can advise on this. See below for database driven website prices.
Database driven websites
Cornish WebServices have experience of creating database driven websites, and are able to add database driven pages to an existing website. Database driven websites are usually required for medium to large shopping carts, but also for websites with a membership or registration process.
Adding a database to a website requires a database (!) plus writing code to communicate between the website and the database. Costs of database driven websites depend largely on the complexity of these interactions. In addition to the interaction of the website with 'users', there is often an administration part to consider. We can advise on this.
For shopping cart or catalog type databases, another factor in the cost is who is going to input all the initial data.
Contact us for a realistic quotation as website prices for this type of work vary significantly, but would typically be in the range of £1,500 - £5,000.
Contact form prices
These can be added on for a cost of about £100 - the exact figure depends upon where the website is hosted. They may be included within the cost of a standard website. Our contact forms conform to the accessibility guidelines.
Online payment - prices
These can usually be added on to one of the above websites for about £250 - £500, depending upon the exact method used and the number and complexity of possible purchases. For more than about 20 products a shopping cart type website is needed. See the section above for a guide to shopping cart prices.
This is always done via a secure server, and Cornish WebServices have experience of working with most of the common secure payment systems.
Small Shopping cart website prices
To design and create a website selling a few products using a secure server to receive credit card payments will cost upwards of £700. Contact us for a more accurate price, as requirements vary.
When designing small shopping carts, it is important for the website to be written with search engine optimisation in mind - assuming that the purpose is to make sales!
Many of the DIY commercial shopping cart applications are written in a manner that makes it hard for the search engines to index them. We sometimes make use of 3rd party software, but only when the final website will be easily indexed on Google and the other major search engines. Search engine optimisation is always included within any website price that we quote.
E-commerce - prices
A full shopping cart with database would cost around £2,000 upwards. The exact amount is very dependant upon the way the client is able to give us the information. If this is already in electronic format the costs are lower. We are also able to create databases if required or move data from an existing database onto an online one for integration with an e-commerce website.
Prices for website modification
We can also add in extra pages or modify pages to existing websites. The rates for websites that we have created will be reduced as we already know that the html code has been written to a high standard.
We can work with websites that have been created using a html editor such as DreamWeaver or FrontPage, or we can work with websites that have been hand coded. We can handle all types of website file, static or dynamically created.
Sometimes we are asked to make a modification to an existing website and the client is unaware that their website is not viewable to (say) Netscape users. We only accept work when we are allowed to make changes so that the website is reasonably accessible and viewable to all. Prices are in the region of £45-£99 for changes to a standard page, but the exact value for multiple pages will vary considerably depending upon the changes required, how the website is written and how the information is presented.
Prices to make websites accessible
Many companies are now realizing that their website does not conform to existing legislation, such as the DDA (Disability Discrimination Act). Cornish WebServices have always created accessible websites, and we can also modify existing websites to achieve either Bobby or W3C accessibility standards.
When assessing the costs of this work, it is worth pointing out that an accessible website will naturally achieve very high rankings in the search engines and so attract much many more visitors. This can significantly reduce any existing spending on Internet advertising.
The costs of making a website accessible very much depend upon how the website is written. In some cases, to achieve the highest level of compliance, requires each page to be 'rewritten' in an accessible way. The costs of this are very similar to the website design prices.
However all websites are different, and some very large websites can be made accessible with a few hours work. Contact us for a meaningful quotation, as we will need to look at the website code first.
Prices for search engine optimisation
When we design and create websites, we automatically optimise the website for search engine visibility. But we are also able to optimised existing websites to help them achieve higher search engine rankings.
The cost of this varies considerably with the size and complexity of the website, as well as the standard of the existing code. Well written html code is much quicker to optimise than that produced by some of the early less good html editors. It is now possible (but not often done) to produce search engine optimised websites with current html editors.
Note that search engine optimisation cannot guarantee to produce results overnight - the timescales depend very much on the frequency at which the major search engines make their updates.
For charities or smaller organisations who are maintaining their own websites, we also offer to optimise just the home page and one other, leaving the client to make the recommended changes to the other pages. This keeps the cost of search engine optimisation low for organisations on a tight budget.
Our search engine optimisation services would also usually include obtaining entries in relevant directories and reciprocal links as appropriate.
Prices for Reciprocal Links
For a typical business website, Cornish WebServices charge £500 to create a useful page of reciprocal links. We expect this work to take several months to complete, and the results should be an increase in PageRank within 6 months; it is not possible to guarantee faster times than these as the part of Google that defines PageRank is very slow to update.
The exact number of links depends upon the market. However a few good links are far more beneficial than many pages of low value links.
We are aware of much cheaper reciprocal link providers, but it is more important to acquire a few good links than a large number of useless links. Some links can also be harmful, such as those from Link Farms or from FFA (Free For All) pages. Cornish WebServices do not use these type of links when exchanging reciprocal links.
The Google search engine are now excluding most of the links generated by the automatic link generating programs that can be purchased as an add-on to your website. We do not recommend these programs at all.
Prices for Internet Marketing
Search engine optimisation is only one part of Internet Marketing. If you have a search engine optimised website then the benefits from other forms of marketing are far greater. This means that a PPC campaign will achieve far greater results for a search engine optimised website.
We can also advise on or carry out on a clients behalf various PPC (pay per click) advertising schemes. The cost of these would start at around £500 (including the search engine optimisation process) - but contact us for realistic estimates as in competitive markets significantly higher PPC budgets are required. Some areas are more competitive than others and would required a larger marketing spend to achieve results. The cost of Internet marketing work includes reports detailing the ranking of your website on various search engines and click through analysis.
How to create and market a website as cheaply as possible
If you are a charity or organisation with limited funds, then use them wisely. We would recommend paying someone to create an accessible search engine optimised website that 'markets itself', rather than obtaining a poor quality website that requires advertising to attract visitors. You can ensure that your website is accessible by insisting that it meets either the AAA standard in either Bobby or W3C WAI.
If you wish to keep the costs down, you can help by presenting all the data in electronic format. It takes time (and money) for web design companies to scan in images and text, or to type in text for website content, but this is often something that the client can do. In fact a client can probably write good copy or text for the page content more efficiently than the web designer as they are hopefully experts in the website subject.
Websites need to be kept up to date; if you have limited funds then make sure your web designer will create a website that you can maintain at least the content part of, yourself. Cornish WebServices have done this with many websites they have designed, and we offer annual email / phone support included within the website design cost.
An even lower cost method of website maintenance is to design a website that needs very little or no modification over time! Surprisingly few websites are designed with this in mind. Cornish WebServices created several church building websites that are still up to date (despite zero changes) and attracting visitors many years after they were created. We have also created websites of all sizes for small organisations and businesses that require between 1-3 simple changes per year for updates to information.
A website with out of date contact information gives a very negative impression. For website's that we design and host, Cornish WebServices always provide free changes to the contact information. So if your phone number changes, this can be updated quickly and at no extra cost.