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As a business, having a poorly designed website, or worse, not having a website, can be disturbing to customer acquisition. In fact, 88% of online consumers are less likely to return to a website after a bad experience. Therefore, you will want to prioritize your online presence to increase the chances of attracting and retaining customers.

In this blog we will discuss how much does it cost to build a website, and where should you start?

5 key factors that change the cost of developing a website

Many aspects affect the average cost of creating a website. The nature of each business is different, and so do their website needs. For case, the variables that come into play when building a website for a data analytics provider are entirely dissimilar from those involving creating a small site intended for blogging.

In the next sections, we go over some elements that can impact the cost of creating a website. It’s crucial to note that this is far from an exhaustive list. In fact, there’s a broad array of other factors particular to each business and website project.

1. Domain name

The first element that you should consider is the domain name. Purchasing a new domain name for your site will broadly cost you between $10 and $15 a year. However, it’s significant to note that the cost can change depending on several factors, including:

• Domain registrar: A registrar is an entity that helps you purchase and register your domain name. There are many registrars to select from, with each one offering different packages and features at varying price points.

• Top-level domain (TLD): A TLD indicates the extension at the end of the domain name. Established TLDs such as “.com’ and “.org” tend to cost more than ones like “.site” or “.xyz.”

• Length of commitment: Most registrars go at different prices depending on the length of the contract. A longer consignment costs you less in the long term, whereas a shorter contract is more cost-effective in the short term.

• Domain privacy: While providing personal data is required when registering a domain, you can make that data inaccessible to the public. For an additional fee, registrars offer clients privacy features that protect their identity and maintain their anonymity.

2. Website functionality

Functionality plays a key role in deciding website costs. You will charge a higher cost, the more functions you add to your site. Website functions can range from essential ones built-in to your business to optional ones geared toward improving user experience. Here are some examples:

• E-commerce functions: This encompasses all functions essential to running an e-commerce website. To get these businesses up and running, the sites must be equipped with various design features that allow customers to find and buy products. Basic online store design factors include customer portals, payment processing, multiple delivery options, and order fulfillment. While pricing points differ, the design rate of a fully custom traditional e-commerce site can easily exceed $2,000.

• Membership portals: As the name recommends, this is a gated part of the site that only registered members can approach. Installing these portals is a great way to increase content credibility, offer a streamlined user experience to website visitors, and develop a base of loyal customers. Depending on the features and type of license you’re getting, a membership portal function can run you anything from $89 to $399 per year.

• Subscription services: These functions are needed for setting up a subscription model for your site. They’re regular renewal services that offer recurring deliveries of products or curated ones that provide products depending on the needs of each customer.

• Custom programming: While a small business website doesn’t require much backend programming, other businesses might demand more complex design elements for their sites. A good example of this is web portals. These websites hold a large amount of data and provide customized access to different users. Hiring a web developer to add custom code might be essential when dealing with such complicated architectures.

3. Website maintenance

Website maintenance is essential to your business, as it ensures that your site remains functional and secure. Still, many people miscarry to accurately account for maintenance costs when mapping out their budget. Some tasks that are part of website maintenance include:

• Fixing broken links

• Patching CMS and server software issues

• Quarterly testing of each website’s forms and e-commerce functions

• Fixing security vulnerabilities

• Regularly backing up the site

These tasks are generally handled by specialized agencies or web developers, and the cost will differ based on the size and complexity of the website.

4. Size of the site

The number of website features and the complexness of a website’s architecture are not the only variables that can drive up web design costs. In many cases, the sheer size of the website can be just as big of a factor.

The cost differential between developing a large website and a small one is substantial. Creating an e-commerce website that consists of 500 pages will require a significant amount of time and effort to build, and that will be reflected in what you pay for web development services. By contrast, an elementary website that features a standard template and only a handful of pages can be built at a fraction of that cost.

The table below illustrates this difference:

5. Website hosting platform

• Web hosting needs to vary from one business to another. If your business serves strictly online, you should opt for dedicated server hosting. This will allow you to appendage a potential growth in traffic without experiencing server downtime. Moreover, you’ll have access to advanced security features that can avail you better safeguard your customers’ sensitive data.

• Shared hosting is the more commodious option if you’re not planning on using your own website for revenue-generating purposes. The affordability of these plans linked with their low maintenance requirements makes them ideal for the type of website that consists of just a few pages of content.

• Virtual private server (VPS) hosting takes up the middle ground between dedicated hosting and shared hosting. You have access to some control and customization options, but you still don’t have adequate bandwidth to handle high traffic.

3 ways to create your website and how it will affect costs

Ultimately, the cost of creating a website comes down to how you want to deal with the project: do it yourself and save money or contain the services of a professional and incur higher costs. The advantage and disadvantages of each approach are weighed below.

1. Do it yourself (DIY)

The DIY approach is the most cost-effective option for creating a website. Your costs will consist of the basic expenses needed to set up and host the site if are doing the design yourself. These let your domain name, hosting costs, an SSL certificate, a premium theme, and a drag-and-drop website builder like Squarespace, Weebly, or Wix. You can also use a more traditional content management system (CMS) like WordPress.

Keep in mind that once you take on the project, you’ll be responsible for every view of the website. This leads to figuring out how to make your website templates mobile-friendly, ensuring that security protocols are in place, verifying that your WordPress theme is well-matched with third-party plugins, and installing the essential add-ons, among many other tasks.

But while the DIY approach might be worth exploring when building a simple website, it’s not always a feasible option when dealing with large projects. Taking on the task of designing a complex website on your own involves navigating countless challenges and requires solving several design problems that only experienced developers can handle.

How much will it cost?

For a small-scale business, brochure-style website, you’re going to need a domain name (at least $12 per year), a shared hosting plan (at least $60 per year), a premium theme ($60), premium plugins ($60 per year), and a website builder ($12 to $15). You can expect to pay up to over $200 when building a website on your own.

2. Hire an independent professional person

If you need to make sure that your website is up to the desired standard, hiring a freelancer is the best way to go. experient web designers can take your ideas into execution, suggest features that could enhance your business, and help you navigate the launch of your site without any hiccups.

Thanks to RinanTech's ability to connect businesses with skilled workers, you’ll be able to hire a talented web developer in no time. These professionals can assist you to build a custom website at various price ranges and work closely with you to ensure the success of your online venture.

How much will it cost?

The price will be determined by various factors, namely the hourly rate of the self-reliant professional, the functions of the website, the custom programming, and the page volume.

Experienced freelancers can charge anywhere between $20 and $80 per hour. As a rough estimate, a small business website could cost you anywhere from $1,500 to $5,000.

3. Use an agency

Businesses that routinely tackle complicated projects can benefit tremendously from hiring a professional web design agency. On top of handling advanced website designs, these agencies can also offer a wide range of services beyond the scope of web development.

Working with a web design agency can cost tens of thousands of dollars, which is why their client base consists mostly of bombastic organizations.

How much will it cost?

Depending on the size of the agency and the quality of the project, the cost of hiring an agency can reach up to $100,000.

Next steps

While determining the exact cost of developing a website can be a difficult proposition, finding top talent for your business isn’t. Whether it’s a simple WordPress site or a large online store, Rinan Technologies will help you identify highly experienced professionals that can guide you through the process of creating your ideal website.

There are plenty of benefits of having a website for small business owners like for startups and for small corporations. However, it’s shocking that 46% of small businesses don’t have a website yet, while 12% are unlikely to create it in the future and 10% are unsure. Now, when modern people spend about 8 hours a day on the Internet, influencing the way we live and work, any successful business should have a web presence.

In addition, low-budget web development allows you to create pretty nice websites that are highly affordable for startups. The reason why surprisingly very few small businesses have a website is that they probably are not familiar with the profitable benefits of having a website for small businesses.

Most people in 2021 understood that in order to have a successful business you need to have a website, but how does it look in the reality? Let’s take a look at some data:

According to TDA research and Bluecorona stats

• 70-80% of people research a company online before visiting it or making a purchase.
• Among small businesses without a website, 29% planned to build one in 2021.
• As of 2019, 94% of small business websites are mobile-friendly
• 70-80% of potential customers could be lost to businesses without a website.
• 41% of businesses without websites say their business “does not need a website.”
• 79% of entrepreneurs with a business website expect to grow at least 25% in the next three to five years, compared to 64% of those without a site
• 44% of B2B buyers will leave a website if there is no contact information available
• In 2020, 81% of all worldwide online traffic was generated through mobile phones (Statista, 2020)

Looks interesting? Having a small business website isn’t just about selling your goods and services — it’s also about providing something of value to potential customers. Here are some really important factors that show the benefits of a website for a business.

Low budget web development

Small business owners usually have a small budget, as their profit will grow with time. However, they need to establish an effective web presence now, at the initial stage of their business, in order to be able to get a decent profit in the future. There is a cause-effect relationship. So if you have just started your small business, the sooner you create a website, the sooner you’ll get a profit.

You may think it is too expensive, but in fact, whatever your up-front capital is, low-budget web development allows you to obtain a simple but efficient website or app that is able to convert visitors into clients. It’s quite affordable for startups and small businesses to create a minimum viable product to quickly appear on the market and then invest in its improvements later on.

A Website Helps Establish Brand Identity

How consumers view your business is a huge aspect of whether or not you are going to make any sales. By establishing your brand identity early on, you are letting consumers know what you are all about, which increases your chances of making sales.

However, establishing your brand identity can be difficult if you don’t have very many channels to do so on. Sure, social media may be able to help give customers an idea of who you are, but a website is the best way to answer all their questions and give them the full picture of what you are all about.

Your brand identity is made up of your:

• Mission
• Vision
• Values
• Unique positioning
• Brand personality

Building a website is the best possible way to showcase all of these important elements for consumers to easily find. You can feature these aspects on an “about us” page or even on your homepage so that consumers start to get an idea of who you are as a brand. The more they understand you and what you stand for, the more likely they are going to buy from you.

Control the narrative

It’s true that you cannot control what others say about you on social media channels, but you can influence public perception by creating your own story via a business website. A company blog helps business owners get their message, mission, and personality in front of their target audience faster than print ads or snail mail brochures.

Plus, social icons linking to Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and other networking platforms make sharing your content easier for your visitors who like what they see.

Wider audience reaches due to website accessibility 24/7

Regardless of what kind of small business you are running, having a website accessible on a 7-day 24-hour basis without taking breaks for holidays and weekends is a huge advantage. While your physical shop is closed at night, your online shop can keep on selling and bringing you income by catering to customers at any time that is convenient for them.

One more reason to create a web presence for your business is a reduction of distances. A website allows you to expand your target audience and make deals with customers who are located far away from you. Actually, the whole globe is within your reach.

According to the statistics, 60% of people execute online research through a search engine, and 61% read product reviews before making a purchase. Modern users are used to shopping online without leaving the comfort of their homes. By the way, don’t ignore the increasing popularity of smartphones and tablets and apply responsive web design to provide a satisfactory UX for mobile users.

Boost Brand Recognition with a Business Website

Brand identity and brand recognition are two very different things that many small business owners are not aware of. As we mentioned above, brand identity has to do with how consumers view you as a business, but brand recognition has to do with consumers recognizing and recalling your brand.

If you have just begun running a startup or small business, it’s especially important for you to get as many people as possible informed about your business. You want to let people know that your company exists, as well as what your company is doing, what it is called, and how useful it can be for them — or for their friends/relatives/colleagues/neighbors, as sharing information and brand advocacy also work well.

Essentially, a website acts as a home for all your branding efforts. As you build brand recognition, you want to link back to your website so that people can then get a better understanding of your brand identity.

The more times people see your website, the more they will begin to recall your brand. The more they recall your brand, the more they begin to trust you and will be willing to buy from you.

Easy online promotion of your small business with a website

Both evergreen website content and buzz topics help get traffic. Doing content marketing right allows you to attract potential customers and convert them. Speaking of driving sales, if you plan to use digital marketing to drive consumers to your business, you are going to need a website.

Digital marketing makes it easier for you to specifically gear your ads towards your target market so that you don’t waste money advertising to the wrong people. It also helps you reach a lot more people much more quickly than traditional marketing efforts.

Moreover, promoting your small business on various platforms on the Internet is much easier if you have your own website. You could enjoy the maximum SMM benefits for a business if your social media posts contain links that direct social users to your website, where they can find more in-depth information. The same is true of paid social media. Promoted posts and sponsored ads linking to a website look reliable and authoritative.

Customer insights by tracking user behavior on your website

Matching and exceeding the expectations of your audience allows you to reach customer satisfaction and earn customer loyalty. If you want to offer your clients exactly what they need, obviously you should know what they really need and who they actually are. When you have a website, it’s easy to monitor how users interact with it. You can find out what your product or service people like the most and what they like the least, from what geographic location, devices, third-party sites they usually come to, and much more.

There are many tools for tracking the behavior of your site visitors, gathering this data, presenting it in a convenient way, and storing and interpreting it.

Conclusion

If you want an effective website or one that can help you take your business to another level, you have to be prepared to invest in one. Spend some time making your website user-friendly and rich in content. People like a website that they can easily navigate as well as find the answers to any questions they may have. A high-quality website means that you will have more of a chance of rising above your competition and making more profit.