How Much Should You Spend on Your Website For Your Small Business?
Part 1: If you're just starting out Part 2: If you have a customer base..
Part 1: If you’re just starting out
Part 2: If you have a customer base and want something better
Part 3: If your entire business model is reliant on your website
TL:DR It’s recommended that you spend anywhere from $1000-$5000+ for a website if you have an established business model. You also shouldn’t spend more than $100 per month for hosting or management. (this excludes and marketing budget that you may have). If you are being charged over $100/month for your website and getting little to nothing in return contact us and we can save you lots of money in the long run.
The price of your website depends on many things, the size or complexity of your website, integration with third-party systems, and the technologies used. For most small business owners, their budget will always be an important factor when choosing anything for their company. Let’s look at how much you should spend on your first website.
What is your main objective with a website? Is it to convert potential buyers into customers, retain existing customers or just show off some of your work? Depending on your answer to this question will tell you how much you should spend on your new website. Our first recommendation is to start small if you are a brand-new business with zero customers you should be spending $0-$50 on a website, we would recommend that you use any of the simple website builders such as Wix, Weebly, GoDaddy, or Squarespace. Most of these services have a free plan and for businesses that are just starting out this is a great solution.
Ok now you have your first website online and you have acquired a few customers and you have an extra $1000-$5000 to spend on a website. What do you do to upgrade your site? There are two ways to go about doing this.
The first route is to find a freelancer, this is an induvial who doesn’t work for a company and makes websites alone. The upside of picking a freelancer is that you will probably get a bit more bang for your buck however since it’s only one person the support for your website will be slow and if they choose to move to a different career path you might be left high and dry.
Your second option is to pick a web design/marketing agency (like Excl Networks). The advantages of choosing this path is you will get much better support and the developers tend to be more experienced and specialized. Also, most companies will have a lot more opportunities for expansion, perhaps today you only need a website but lots of development/marketing companies (including us) offer a variety of services from ad-campaigns to phone systems.
Let’s say your idea is the next big thing and your entire business model is built around your website. Your best option is to hire an application development company and let them handle all of the development. This usually starts at $10,000 and can go as high as a million or even more.
Most people fall into the second tier with roughly $1000-$5000 to make a new website so here are some common pitfalls that you need to be aware of.
Here’s the takeaway. If you just starting out you should spend very little money on your website; anywhere from $0-$100. If you have an established business model you should be looking to spend $1000-$5000 with <$100/month. Finally, if your business is centered around your website and you need custom features you should be looking to spend well over $10,000
Part 1: If you're just starting out Part 2: If you have a customer base..
No matter what business sector you are in whether that be medical, construction, entertainment, or..