In this video we're going to talk about how much does a website cost. So to start with, I'm going to highlight a few things that may seem like something you should get straight away, but how much a website costs wildly depends on what you want that website to do. There is no one price fits all websites. Of course, there's options like you can build the website yourself or you can pay somebody to do the website professionally. So in this video, I'm going to go through quite a few bits of information about how much does a website cost. Okay, so types of websites.

Now, the type of website that you're looking for can have a big implication on how much the website's going to cost to build. So if you're looking to build, say, a personal blog or a travel blog or portfolio, generally, these are the least expensive options when it comes to building a website. Now, especially if you're using a platform like WordPress that has pre-made themes, the cost can range from free if you do it yourself using, say, wordpresscom, or you could pay a web developer, and it may cost anywhere from a few hundred dollars annually for hosting in a domain through to maybe a thousand, a couple of thousand dollars for the cost to actually build the website. Small business website Cost increase with the need for a more customized design and additional features like contact forms or image galleries. So prices can vary from, say, a thousand dollars for a single page site up to a couple of thousand dollars for five to ten pages, just depending on what it is your website needs, and that's normally something you'd discuss with a web developer. Of course, there are so many platforms around nowadays where you can build your own website online using a pre-built theme comes with standard sorts of pages and you've just got to create the content. And those types of websites would have a much lower cost and they give you a great entry point if you're a small business starting out and wanting to grow.

So then we've got an e-commerce website. So an e-commerce website requires more complex functionalities like shopping carts, payment processing, security measures, and the cost can start from $4,000, $5,000, all the way up to $10,000 or more, depending on the number of products, the functionality, how many different payment gateways available, whether you offer buy now, pay later products, all those sorts of things. And then you've got large business or custom websites, and these are things that require advanced features. So they could be something like e-learning platforms. They could be job platforms where you're listing jobs for people to apply for. They have extensive number of pages, large amounts of functionality that have to be custom built or tailored or customized, and these can range in price from generally I would estimate $8,000 for a smaller scale, right through to $100,000, $200,000, even more Just depends on what's needed. So if we were to look at the costs involved with a website generally, you've got domain name Now that can cost you anywhere from $10 to $20 a year for a basic domain name through to several hundred dollars a year for one of the more advanced types of domain names that aren't commonly used.

The next one is hosting. You can get hosting free. You can get hosting from as little as a couple of dollars a month for a shared hosting platform through to well over a hundred dollars a month for dedicated servers and high quality hosting. Keep in mind when you're looking for a host and we'll do that and cover that in a different video but you get what you pay for. Your website might only need a low-end host, but most websites are going to benefit from having a better quality hosting provider to start with. That's why, at the company that I run, we use WP Engine for all of our WordPress sites because they are the best at what they do for hosting a premium WordPress website. They're not the cheapest, but they provide the best service.

Okay, so design and development the largest variable is the design and the development of a website. So if somebody if you were doing it yourself say, diy with a website builder, then your cost might be between $10 and $100 a month, depending on the plan you're on the platform you're using. Things like like that. When you're hiring a professional web designer or web developer, then the price could range from a thousand dollars to ten thousand dollars or much more for custom designs. So keep in mind whether you're doing it yourself or whether you're doing it through a professional developer, there is always a cost involved. The other big thing to keep in mind there is if you're doing it yourself, how many hours are you spending learning what it is you need to do, actually implementing that, creating all the content, creating the layout and things like that? Put that up against an average hourly rate for your business and you may decide and find out that it's actually cheaper to pay a professional to build the website for you, maintenance and updates. So Websites have ongoing costs, so they could be annual. Things such as time taken to perform updates, updating security measures, content updates, buying and paying for licenses for plugins and themes and things like that. All of these may potentially cost you a few hundred dollars a year. All of these may potentially cost you a few hundred dollars a year. Okay, so that's a breakdown of the average costs that everyone's going to need for a website. So the next bit is additional costs to consider.

So SEO and marketing. There is no point building a website if you don't do the SEO on it, because nobody will ever find it, and there is also no point in having a website if you don't direct traffic to it. So whether you're utilizing social media as part of your integrated strategy to direct people to your website, or putting it on your flyers, putting it on your business cards, or putting it on your flyers, putting it on your business cards, putting it on your you know every post that you put out or somewhere, you need to drive traffic to your website. That's where SEO and marketing come in. Now, these can cost you nothing if you're doing it yourself, to several hundred, several thousand dollars a month, depending on the market that you're in and what it is you're paying to get done.

So the next one's plugins and extensions. So for added functionalities and features on your website, then you may want to use additional plugins or extensions for the platform that you're using. Now this could be as simple as a backup plugin that backs up your site every day through to something that automatically, when you write a blog post, publishes it to social media for you. So there are many free ones and there are many paid ones. I'm not gonna say that the paid ones are better than the free ones, because in some cases that's not the case, but keep in mind that if you wanna add any of this functionality, there may be costs involved, and these can be monthly, annually, all those sorts of things, and they can be as little as $10, $15 through to $1,000 a year. So just keep that in mind, that if you're going to add any of this functionality, there may be a cost involved. And then, of course, you've got content creation. There may be a cost involved, and then, of course, you've got content creation.

Now I am a firm advocate that you, as the business owner, knows more about your business than myself or any other web developer or web designer marketing person out there, but you may not be the type of person who can put that knowledge into words. So keep in mind that you may need to pay somebody to do professional copywriting, take photos of your business for you, produce videos for you. All of those things cost money and it depends on what you need, who's doing it, what their reputation is in the market, what the theme you're going for is as to how much that will cost. Of course, you can do it yourself if that's the way you want to do it, but we do personally recommend utilizing somebody who can write your content for search engines and for marketing, somebody who can take really good, high quality images and video of you, of your business, so that we can present the best first impression. Okay, so I want to emphasize that, while upfront costs can be significant with a website, a well-designed website is not an expense. It's an investment that can pay dividends in terms of branding, customer reach and, ultimately, revenue, and I would like to recommend that you carefully consider your needs and your budget and perhaps consult with a web development professional to get a more tailored estimate before you jump in hands.

First, always get multiple quotes If you know somebody who knows a good web developer or knows a good marketing strategist, then listen to their recommendations, because if they've already worked with these people, that's going to save you having to vet them, and choosing the right person or company to work with is probably the biggest part of any decision you're going to make. So if I had to give you some next steps, I would suggest that you sit down with a pen and paper or a notepad on your computer, or a bullet point list and create a detailed plan outlining what it is you need from your website. Then I would consider consulting with multiple marketing professionals so videographer, content writer, strategist, web developer just to get an idea. Even if you don't plan to go ahead with using any of them, it's worth sitting down with them to get an idea of what they recommend for you and your business, because that's going to help you build a complete picture. Recommend for you and your business because that's going to help you build a complete picture.

And finally, don't forget to factor in that it's not just the initial setup cost, but there's also going to be potentially ongoing costs and marketing expenses. So if you're sitting down and working out a budget for you know, getting your business going and and your marketing for the next 12 months. Sit, sit down and go through. Okay, I need a website. It's going to probably cost me about this much.

Factor in a budget for ongoing maintenance, a budget for some marketing expenses, even if you just plan to spend $50 a month boosting posts on Facebook. Take that into account, put it into a spreadsheet and that way you've got a better picture of what you're going to do. The other thing I would recommend is go and talk to a marketing strategist, pay for whatever their introductory session is and sit down with them, because they will help you do a lot of this planning stuff or give you a lot of strategy to point you in the right direction for that. So that concludes this video. I hope you've got an abundance of information about how much a website costs and what can affect those costs, and I've given you some next steps there that I would highly recommend you have a look at. So until the next video, this is Martin signing off.