When I started designing websites, I wondered why web design prices are not the same across the board. How can someone design a website at a fraction of their colleague’s price? From my own experience as a web designer and from interacting with my clients as well as other web designers, I have discovered that the difference is the risk (security level) and the returns.
A cheap website may be a high risk (low security) and low returns while priced websites may be a low risk (highly secure) and high return venture. The difference is not in the look or the design of the website but in some unseen factors.
Here are five very important factors that have a huge impact on the price of a website.
1. Different Websites, Same Template
There are thousands of people from different industries looking for websites. Any web designer has design rights of the website design and if they bought the template, they are allowed to use it for a number of websites as per their agreement with the template designer. It may not be a bad thing to use the template per agreement but if your web designer does not customize your website to reflect your brand and business, you may find your “website’s twin” somewhere on the internet. Sounds embarrassing, doesn’t it?
Your web designer should be able to either customize your template to look original and to suit your brand and business or get you a unique template for your website.
2. Search Engine Optimization — Websites need to be optimized
When was the last time you searched for a product or service online? Have you ever wondered how Google, Bing or Yahoo gets those websites arranged from the first page to the last page? Well, maybe not, but as a business owner or freelancer who owns a website, you should know. It is called Search Engine Optimization. Search Engine Optimization is the process of getting more people to your website through search engines like Google, Bing, Yahoo, Duck Duck Go etc. It starts from choosing and preparing text and image content. Getting the best dimensions for your images, the right length of your text content, internal linking of your pages, anchor texts variations and so much more.
If your web designer does not offer this service for your website, then be sure you will need to work harder to get visitors from the known search engines
3. Security Updates — Websites Need to be updated
I can’t count the number of times I have heard of websites being hacked. The attempts on my own website are also numerous. Malicious and adventurous developers out there are roaming around the internet looking for a website to deface. Since Content Management Systems (CMS’s) like WordPress, Joomla, Drupal, Magento and Prestashop became popular; hackers have been having a field day. With every security update of a CMS, the developers list the bugs they have fixed leaving all websites that will not apply the upgrade vulnerable to the hackers to use the information to hack them.
If your web designer does not offer security upgrades and website backups for recovery in case of an attack, it might cost you more to get your website if it is hacked.
4. Web Hosting Features and Charges — Website Hosting Packages Differ
I have seen many web designers advertise that they will design a website for very low prices and at times even offer FREE web hosting and domains. What comes to your mind when you see this advertisement is how perfect a deal it is. Before you grab it, you should ask your web designer some questions and do some math.
What size is your web hosting space?
Novice or expert, words like disk space and bandwidth are very important. If you are making a blog and targeting 5,000 unique visitors a day, then 500MB disk space and 1GB bandwidth will collapse on your first day in office.
What features are included in your web hosting package?
Can you have business or domain based emails? What is the limit? If you have a business that may need emails, this is an important question to ask. Can you access the back end of your website (Control Panel) independently?
What is the cost — Time, Money, and Reputation?
A slow and unreliable hosting service costs you little on subscription but can cost you more to restore your crashed or hacked website that could have crashed instead of giving you returns for your good marketing efforts. You spend more time and money restoring your website and have to convince your clients you will not crash on them as your website did.
5. Support and Maintenance — How Much Do They Charge?
I know and agree with you that you cannot know all these things and how to measure what is best for you. That is what brings me to my next point. What is your web designer offering you in terms of support and maintenance? This is where most cheap web designers grow from cheap to money minters. After the free support period (usually between one week and one month), any question asked will be charged and any work done on the website may cost you as much as it cost you to develop the whole website.
Conclusion
Many web designers offer quality websites at a fair price but others take advantage of what you don’t know to make your online experience worth forgetting. In the long run, you may find yourself paying twice the amount you would have paid as a one-time fee. This may also apply to designers who charge higher rates.
As you shop for your next web designer, don’t go for rates, whether high or low. Make sure you know and understand the features, quality and quantity you expect to be delivered and what it will cost you in the long run. Take a few more minutes to interrogate the offer you are getting, you will find that in the end, quality websites can be costly but that should assure you that the website will generate more income.
What is your opinion on web design costs? Feel free to share your pricing experiences with your web designer.
If you enjoyed this post, be sure to visit my website www.rjrao.com and subscribe to get notified when I publish something new.
