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Website Development Costs Explained

All the costs used in these examples are based on our standard rates. If you want more information on how day rates are calculated look at our page explaining day rates.

A Simple Website

OK, so you need a simple website. The site needs to be found in Google when people search for what you are selling, you want the site to look professional, be easy to navigate, you want to add new pages yourself and you want to provide different ways for your site visitors to get in touch. A fairly standard, simple, website specification.

Here's what goes into a site like that:

  • Needs analysis, a meeting, a chat, some common understanding about what you need and what you could do
  • Design, self explanatory but more involved than you might think when you consider all the back and forthing
  • Hosting, a place for your site to live
  • Software setup and configuration, this would include keeping the software that allows you to update the site up to date
  • Keyword research, finding out what people search for
  • Search Engine Optimisation, making sure your site is easy for the search engines to index and it uses the words people use when searching
  • Copy writing, content is king!
  • Training so you can add new pages, news items etc
  • Support if you get stuck!
  • Guidance on how to take the site forward once it's live including link building and online marketing
This shows what's involved in a simple website. The needs analysis will cost around £200, the design around £750 plus £500 to create a website template from the design. Software setup around £250, keyword research £200, search engine optimisation will depend on the amount of content you want on the site but allow £200 for a small site. If your site needs copy this could cost around £300 and if you want some guidance and coaching on how to grow your site and make it work for your business, for this allow another £200. You also need hosting. You can do cheap but we don't do cheap so that's £200 a year. That's a grand total of £2800.00 for a simple basic website.

What About Bigger Sites?

Bigger sites usually differ with respect to functionality and the number of pages. If your proposed site has 100 pages and all need research for the content and associated SEO the bill for the content alone can run into thousands. Once it goes live, if you haven't got the resources or the skills to grow the site on an ongoing basis you will need to pay for that too.

You may also need some non standard functionality. For example you may want your clients to have web based access to data held on a database in your office. This will all need to be programmed and the costs of this can quickly run into thousands.

But I've Seen Websites for £299.99?

Eh....yes. Weird isn't it....

In Summary

You can find businesses who build websites for very little money and there are also many DIY approaches to getting a website. However you choose to develop your site this information should at least help you better understand web development costs and where  they come from. If you have been quoted £299.99 for your new company website ask yourself this, what EXACTLY am I getting for my money......