How Much Does A Website Cost

By Katrina Puranik - SEO Specialist & Google Marketing Expert, Founder of Ranking Australia

Perhaps you want to build a website, are maybe you're looking to rebuild a website? Everyone wants to save money on a big expense like this for there business. If you are just starting up as a small business maybe you have been brave enough to create your own website with one of the "drag & drop" website builders, this is great if you are simply using it as a prelude to a better website to compare with your ambitions as a strong competitor in the industry. But as a small fish struggling in the deep digital sea, your low-cost drag & drop website as the main channel for business online, is actually costing you money.  The reasons for this has to do with a few technical issues.

The loading time is not fast, generally doesn't compress images or javascript (code to catch analytics or marketing data). This impedes on the bounce rate or better described as glue-rate which refers to the stick-around time of website visitors. A great tool to test the loading speed is Google Page Speed Insights. Contact us if you would like to find out more about your score.

For small business with a desire to standout and get found on top, then you need a website that won't lose potential clients, with loading speed, or content that is not optimised for relevant web traffic. This means a fully responsive website with SEO and magnetic content. To the average business owner, this means very little except keywords. There are quite a lot of web developers that claim to SEO, they how to create meta-data, but beyond that they don't really proceed. Especially if you had to provide the content for your website. It is recommended that do you do your research of web developers and web presence specialists online, and locally. Getting recommendations from reputable social media groups that you engage with, to find someone that can vouch for the expertise of  the provider.  It isn't a challenge once you know what to look for. 

Make sure you will get the best value for money, and services required. Small firms and freelance developers usually, not always, but usually go over and above for their clients, they should cost around $1500-2500 for a basic website. However, not many of them are actually skilled in SEO. They can set it up, but there skills fall short of increasing visibility.  Large companies, with all the added services in SEO & marketing and heaps of reviews that boast great performance online and also high prices $5000+. They are a good choice for companies with large budgets $3000+ per month. These companies are not suited for businesses with smaller budgets. Which is why it is good to choose a provider that specialises in small business. 

Make sure that the provider gives you examples of previous work, and that they are capable of SEO, fast-turnaround, Google Tools setup, and social media integration. The absolute must inclusions should be setup of Google My Business, Google Analytics, Google Webmaster Tools & Keyword Research to help your website perform and to stay informed and get found online. This requires ongoing maintenance, and visibility reviews to make changes to get your business up on Google.

Establishing a web presence is the core outcome of your website. To standout, you will need to commit to ongoing efforts to build, maintain and  improve your search engine visibility. Which also means finding a web developer/digital marketer who will not only build the website, but provide the ongoing services to maintain it, support your business with publishing blog content you have created, along with ongoing SEO and Visibility Reviews. 

But you no longer have to guess, or pay for advice that will help you make the right decision. If you want to find out what you should be paying for a website to be developed or SEO to be implemented, ask us for the price ranges you should expect. Its like paying for a removalist, the cheaper you go, expect problems to arise. The higher the price, its important to ensure you are getting what you pay for.

 Using Google Analytics, SEM Rush or other data capture software to help you see the improved web presence. All of these are easy to get regular reports from. An SEO expert, Katrina Puranik, from Ranking Australia can help you set these up.