It’s probably easier by starting with the “What am I Paying For” question, as the knowledge of this will help provide a better understanding of what will influence those costs and answer the “How Much” question with more relevance for you…

There are several different elements to pay for when building a website at base level – there are many professional web-builders that will arrange and pay for these as part of their costs, and then on-sell them to you with their margin – which is great if you like the “no hassles” version… but if you are purchasing these directly yourself I’ve listed some of the approximate costs for these elements below:

• DOMAIN NAME REGISTRATION: $20-$40 per year unless you pick a high demand name
• WEBSITE HOSTING: approx $250 per year for an intermediate small business website (SBW)
• THE ACTUAL BUILDING OF THE WEBSITE: very variable but starting at around $1000-$2000 for an appropriate SBW if you have a freelance consultant build it for you. There are DIY platforms too that will generally only cost you your own time.
• S.E.O. (getting your website found): not essential initially in most cases, but can start at around $300/month

I’ll elaborate a little more on each of the above elements and hopefully put in “small business language” what they each mean. There can be additional costs too – not always essential – just depending on your needs, like 1. professional photography, 2. writing copy (having an expert use amazing words to make your business sound amazing), 3. functional items like advanced shopping carts or appointment booking facilities etc.

As a general guide, my basic package starts at $1200.00 for 1 x Domain Name (first year reg only), First Year Hosting Plan and all site building with images and copy you have provided. This also includes a yourname@yourbusiness.com.au email address. Advanced S.E.O. is not really in my wheelhouse and not necessarily essential when you start out (in my opinion anyway), but as you grow I can put you in touch with an associate I have for this. If you want to know if this is something that would suit you please feel free to get in touch and I’ll be happy to have a chat (no cost/obligation) and work out what’s best for your business.

SO, WHAT ARE THE ACTUAL COSTS?

1. DOMAIN NAME REGISTRATION: This is the purchase of the domain where your website will appear, i.e. www.yoursmallbusiness.com or www.yoursmallbusiness.com.au. Yes that’s right – this is something you need to purchase and pay for ongoing registration of. This is like buying an address – not land, or a building – just an address, like a sign-marker that people will use to “navigate” to your businesses website. Typically these cost anywhere from $20 – $40 per year to register as long as the one you want isn’t already registered to someone else. Most small business names are pretty unique so there isn’t a lot of demand and they fit in the $20 – $40 category, i.e. billspainting.com or juliescafe.com. 

If you consider something less unique like housepainters.com or besthotcoffee.com or sydneyharbourbridge.com, these are generally harder to get and can attract a hefty pricetag too. So when considering your preffered domain name, it’s best to keep it unique, and also to consider purchasing a few variations of the same domain, i.e. the .com and the .com.au or even .net.au. This means no one else called Bill who also happens to paint houses can use a similar domain and then likely get confused with your website. You can still pick the one you like best to be the address for your website and make the unused ones also point to your chosen one.

Domains can be purchased from a “Domain Registrar” and some examples of these are GoDaddy.com, or CrazyDomains.com.au to mention just a couple, but there are loads. If you’re looking for a “one-stop-shop” most web-consultants and agencies will arrange this for you as part of your website build.

2. WEBSITE HOSTING: When your website is built, it will contain images, text and basically “data” – and just like creating an elaborate power-point presentation, you will need to “save” it somewhere. So the “hosting” is like renting the land on which to build your website. Once the website is built (and “saved” on a computer somewhere) you’ll want it to be accessible on the internet and visible to anyone who navigates to your domain name. To make sure your website is ALWAYS accessible (24/7) to everyone, it needs to be saved on a “computer” that is always connected to the internet. i.e. if you left it “saved” on your own computer you’d have to have your computer on all the time – not to mention make sure you had a super reliable and FAST internet connection at your office or home so it could be accessible and load fast enough for a decent viewing experience. In reality you’d never do it like this – that’s why Web Hosting Companies create Web-Servers (a room of computers) somewhere that is always connected to the internet and they invest in FAST connection’s etc. A good hosting company will offer an “uptime guarantee” too, but will then have a range of plans depending on the “bandwidth” you need. 

What is “bandwidth”? Imagine you owned a coffee shop and had 1 x small door, 1 x coffee machine and only 1 x barista and then 12 people walked in all at the same time and ordered a coffee. Pretty much every person except the first one would have to wait for their coffee. Now imagine you had a massive alfresco sliding door, 4 x coffee machines and 12 baristas… You could easily service the 12 people that walked in all at once.

The same happens with your website – if many people want to access your website at one time and you don’t purchase adequate bandwidth (with your hosting plan) then your website will become slow for all users, and at worst can “crash”. You may sometimes hear about concert ticket selling websites that “crash” when tickets to a new concert are released and everyone wants to buy them at the same time. For most SBW’s you won’t need a huge bandwidth to begin with, but this is always upgradeable anytime you need it.

So the bandwidth is like renting your “hosting land” near a major highway rather than in a backstreet.

Web hosting can be purchased from places like HostGator or BlueHost to mention just a couple, but again there are loads to choose from, and many will offer $1.95/month for the first year to get you on-board, but it’s always worth looking to know more about their uptime guarantees and bandwidth options before you buy. Most plans suitable to host your average small business website will be around $200/year but with some obvious variation.

Also bear in mind that hosting companies often also sell domain registration and vice versa, but I’ve found that they all have their area of specialty, which is why I use a different company for each – normally.

3. THE ACTUAL BUILDING OF THE WEBSITE: There are now numerous ways to build a website. When websites were first “a thing” you’d need to find someone who could “write computer code” to build it for you. Nowadays as I’ve already eluded to, there are loads of platforms that make it much more accessible and simple for the DIY’er and for computer savvy freelancers to get going without needing to learn to code.

The cost of a website “build” can vary incredibly and is the most significant investment (either your time or a financial investment) when creating a website. What you’re paying for is the time taken to collate all the info (images, copy etc) and create the pages that all link together and work as they should. Much like you’d pay to construct a building for your business, on the land you’re leasing (hosting) at the address you’ve registered (domain name).

One of the biggest decisions that is often overlooked before building a site is which platform to use. Almost all of the DIY platforms lock you in to their own hosting and if you ever want to upgrade your website, or use a different hosting company as your business grows, it means starting from scratch. The most significant advantage with using WordPress to build your website is it’s possible to take it anywhere you want. WordPress websites account for almost half the websites published on the internet (43% last time I checked). Additionally, if a feature you want is not availabe on your chosen DIY platform you may often be left stranded, however with a WordPress website, you can always hire a “coder” to custom build a feature that will ideally be able to slot right in to your existing site.

TO SUMMARISE…

This is really just scratching the surface when it comes to the pro’s and con’s of using a DIY platform or WordPress, or even having a custom built site, but I will cover some more of the finer details in an upcoming blog. If you can’t wait for that, feel free to get in touch for a no obligation chat about what might suit you best.

But the bare bones costs to get you started if you do the build yourself will be under $300, and if you hire someone like me to do the build it will be closer to $1000 (or $1200 is my starting package to be precise), with both having ongoing annual costs for Hosting and Domain Registration.

Feel free to comment on the blog if you have any questions, or GET IN TOUCH directly if you’d rather.1