Web Podcast - Episode 19: Don't get ripped off! What does a website cost?

Read the transcription of this podcast:

Hey guys, good morning, good afternoon, good evening. It’s Matt from RAZOR Web Design, what should you pay for a website when you get one made by someone. So I’m not talking about if you do it yourself, I’m talking about if you get a professional like myself or others around, to do your website, what do you pay?

Because, it’s really sort of a dark art that people don’t know a lot about. So they say “I don't have a clue about web design I'm starting from scratch” and then people get screwed over, to put it blunt, quite a lot. Then we get people come to us and they’ve spent far too much money. Or they come to us with an idea that they think should cost a couple of hundred dollars and it actually costs a couple of thousand dollars. So it’s just people aren't aware of the cost behind making a website.

So I’m gonna go through different factors for you today that give you an idea of what contributes to the set up cost of a website.

There’s different factors. The first one design: At the bottom end of the scale is a pre-designed template. There might be another 5,000 sites out there that use that template. Since there's 5,000 sites using it, the set-up costs initially by the designer of that template obviously is going to be a lot less when you break it down. Let's say the template costs them $1,000 to make and they’ve got 5,000 sites using it they can obviously sell it dirt cheap. It could be $20 (American), $50 (American), for that design because its pre-designed and away you go. So if you have a developer that’s giving you a pre-designed template, they’re showing you templates you can use, you know that they’re basically letting you pick from a catalogue what you want. So, it’s not custom tailored designed like the websites my company builds, or like the websites other high end companies build. They use your brand and build a template around that rather than the other way around. It’s like going to a suit shop and buying a pre-made suit that’s just a generic size. You’d rather buy a suit that’s tailor made, its gonna cost you a lot more.

Cost-wise, really it depends on how much effort the designer puts into making you a custom template. For us, we usually design the home page and then the rest of the pages we lay out as we go and improvise, to a certain degree, to how the rest of the site would look. It all really blends together an correlates; the header and the footer of the site, as you’ll know, are the same. It’s just the guts that change. We do a custom mock up for the home page, sometimes other pages, if a customer wants a mockup for every page, that’s a little more special. We will obviously charge more and you’ll pay more. Basically, the more design involved in customising it to your brand, the more you’ll pay.

Don’t use a web design company that’s giving you a template, but they’re charging you an arm and a leg for it. Because they obviously haven't designed it, they’ll have bought it off the internet somewhere and they're letting you use it. They're obviously ripping you off there. Just be aware of that.

The second factor is; content writing. Or content. Content writings a lot of round here so you might have someone who builds your website and then they ask you for the content. What I mean by that; what's going on the home page? What's going on the services page? What's going on the about us page? What testimonials do we have?

Some companies don't write this for you. Our company, for example, will ask you for a few basic points and then we will write the content for you. Or, you might have your content you’ve written yourself, so you've prepared it all for us. If you're having to give all of the content especially images, to your developer, or your web design company, then that's gonna indicate that you should be paying less, as all they're having to do is place that content into the website via HTML code or a drag and drop editor. So, that's what you have to consider; my content writing, am I doing it or are they doing it?

How we do it for example is we give people the option to have their content written for free, so it doesn't adjust the cost because we include it for free as a service, but some people have half their content written already, we just go through it and check it for them and send it back to make sure they’re happy with it. So just be aware of that. It’s an important one as well.

Number three is SEO: generally you'll find any site that gets built it will have initial SEO work done on it. People think it’s an ongoing thing, it is, but you don’t pay a one off for that, you’ll obviously have ongoing payments going on continuous SEO work, as you'd expect.

Our sites, and most companies that set up websites now, like ones that use Wordpress for example (which is the content management system to edit the site yourself), they'll include SEO plugins which are little add ons that plug into the website and make it rank better on google. Whereas our sites use our own custom CMS and they're already pre-built with the best practices in SEO from different sources. SEO is another thing you shouldn't have to pay extra for it, because a lot of SEO fundamentals are just the base of a website anyway. It should already be incorporated. If someone offers you a big SEO package to begin with, you’re going to pay more obviously.

The fourth one is: a system to edit the website, most systems are free to use. Like Wordpress or Silver Stripe or Joomla!, you’ve probably heard of these, they’re all free open source systems. So, your web developer can place them and give you the option to log in yourself in the future to change the site content. Even though they’re open source they’re obviously going to charge you more, to set that up, most likely than a plain HTML static website which you couldn't edit. So, youre looking to pay a little bit extra for a good system so, going forward, you can change the site yourself.
Other factors in the addition are things like if you wanted a module or an extra feature like a quote form or booking calendar, or an ecommerce system, these things will cost you extra. So that system and extra features contributes to the cost of the website,

Another one is support going forward; if you're using a web design company what sort of support do they offer? Do they just build the website and then close the door on you and you’re on your own? Or do they offer ongoing phone support? Do they offer ongoing email support? Do they offer Live Chat? Can you go and sit with them? All this stuff will also affect the cost of a website. It's only minor but you’ll find that companies that offer good customer service experience will charge more because they're giving you an all round package and customer service they're going to look after you. Where as you can go to a contractor overseas, or a freelancer and they'll build the site, then a month later you’ll need a hand with it, but they are already working on someone else's project and they’re a one man band who doesn’t have time to help you out. If you’re dealing with someone who’s doing that, then, in my view you should be paying slightly less. Generally ongoing support will cost you extra anyway. Depending on what it is, if its a bug or they've messed something up you don't want to be paying for that, but that's another thing to consider.

Finally on my list of factors, I've got experience. So there's a lot of web design companies out there that set up and from day one they are charging twice the price of what more established firms are. All because they want to appear that their product is superior to everyone else's. So, you’ve got to be careful about the experience that web design companies have and how their pricing. If it’s a very new company and they’re pricing high I would avoid them. If they are a new company, like I did when I first started for example, and they’re charging very low price to get their foot in the door then that can be more appealing. But, you’ve got to be aware of a cheap price.. It can also have its downsides. For example the person whos making the website may not be very qualified or experienced, or just know the ins and outs of everything. You may find it takes longer, it’s not done properly, there’s a few bugs going forward. That's all stuff you have to consider when you're using a less experienced company or designer.

You pay for what you get.

If you're going to be using a company that's been around for 10, 15, almost 20 years, you're going to spend more. But, at the end of the day, if you're a professional company with a professional image and reputation, you should be using a professional web design company and not skimping on costs. We see a lot of companies go somewhere, they'll use someone out of town who’s not experienced enough (they've also charged them an arm and a leg as well), then they come to us and they say “these guys screwed up, the sites not working properly and we’ve already spent several thousand dollars” then we will do them a new site and its cost them half of what they've spent on the one that didn't work properly. This is the whole point of this episode, you have to judge and then try and work out which is the best value quote to go with?

Another thing to avoid is just getting one quote. If you're getting a website made, especially if you're going to a less experienced person, who’s never dealt with the industry before, get a few quotes, then you can say “this one's real high and it’s basically the same quote as these other two”. Then you can pick and choose where you're going.
Again don't pick on price, pick it on the other factors I’ve talked about. What level of design? What level of experience does the company have? What sort of SEO do I get? Do they give me content writing?
Then go “okay, my budget is XYZ, or $2,000, $5,000, or $10,000 which one of these works best for it?” I’m not gonna go and jump in with the $1,000 offer and say “I’ve saved $9,000 because this is the cheapest one”.

As you probably know and I know as I’ve learned over the years, you get what you pay for.

It’s just a very fine art and there's no way to do it apart from, get various quotes.

If you come to my company, for example, you won't have to get various quotes! It’s still a good thing to do just to figure out and work out which is the best way to go.

Even ask people, if you’re setting up a new business, or you’ve been in business a while, you’ve probably got people you know who own businesses as well, or, who are even I.T. people or designers who can say “This will be about right, this quote has the best pricing relative to quality and what value you are going to get out of it.”

Hope that helped guys, let me know if you need a hand with anything, otherwise we will do some more episodes soon.

Just been busy flat out starting in the new year. So I’m just trying to get onto episode 20 soon and that’ll be our 20 episode milestone, so that’s pretty exciting.

Thanks for listening, like and subscribe. See ya.