What Affects Website Development Costs in 2021?
The entire community of entrepreneurs is moving from offline to online reality. Developing a company website is the first and at the same time the most important element of a quality marketing strategy. What affects the costs of web development in 2021 and how to get ready for this task if you want to cooperate with a marketing agency or a freelance developer? Let’s delve into the subject!
Table of Contents:
- Costs Of Website Development – Introduction
- What Elements Have An Impact On Web Development Cost?
- Your Own Website in 2021 – To Develop Or Not To Develop
Keep reading if:
- you have a company website that’s outdated, not very functional, and not tailored to Google requirements or mobile devices. As a consequence, it doesn’t generate enough leads so you want to replace it with a newer version,
- you don’t have a company website yet, but you already know that it’s an absolute must-have and you see that all your market rivals are already available online,
- you’re just planning to set up a company and you’re preparing a business plan which, by the way, ought to include costs of online activities such as the ones related to web development.
The perfect moment never comes. If you think that now is an appropriate time to develop your website, keep reading!
Costs of Website Development – Introduction
The price of website development varies depending on the case and it’s determined by a number of factors. Of course, it’s crucial to remember about hosting and domain fees paid once a year and possible administration or management of the website.
When it comes to costs of web development, take into account:
- domain fees,
- server (the place with content, photos, and the whole back-end of the website) fees paid once a year,
- the money you need to pay for content creation (product, services, category descriptions, blog posts and case studies). Of course, you can write these texts on your own or outsource them to professional copywriters or the agency that developed your website.
- costs of SEO that basically aims at guaranteeing that your website is visible on Google, thanks to which potential customers can easily access it in the organic search results.
To sum up, a one-time cost of website development ranges from a few to several thousand dollars. What factors determine this amount exactly?
What Elements Have An Impact On Web Development Costs?
Number Of Subpages And Tabs
If you want to develop a simple one-page landing page that will heltarget=”_blank” rel=”nofollow noopener noreferrer”p you easily generate leads and is particularly suitable if you offer one key product, benefit from the landingi.com tool. Apart from being an easy-to-use software and graphic editor for creating simple websites, it’s also an efficient platform for online marketing activities.
However, it has to be borne in mind that drag-and-drop websites, such as the landingi.com ones, are much more demanding in terms of SEO due to their complicated source code. Therefore, this tool should be used in situations when your company has a powerful brand or an already built engaged community.
The costs of developing a simple one-page website will be significantly lower than the costs of creating a complete online store based on a system like Magento, where you can offer thousands of products. A blog, a platform with online video courses or a sales landing page will have a different structure that has to be coded by a web developer. Different scope of work means different website development costs.
Website Design And Layout Developed From Scratch Or From A Template
Reinventing the wheel isn’t something you need. A number of webmasters benefit from ready-made, paid or free website and online store templates downloaded from online databases (such as TemplateMonster.com). In this case, a custom website is much cheaper and it’s possible to develop it much quicker. The developer tailors the previously designed interface and layout to your expectations. However, if you want to build everything from scratch, remember that it’ll take much longer and the amount on the invoice from the supplier will be significantly higher.
Website Development: A Creative Agency Or A Freelance Web Developer
What services are likely to be cheaper? Probably the ones of a freelance developer. And which will be better? Well, answering this question isn’t a piece of cake. Indeed, a creative agency can provide you with a comprehensive service: developing a website, buying a domain and hosting, providing content, or even performing SEO activities and running social media channels later on. However, it’s hard to predict if the employees of the agency are going to be completely committed to your page.
In all probability, a freelancer will be more eager and quicker to take care of your project in order to add your website to their own portfolio. On the other hand, it may turn out that freelance developers aren’t able to provide you with components of satisfactory quality. It’s hard to find professionals who have expertise in web development, UX, UI, copywriting, and design at the same time. Sometimes, due to a huge number of orders, bigger creative agencies neglect smaller tasks. So, before making up your mind and signing a contract, compare these two solutions, talk to various suppliers and choose the most suitable option that will help you create your dream website meeting your business needs.
SEO For Newly Developed Websites
Speaking of business objectives and plans – even if your company website doesn’t exist yet, it’s worth considering investing in SEO already at this stage. Every industry is highly competitive, yours probably isn’t an exception to this rule. Devising your SEO strategy in advance and developing your page with SEO principles in mind will definitely make it easier for you to reach top positions in the Google search results. Check out our SEO pricing to include relevant costs in your business strategy.
Your Own Website In 2021 – To Develop Or Not To Develop
As you already know, website development costs are determined by numerous factors and range from several hundred to several thousand dollars. However, what if you perceived it not as a cost but as an investment? A company website is frequently the first, if not the only point of contact between your brand and a potential customer. So is it worth allocating a substantial amount of time and funds to its development?
It’s not only worth it. It’s recommended. Today, a website is a business card of every company that follows trends. The plan to succeed includes three main components: the page should be mobile-friendly (adapted to mobile devices), user-friendly (it should have a convenient interface and be transparent) and SEO-friendly (ranked high by Google robots). Take care of these three points when working with a selected creative agency or a freelance developer and the costs of website development will pay for themselves very quickly. Good luck!
Interesting, good to know what you pay for – from my experience web developer companies/freelancers often don’t want to be transparent about how the budget is being distributed.