You might have gotten a quote that seems ridiculous or too low for the new website you want to design. It's also normal if different agencies have given you different prices. This article aims to analyze the reasons behind the varying prices you are likely to get when searching for a web designer for your new website.
The Cost of Website Design and Development
Ideally, a web design agency will fix a price for you depending on the timeframe they would need to work on your website and the project's complexity. The cost involves the planning time to designing and development period of your website. In other words, they are selling their time to you. Hence, the price will depend on the hours or days they will devote to the services they are offering you.
However, the prices vary from one agency to another, depending on their overheads. Below is an example of the approximate costs of categories of agencies;
Some offshore website agencies may charge between £10 and £25 per hour, while some freelance website developers may charge between £25 and £50 hourly. In addition, an all-encompassing digital website agency may charge between £75 and £150 hourly, while a small agency would likely set in the range of £50 and £75 per hour. The prices vary depending on factors such as; cost of living, commercial office fee, office maintenance expenses, numbers of staff, expertise, and lots more.
These prices are an indication of how much your expected to pay, and the actual price as some sites could only take 15 hours to develop, whereas other sites such as a e-commerce site selling multiple products could take potentially up to 150 hours
Choosing whom you should work with on your website development will depend on your expectations or goals for the website. Large agencies have more hands that can handle different areas of website development, like custom programming, marketing, branding, and search optimization.
Therefore, if your company is a large one, you should consider a large agency that would offer you high-quality design services. Of course, a small and new business owner should hire a freelancer or small web designer to save more money.
What Are Your Targets?
Do you have targets for the new business website you want to develop?
Some business owners do not have a real purpose for creating a website for their business. All they want is just a webpage that would represent their brand on the internet, nothing more. Since you are paying to get a quality website, your new website should generate more ROI for the business.
Having targets or objectives for your new website will significantly influence your amount on building the website. Website design involves series of services. Therefore, you should expect an agency to offer the following general services;
Planning – planning of the new website design includes the services of the project manager that will keep records of every detail from the start to the end of the web development project.
Likewise, several meetings will hold between you and the designers. The team will also hold discussions on how they will work on the new website. Within this process, you would have consultations and advice in the project; to give the designers and developers enough information to get the design and development just right.
Research – a professional web designer would research and understand your website objectives; the team must understand these objectives before proceeding with the web design.
Their research must also focus on the audience (your targeted prospective clients). The developers must know your audiences are and their needs. The outcome of the research will help them design your web to your prospective customers' needs.
The next thing is to create appropriate and quality content for your website, using the right approach or strategy to present them to your audience.
Design – your web designer will work on the wireframes, designs, and iterations of the best user experience to make your website look fantastic. Here, the skill set and expertise of your developer are vital.
Build – In this section, your web design agency will develop your website and custom program your new website.
Content Support – there are lots to do in this stage which are;
- Content Layout
- Photography
- Video
- Copywriting
- Illustrations
Handover – in this phase, there would be training and finally documentation of the project.
Testing And Launching – The experts will do browser testing of the website seeing how the website looks and feels to use on browsers such as Chrome, Safari, Firefox, followed by hosting setup, and lastly, your new web will go live.
Maintenance – The project's final phase is here, but it takes time since it's ongoing programming of the new website updates and reviews. If you encounter any difficulty at any period, you can consult the agency to fix it for you. Therefore, this stage of web design is long-term.
Type of Website
Another critical factor that will determine the price of your new website is the type of website you want to build.
There are many websites out there, but you need to choose based on your objectives.
If you aim to market your company's services or products on the internet, an e-commerce web is the best option for you.
Another type of website is a blog, for personal content, unlike other websites. You can use this kind of website to post articles, videos, and pictures. Also, you can use a blog for marketing your brand.
Content and Website Layout
Usually, the structure of a site covers written and visual content. A website developer works with the written and visual content to build good-looking websites.
Visual content covers design elements and commercial images. These are the product pictures, storefront images, logo designs, or header in the design of your website. The website designer will try his best to present the images to make the website captivating, exciting, and usable.
The written content about your business is essential, and it must be present on your site. This content includes your business description, such as hours of opening, prices of your products or services, and more.
You can ask if your designer can create perfect written content for your site, or you would have to hire someone for that.
Conclusion
No doubt, you need a website for your business, but the more important thing is how you will get a perfect one that will suit your needs. It's either you hire a freelancer or a web design company.
Above all, know that having a website involves money, and you must have a budget. Then the designer you will hire should fall in the range of your budget, to avoid overspending
