Well, let me give you the short answer that I know you’re going to hate… it depends.

No two web solutions are exactly the same mainly because no two businesses are exactly the same.  So, rather than give you a range that is mere opinion and based on our own experience (which… I might give you at the end,) let me help you understand what we see are the four main components that help determine the cost of a web project.  With that, I’ll also tell you at least one way you can help lower the cost.  Listen and listen well and you should be able to find the right firm that can deliver the results you want at the price you’re willing to pay.

So, let’s get started…

Design

Good design costs money and a great looking website helps communicate professionalism, stability (surprising but true,) and a certain level of trust. Think of your website as where you will likely make your first impression with your prospects. Do you want to be found wearing a nicely trimmed suit or a raggedy set of jeans and a t-shirt?  A good designer will know how to build the suit, but will be more costly than the person who just delivers the jeans and t-shirt.

One way to lower cost?

Be prepared before starting the project by having a list of example websites that you like in terms of the style, layout, and overall structure. Also, be sure to have a good idea or an already solidified color palette for your designer to use.  This can help firms cut back on hours allotted for research and the design process included in their quotes, saving you some cash.

Functionality

There are two major components of a website that make up the “heart” of the website: your content and the functionality.  Functionality can be anything from content management systems, web contact forms and user accounts to social media integration, blogging capabilities and photo galleries.  However, just like buying a car, the more features you want the higher the price.

One way to lower cost?

Know what you really need before you approach a web development firm.  Oftentimes prospects begin naming their wish-list for inclusion in a quote because they have not thought in detail about what they really need.  Then sticker shock hits them when they see the cost.

By knowing what the minimum capabilities that you need are, you can start small and build big later, thus starting the project with a much lower quoted price.  Again like buying a car, if cost is a concern, know what features are your chassis, engine, wheels, and controls and start with those first.

Timeline

Building a website takes time and most firms have developing time lines down to a science.  We also know that for some of our clients, it’s just not fast enough. When you need something faster than a standard project, you can be sure that you’re going to have to pay for it.  An expedited project typically requires a higher rate applied to the pricing and that can quickly increase the price of your project.

One way to lower cost?

Plan ahead for the time required to develop your project.  In our experience, a typical web project can take a minimum of 30 business days.  To avoid your project requiring an expedited time line, plan to have that much time available before your desired launch date.  If this isn’t possible, then be prepared to potentially pay the extra cost.

Experience

I’ll be as direct as I can here. If you want the best, you will have to pay for the best.  The key to determining who the “best” is, in my opinion, is centered around what your definition of “experience” is.

Typically, we think of experience as the number of years you have been performing the service in question.  In the world of web design and development this should not be your only criteria for determining who is good and who is bad.  Focus instead on the results their completed projects generated for the served businesses.  Be sure to ask each web firm you are looking to contract with if they can give you a few examples of work they have completed and the end results it provided for the business.  Then make your judgment about their level of experience by what they have consistently delivered.

One way to lower cost?

When price becomes the primary concern, remember you can always contract with the “next best” firms.  They may not be considered “the best” to you, but they certainly good at what they do and sometimes can save you hundreds if not thousands of dollars.

Wrapping It All Up in a Price

So at this point you’re probably thinking, “He still hasn’t told me how much a good website should cost.”  Well, that’s true, but hopefully I’ve helped you understand some of the core elements that are taken into consideration when pricing your project.  You will be forced to make some decisions about what you want, what you expect, and what you’re willing to pay that will ultimately have a great bearing on the overall success of your website.  So be sure that you are giving yourself a large enough budget to reach the success that you desire and expect to gain from your website.

Are you ready to make the investment?

P.S. – Okay, for those of you that need a price range, let me give you a quick idea of what we’ve charged for web projects.  We’ve built websites from $1,500 up to $30,000 and they’ve all helped businesses grow (some A LOT faster than others and in more ways than just bringing in new business.)

In my opinion, be prepared to pay between $3,000 – $5,000 for a good website that generates positive results for your business.  If right now you are all excited about how you got yours for less, good for you… as long as you’re actually getting some sort of return from it!  Otherwise, you might just have a glorified digital brochure and that rarely does anything for your business.

1. Have identified goals as to what is to be accomplished

This one should be obvious, but the years of people hearing “You just have to have a website” have taken their toll.  Many websites do not have any more purpose than to merely state the same message that can be found in their other marketing literature.  This is a horrible approach.  You have so much more power in what you can do through the web that to do nothing more than state who you are and what you do is like a salesman walking up to a prospect and saying, “Hi, my name is Rick and I’m a salesman.” and then walk away.  Defining what you want your website to accomplish in the form of goals is what should control every aspect of how the website is constructed and those goals require something to be done. What are they?

To help identify the goals for your website, simply answer questions like these:

• What do I want the website to do?  Why?
• What do I want visitors to be able to do on my website?  Why?
• What do I want my customers to be able to do on my website? Why?
• What do I want media outlets to be able to on my website?  Why?
• What do I want my partners to be able to do on my website? Why?

During tough economic times as these it’s important to know where all of your marketing dollars are being spent.  For many companies, this becomes a time when they pull back on their marketing budgets for no other need than to simply cut costs. For others, this is a time when they increase their expenditures in an area of their business that they realize can actually increase their revenue as it has the ability to gain new customers and market share.  For either of these situations, it’s important to take a look at where your marketing dollars are being spent, the effectiveness of the strategies employed, and a firm understanding of what you will need to do to improve your strategy’s overall performance for the future.

Here’s a quick 5 step way to mapping out your marketing:

1. Create a Simple Process Map
   View this from a very high level.  If I were to ask you, “How can I buy your product or service,” how would you answer?  What are the steps you would take me through?  Though many would view this is your sales process, think “simplicity.”  If you have more than five steps in your process, try to group some together to shorten the process. Customers usually do not have patience.  Their buying decision can easily sway if it takes too long to satisfy their instant gratification that comes with the purchase.  If you have too many steps, you have too many ways for them to change their mind.
2. Take a Look at What You’re Doing
   Every piece of marketing and sales collateral that you have should be currently used to support one or more of the steps in the process you listed.  If you find an item that you feel is not doing this or is even poorly supporting a step, stop producing it! You need excellence in your marketing when times are tough! Spending the marketing dollars that are still getting you SOME prospects, but just barely simply won’t cut it in the long run!By the way… CA-CHING… money saved! You’re welcome!
3. Group Your Current Marketing Pieces into Activities
   Successful strategies are about spreading your marketing activities over multiple mediums, channels, and tools to reach the broadest representation of your targeted audience(s). Take each of your marketing pieces and group them into activities such as print advertising, radio, TV, search engine marketing, online advertising, social media, etc.Count up the number of pieces in each activity.  This is a quick way to determine how much you’re focusing on each area.  Are you evenly spread in your activities?  Or are there some imbalances? Imbalances could be a sign of wasteful activity and therefore wasted marketing dollars.
4. Check Your Success Rates for Each Activity
   Success in any marketing strategy is dependent on data that is captured and measured against your established goals.  In this case, we’re going to focus on how each activity performs against your sales goals. So, hopefully, you’ve been capturing data behind each activity you’ve engaged in.  If not, we need to talk! Without data there is a high likelihood that you are overspending in multiple areas that may be producing little or even no results.Write on a separate sheet of paper for each activity the following metrics:

    

   - Total amount of dollars (E) committed to this activity – including support/administrative
   – Total amount of transactions (T) attributed to this activity – translated sales transactions
   – Total amount of revenue (R) from transactions attributed to this activity
   – Total net profit (P) attributed to this activity

   Calculate the Following Success Rates

   Goal Achievement by Activity: R/E x 100

   Profit Margin from Activity: P-E=M, M/P x 100

   Average Revenue per Transaction per Activity: R/T

   Average Profit per Transaction per Activity: P/T

5. Determine the Adjustments in Your Activities
   Now this step requires some insight about how to move and adjust your marketing activities, but let me break this down into some simple thoughts that can help you make your decisions about how you spend your marketing dollars.Look at the “Goal Achievement by Activity” rate.  If you have some activities that are falling in the single digits, it means one of two things: 1) You just started this activity or possibly not investing much into it, OR 2) You are potentially overspending marketing dollars in an area that is not translating into transactions.

    

   If the answer is #1, you may choose to continue investing in this area, but I would encourage you to measure this again in 30 day increments to determine if it has any effect.

   If the answer is #2, then maybe you should stop investing in this activity or rethink how you are leveraging this strategy to attain your goals.  By doing so, you can move the allotted marketing dollars for this activity into another area where it can produce higher results.

   Next, look at the “Profit Margin” metric.  If this is high (say even over 10%) then this should tell you that this activity is able to not only produce results in terms of acquiring whatever it was designed for (awareness, traffic, sales, etc.), but it also has the potential to produce the best results in terms of translating into higher value transactions.

   Now, I say “has” because of this.  If this activity generates the least amount of transactions (and by quite a bit) then even though the metric sounds good, it is really not producing long-term gains.  Think of a situation where you have one transaction that had a 90% profit margin or two hundred transactions that had a 50% profit margin. In this case, consider how the activity could be adjusted to generate more high-value transactions.

   Finally, look at the “Average Profit per Transaction” metric.  The activities where this metric is high shows you potentially how and where you are acquiring your best customers – meaning those that may have spent the most with your organization!  What you may want to do here is to look at how you can increase your use of this activity to hopefully increase the number of transactions.

   Now, an important note, oftentimes this activity would be the same as that found from the “Profit Margin” metric.  Remember, we need a good balance in the number of transactions to the amount of profit gained in each transactions.  I only mentioned looking where this metric is “high” not the “highest.”  Therefore, you actually want to find somewhere close to the middle in terms of profit and number of transactions.

That’s it!  Five steps later and you will have a much clearer understanding of not only where you marketing dollars have been spent, but the effectiveness of what you have spent those dollars on!  During these tough economic times, you DO have the chance to increase your market share as well as the number of sales and revenue made from each transaction.  The important thing to start with is this clear understanding of where you are currently.  Once you have this, it is much easier to see how you need to formulate your next marketing strategy to increase your overall performance and make your marketing dollars work for you!

Map your marketing dollars and you can map your future!