* This is a re-publish of the same article from almost exactly one year ago. The information contained here is just as valid and useful as it was then *
Trade Site Web Design are a small web design, build and hosting company in Wokingham. We aim to serve primarily local small businesses with cost effective web design and build services and basic managed hosting services. We can of course provide a remote service conducted via e-mail with clients anywhere. It is clear that many clients are looking for a value all-in-one package, hence we tooled up to be able to provide hosting and keep everything in-house for a simple solution.
This is a simple guide we have put together, to show the typical costs involved for any small business wanting to get a web site up and running. We hope you will use us for this service, but even so, we also hope you will find this useful no matter how you decide to go ahead. These are the things that you will need to cost for one way or another. Many web agencies will provide you a package price that includes all of this, but this guide will allow you to apply some transparency to the whole process and allow you to break down any pricing you may get.
Domain Name – every web site needs a name (e.g.. www.xxxxxxxx.co.uk) These are relatively cheap and on average will cost you around £5 per year. Most companies do introductory packages that make the first two years cheaper and sometimes free as part of a hosting deal. Some names do become more expensive so beware! If you are a company, we would advise that you get either a .com or .co.uk web address as these are more recognisable to many internet users as normal business web addresses. You can get others such as .tv, .uk.com, .org.uk or .me.uk – but these can either be expensive, or just not recognisable as business addresses.
Hosting – in laymans terms, your web site needs to be available on the internet and this is done by using a company that has loads and loads of computers that are all connected to the web. They put your web site onto their computers and attach your Domain Name to it. This is a very basic description of what hosting is. Personal packages with limited capacity can be as cheap as £25 per year. A basic business package starts from around £50 per year and unlimited packages with no real restrictions (that would affect a small business) start around £100 a year. This is what we charge at Trade-Site by the way, with admin thrown in so we do this on your behalf!
Design and Build – this is your actual web site. How it looks, what it says, what it links to. This is the most flexible cost. If you are brave, have some experience and of course your own PC! Then ANYBODY can build a basic web site. Then small agencies such as ourselves can design and build entry level web sites from a single page basic site at around £100 upwards. Creative design agencies also provide web design and build services and if you have specific, high design, requirements then the costs can work into the thousands!
Maintenance – this depends on what needs to change on your site on an ongoing basis. If nothing changes then no maintenance cost. Although sites that do not change are quite often going to suffer in Google rankings, it is not necessary to update your site. So that cost can range from zero – to hundeds of pounds per month for large sites requiring daily changes. Again, here a Trade-Site we are focussing on small businesses that probably do not require too much change. Our basic £100 per annum hosting includes FOR FREE a few ad hoc changes you may want to make throughout the year, such as a phone number change for example. Our basic Hosting and regular Update package gives you up to once a month minor content updates for only £150 per annum. This is for regular event updates or menu updates for example.
Online Marketing – some elements of this can be free. Google listings, free business directory listings and good content in the first place can get your site visible in search engines and will potentially drive business on it’s own. Then other marketing activities like paid directory listings (think Thomson Local or Yell.com) can cost anywhere between £300 and £1000 per – annum. There are probably packages out there that cost more. Also Google adwords can be “bought” to give your site priority listing, this varies based on the words you want to buy. At Trade Site if you buy a combined site and Hosting package, we will ensure that you get into Google and give you a Google Places listing FOR FREE! You will need to do any other online advertising yourself or with another agency however, this is not a service we plan to offer in any further detail.
Offline Marketing – well I won’t say anything here about cost – it’s not directly related to the web site costs. But just to mention – once you have a web site – don’t forget to include it in ALL of your marketing materials. On your business cards. On your Van. Work shirts etc… It’s a window to your company and may differentiate you from your competition. Again, some creative design agencies will work with you on your online and offline activities. That is not something we offer at Trade Site, as we concentrate only in the online space.
Anyway – we hope that’s useful to you, whether you come to us for your web site or not!!
Cheers,
Mike
