Aren’t Websites Expensive? I’m not Made of Money!

Introducing a week-long series of informative posts about your website including how to overcome some common obstacles.

Today; #2 - Aren’t Websites Expensive? I’m not Made of Money!

Websites, by their very nature, are expensive and are a considerable draw on your financial resources.

If you think that this is the case, I’m here to tell you that you’re wrong.

Of course, a website can be hideously costly. If you want a premium domain name, you can expect to pay many hundreds or even thousands of pounds for a good one, that is if it’s available. I’ll be talking about domain names on Friday; more about that then. An e-commerce site however can be expensive but that’s because the technology required to set the content up and maintain it takes time and knowledge, and if you don’t know how to do it yourself, you’ll have to pay someone to do it for you.

Large organisations have almost bottomless budgets for their digital costs but the good news is that you don’t have to pay out anywhere near what the big-hitters do if you don't want to.

As mentioned yesterday, the available tools are many and you can set yourself up a nice website for less than it costs for a cup of coffee every day. If you want to do it yourself and you feel that you can commit the time to learn what you need to know, you genuinely need to remember that ‘time is money’ in any case. A freelance designer may cost anything between ￡40 - ￡80 per hour for development costs. If you think that’s expensive, consider how long developers have spent learning, honing and growing their skills in this arena.

By using the same understanding, you must put a price on the amount of time you are spending on the website (not just in tangible platform costs) and how long you’re able to spend on it away from your business. Think about this;

1. Will I get it right every time?

2. How many mistakes will I make?

3. Will ‘my own’ hourly rate reflect value for money over hiring a developer?

Let’s look at point number one. Of course you won’t get it right every time. There are a plethora of tools out there, many of which you will need to learn to get the best out of them - I bet you don’t know everything about Powerpoint for example, right? But it’s not just the tools of the trade. Its the seemingly never-ending hole of information that is always useful to know, but that’s what Google is for!

Point number two. I’ve been building websites since the days of Myspace and I make mistakes. Not often and they’re not huge mistakes, but I do make mistakes, because I’m not perfect. You will make them too, especially when you’re taking baby steps in your exciting new gig as a web designer.

Finally, your hourly rate. This is the really important one. Are you getting value for money over the effort that you’re putting into the website? Possibly not. If you spend the only two hours you’re free on one particular day just fumbling around and not actually making progress, then you’re certainly not getting value for money.

Once you’ve considered these three points, you need to make a final decision. Would it be more beneficial looking for someone to do it for you?

Agencies and developers charge a wide range of costs for their services and how they charge is also important. ‘Agency A’ might quote you ￡3000 for your website. You will have to pay 50% up front, 25% after the first month and the final 25% on completion (or within three months, whichever is soonest). If you want additional work doing, you will have to pay ‘Agency A’ additionally to do the work. ‘Agency B’ however quote you ￡4000 but they charge on a month by month basis and provide all the development and maintenance you need over a twelve month period, without any up front costs.

So which is more expensive in terms of cost? If you include the time over money equation, 'Agency B' are cheaper by a mile. Because you’re embarking on a long-term relationship with ‘Agency B’ and they’re providing you with all the tools you need to take the stress out of the whole damn thing to allow you to run for business. If however, if you want a quick fix and you don’t particular care about what happens later on down the line, then perhaps ‘Agency A’ will float your boat.

Both the costs above are typical of what you can experience when getting someone else to do the work for you, but fundamentally, it’s a small price to pay for in terms of knowledge, ability, security and peace of mind.

Tomorrow, I tackle the subject of time in the third of this seven part series titled ‘I Don’t Have the Time, I’m Too Busy Running My Business!’