Have You Devalued What Your Website Design Company Can Give You?

Have you ever thought about how much your website should cost? If you haven’t then you could be devaluing the real value of your website design company. Depending on which country you are located in, the culture can determine the price by default. While this seems to be the same for a lot of countries and industries; it is a bigger issue in the APAC region than you may think. Infact, until we did some research, we were under the belief that it is relevant to the economy you work in. Here is why we believe this is not the case.

What countries understand the value of Website Design?

Countries like Australia and New Zealand it is a mixed bag in terms of cost. The average costs are ALOT lower than expected. The average cost is between $1,000 – $5,000 for a site consisting of approximately 6-8 pages. Countries like South Africa and Germany also have a fairly low average cost for website builds.

Surprisingly enough the 2 leading countries who value website design is the UK and the USA. Their average website costs are between $3,000-$9,000 for a basic brochure styled website with about 8-10 pages.

What is the cause for the devaluing websites?

This is actually caused by 2 different groups of people. The first and most common group are those who are entering the industry. If they are already in the industry they believe that they can deliver a website that will not only be successful but cheaper. They advise clients that there is no need to pay good money for a website. What they don’t realise is that it is actually not true and the clients who do see value in websites start to doubt the basis for higher costs.

Outside of that group there is another who see the free or heavily discounted options in the marketplace. After comparing these products to industry members who are offering a good service the clients opt to save money (and you cannot blame them for that) and go for the cheaper option.

Why should a business owner spend money on a website?

While there is no doubt there is an element of greed that sits amongst digital media agency owners. There is still a larger number who aren’t greedy. They know that if they do a good job, their clients will come back time and time again. So this is where the business owner should look. If we look at it from a business standpoint, one could argue from the standpoint of “how much does it cost to acquire a client?”. To back this question up, ask yourself “What is going to be the average cost of a sale?”

Once you know the answers to these questions, cost justification becomes very easy. Here is why. Lets assume that the average cost to acquire a client for a house builder is $4,000. This takes in to consideration hourly rates for sales staff, advertising in various mediums, site visits and quoting. We know that a typical house builder will have an average of $200,000 or a little more. Depending on quite a few factors.

How much will it cost to build the website?

From there we look at what the cost of a website maybe for a house builder. The cost could be $10,000-$20,000. While this would be a very nice looking website there is more to it. The design may take 80 or 100 hours for a designer to come up with an engaging design. The content writer will have to spend maybe 40 hours of time researching the market, understanding it and creating suitable content for each page. Without a doubt the website developer will spend 300 hours putting all of the pages together, testing it, making sure that the site loads quick and matches the design given to them.

Finally you have the on page search engine optimization work that needs to be done. At the end of the day this will quickly add up to 500 hours of work being put in to the site. Without a doubt you will have some license costs for software and images etc. The only way costs are kept down is by agencies engaging remote teams from places where wages are lower but the quality is still there.

Why is the costs higher here than what the market would pay?

Outside of the amount of time required to building a website being higher than smaller agencies. One of the big differences is that the developers in this example are custom building a template/theme from the ground up. The trade off for custom coding a template/theme vs time spent is the added security and performance that you get with such a template.

Here in Australia, we all face higher wages than other countries. If everyone working on the site is based here, then the hourly rate will be a minimum of $20-$25 per hour for each employee. Not to mention the extras like superannuation, holidays and sick leave. Doing a quick calculation the base cost to the design company would be around $13,000. Being a business they still need to be profitable and pay taxes etc. The end result, the website would cost $20,000 just to build.

How can costs be reduced?

Thanks to the internet making the world smaller than it really is. Agencies can engage teams, whether it be per project, full time, part time or even on a casual basis to work on their projects. While the time required to build the website may increase, the costs will typically decrease. A great example is that a project with team members located overseas will take a little longer. The quality can be better if the right team is chosen. More importantly the cost per hour for staff with specific skillsets working only for the time required on each component to build a site, works out to be a lot cheaper per hour overall. This is how teams in other countries work out so much cheaper when building websites than countries like Australia who tend to have full stack developers and designers.

What about marketing the website?

After that you need to market the website. This is a must in order for sites to be successful. It is something that hasn’t changed but it is something that is becoming more important. Some agencies will charge $3,000 a month or more for SEO and/or Paid Search/Social Media advertising. While in places like the Sunshine Coast, SEO will often be offered at a lower rate. There are some places offering SEO for $800-$2,000.

What are the results?

Keep in mind that this is a fictious, but realistic scenario and given a typical websites life span is 2 years. The overal cost for the 2 years may be $44,000. However if there is 3-5 enquiries a week on average, which is achievable. Out of which you get 1 or 2 sales then the cost per sale would be approximately $916 for the website. Between the cost of the sales person and estimators calculating the house build costs totalling around $1,500. The total cost to acquire the new client is actually $2400 which is almost 50% cheaper than the traditional methods.

You can hopefully see how your website design company can give your business value. The costs may seem high when in reality, it is really quite cheap.

Conclusion

While it is very easy to get a cheap website, it doesn’t mean that it is going to obtain the results you need. What you need to look at is the real costs and benefits of having a website. There are definitely ways you can keep costs down. Equally there is ways to bump prices up. It is a juggling act for everyone involved. However if you are looking for website design on the sunshine coast or elsewhere you need to consider what we have discussed in this article. You need to work out how much it is going to cost using other methods to get your next client. Otherwise you do run the risk of devaluing your website design company.

Suncoast Web Solutions offers website design, website development and internet marketing solutions to businesses around the world. When choosing Suncoast Web Solutions we look at the entire project. We look at a lot of facits behind your business before you choose us as your preferred website builders. We will help you come up with a great strategy you can use to build your business through your website while keeping the costs down.