Website Design Company
Building a new website is all about creating a streamlined, inviting experience for your potential customers. In today’s era, the quality of your business website speaks volumes about your company’s identity and quality of service you will provide. Your website should delight customers and make them want to return to learn more about your company and book your services again in the future.
So How Much Does a Basic Website Cost?
Depending on the type of web designer you hire, you will spend between $1,500 to $16,000 on a simple website. This wide variation in price depends on the type of web designer you hire. If you want to hire a freelance web designer, this is often the least expensive option, as you can find some who charge around $1,500 for a basic website. To hire a small web design company, you will spend between $3,000 to $6,000 for a simple website, whereas a large web design company will charge $16,000 and up with at least a one year contract for website maintenance.
See our FAQ’s below for more specifics about monthly costs and options to build or host your own website.
Freelancer vs. Web Design Company
The advantage of hiring a web design company over a freelancer is that you are paying for an entire team of technical knowledge, including web developers and SEO specialists.
Also, when you hire a local web design company with a footprint in your community, they have more at stake when it comes to delivering a timely, satisfactory product. Unfortunately, it is all too common in the web design industry for a freelancer to begin a project and then fold their company, or simply stop returning communication.
By hiring a web design company, you are paying for reputation, reliability, and expertise.
Higher Standards in Web Design
Now that there are many user-friendly tools for companies to build their own simple websites, the standards for professionalism in web design have seriously risen. If your website looks like it was made in the 1990s, or if it lacks user friendly features such as Call to Action buttons and responsive design for mobile devices, it will stick out like a sore thumb among your competitors.
Web Design & SEO
What’s more, Google is now penalizing websites in Search rankings if they are not user friendly in the mobile version. Starting in 2021, your website ranking depends primarily on the user experience in the mobile version of the site, not the desktop version.
If you depend on your website as a first impression for customers, or you depend on Search traffic to gain new customers, these are factors to take into account when choosing a web design company. Will they create an efficient website when it comes to technical issues and Search Engine Optimization (SEO), in addition to a visually appealing and easy to use website?
Web Design for Conversions
In order for your website to bring in new clients and revenue, you’ll need well designed landing pages and plenty of options for customers to contact you. Consider a live chat feature for your website, as it has the highest conversion rate of all user contact options, including phone support and email.
Website Cost FAQ's
The average cost nationally to design, build and launch a simple, professional website is $6,760. The cost of the website will depend on whether you hire a freelancer or web design company, as well as the size of the company. Freelancers may charge as little as $60 per hour, while a large web design company will charge up to $250 per hour. The website packages at M5 Design Studio are competitively priced and fall far below the national average for our most basic 5 page website.
On average, small businesses spend between $2,000 and $10,000 for a new website. The number of pages and complexity of the website, including animation, an online store, or any other special features, will impact the cost of the website, as well as the size of the web development company that you select to build your website.
There are some websites that allow you to make a website for free, but they will include the website builder company’s name in your domain (for example m5designstudio.blogspot.com), and they will include advertisements on your websites. You will also be limited as to the features you can include. If you are looking to create a website for your business, it’s important to buy your own, professional domain name (for example our domain name is m5designstudio.com) and pay at least a small fee each month for web hosting to have more flexibility with features and ad-free website. If you have some website building knowledge, you can WordPress.org to create an almost free website.
This depends on how highly sought after your domain name is. For a unique but uncommon domain name, you can usually purchase it for as little as $9 to $18. For a competitive, well ranking domain, you will have to bid, and this can costs thousands of dollars depending on the domain. At M5 design studio, we are experts in selecting optimized domain names that will help your website perform well in Google. We are happy to assist you in selecting a domain name that will support the long term competitiveness of your website in search rankings.
If you have the web design knowledge to build your own website, you can certainly save money with this option. However, building a website is a time consuming process. Is your time better used managing other aspects of your business or marketing? Consider your goals for your website, and look at other websites in your industry for inspiration. Do you feel you will be able to create an end product that meets your goals and desire for a professional look and user experience?
Making an honest assessment at the beginning of the project could save dozens or even hundreds of hours creating a website that you are not happy with in the end. Many of our clients spend a lot of time attempting to create their own website first, and then end up hiring us later when they find that they are not able to incorporate all of the design elements or functionality they need, at which point they decide to hire us for custom web design and development.
To custom design and develop the most basic 5 page website with all final content provided can take around 30 hours. Designing a more complex website can take anywhere from 45 hours to hundreds of hours.
When it comes to adding pages to an existing website, a good rule of thumb is at least one hour per page, but it could take much longer if you need a lot of revisions or the content for the page is longer than 500 words.
Yes, even if you have purchased your domain name and are using a free platform such as WordPress.org to build your website, you will need to pay a monthly website hosting fee, which ranges from $8 to $30 per month for a small business website.
Additionally, unless you are performing all of your own web security and web maintenance, you will want to hire a web development company to perform these monthly services. Maintenance usually costs $100 to $125 per month for a small website. Monthly maintenance ensures that everything on your website continues to function properly, even as technology is updated. Monthly maintenance also prevents hackers from stealing your information, or your clients’ information, and includes backing up your files to ensure that you will never lose the content of your website.
No, you cannot purchase a domain name forever. Domain names are purchased on an annual basis. However, you can purchase your domain name for 10 years so that you do not have to renew it every year. If you select this option, it will be extremely important to have administrative reminders to renew your domain in the last year so that it does not expire.
Orlando Web Design
Allow us to partner with you in creating the most effective and affordable website for your business or organization. The team at M5 Design Studio integrates stunning web design with marketing and SEO expertise. If you need a website that drives sales or engagement for your organization, you have come to the right place. Contact us for a free consultation today or call us at (407) 968-6296.
