Setting Aside a Budget for your Business Website and Online Marketing

Looking to purchase a new website for your business, but not sure how much you should spend? This is a difficult decision that many business owners face. Owning your own website is an important part for every business. It gives your business credibility and also the means to reach out to a much larger clientele base. Undoubtedly a good website will greatly expand your business and grow your profits many times larger. However, in order for this to happen, you will need to properly set aside a correct budget for your company’s website and online marketing expenses.

Owning a website isn’t just a onetime fee. Many business owners just starting out think that they can set aside a small, onetime fee for a decent website and then just “buy it and forget it”. There is much more than just buying a website and then just leaving it sit there online.

Hosting Fees & Domains

First, there is the hosting fee for your website. You will need to pay a monthly fee just to have your website hosted. Hosting is basically a server that you purchase space on so that your website can be visible to anyone online. Hosting fees can cost anywhere from just $2.99 per month to $20 to $30 or even more a month, depending on the size and requirements your website will need. Typically hosting is purchased through a third party company such as HostMonster or GoDaddy. But your web designer may also provide their own form of web hosting as well. After the web hosting, there is the domain name. Domain names are fairly cheap, usually under $10 a year for a .com, .net or .org address. For recommendations on finding a good web host, check out the best web hosting providers.

Maintenance Costs

Remember your website is not a “set and forget” type ordeal. You will need to set aside a budget for maintaining your website. This may include updating content such adding new pages, new text, images, etc. Expect to pay anywhere from $75 to $150 per hour for updating.

SEO Costs

Also, many web design companies will charge clients for SEO packages. SEO or search engine optimization, is very important for your website. In fact, its SEO that produces organic traffic (visitors just searching and finding your website on their own through a search engine) that will greatly increase your profits. So it’s very important to have a website that ranks well on Google to gain organic traffic and potential customers. SEO is expensive. Some SEO companies will charge at least $500 a month to have your site rank on the first page of Google. This is expensive, but a crucial and necessary cost to get traffic to your website. Remember, without traffic, your website will not be generating any sales.

Advertising Costs

Another important factor to budget for, is your online advertising. Once you have a website, you will need to advertise as well. Good SEO will greatly help cut down on the costs of advertising, as potential customers will just naturally stumble upon your website through searches. However, sometimes it can take a few months for your site to rank, or your business may be in a very competitive niche, or you may want to advertise for other “keyword” related searches. There are many online advertising programs you can choose from. Too many to list here, but a very popular form of advertising is cpc (cost per click) advertising, such as Google Adwords. Online advertising fees can vary greatly. It basically depends on your business’s size and budget. The good thing with these programs is that you get to set your own daily budget on the maximum amount you wish to spend.

Web Design Costs

And finally, the main cost to build the website. This is the only factor that most people only think off when it comes to price. They seem to forget the above mentioned fees and only focus on this one. While websites fees greatly vary depending on type of website, the custom design, the features, the design company, etc… you can get a good, general idea of how much a website will cost by visiting this Website Cost Estimate calculator found here.

Summary:

To conclude, a website can be quite expensive, but a very crucial component of your business. Remember, in business, marketing is everything! Even if you offer a great product, you will not make many sales if you do not market your product just the right way. Find a professional web designer or web marketing company and set aside the appropriate budget for your website. If you cannot afford a website and all the costs associated with it, then wait. It is far better to buy a website when you have the budget than to try to do it only “half right”. You will find a properly budgeted website along with properly budgeted online marketing fees will greatly increase your company’s growth and profits.

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