When you reach out to a website design company to get your website built, the very first question you might be tempted to ask is about their web designing costs – and that’s natural, given that cost-consciousness is often the primary factor behind business decisions.
While costs are a very important factor to consider, what really does matter about the services you finally do pay for is: did you receive real value for your money? Paying €100, for example, for a website is quite likely not going to get you the business-ready website you wanted, even though it will be the cheapest quote.
If you do pay that €100 and realise after a few days or weeks that the website is useless, badly planned, not tested on all devices and browsers and the pages are loading slowly, for example, then you need to go and get a second website. If that second website is a proper starter website package and cost, for example, €1000, then the full price is now €1,100 as you already paid for that €100 website. Total cost of ownership and value for money are what matters to your business – not trying to find the “cheapest” website possible.
Know What Matters
When launching a new website, or looking for a new web hosting company, it is typical (and often advisable!) to ask about what the service may cost you into the future. However, web hosting and web site design services are complicated undertakings to cost in an 'a la carte' fashion. That’s because:
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• To provide you with a more accurate cost estimate, web service professionals need to discuss your needs in greater detail before advising you of the associated costs
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• What you may think you want, and what you might actually need could be two quite different things. If you speak with professional web design experts they'll give you an honest appraisal of what your business website really needs to be a success.
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• Based on detailed conversations with you, the web design agency could package additional essential services as a cost-effective solution. E.g. you may not have a professional logo design and it would be a very cost effective move to get that logo designed now along with the new website. You could also speak to them now about marketing your website online so that you get new sales calls the same day as your website goes live – instead of weeks or months later.
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• There may also be additional cost-benefits from planning for future services that you may require 6 to 12 months down the line: e.g. advanced web hosting when your website visitor numbers grow much bigger than you envisaged.
So when you pick up the phone, or shoot out an email to prospective service providers for cost quotations, they may not be able to accurately cost all services without first understanding what matters to you and what your business actually need, so go through your requirements with them in a bit more detail and you'll be able to get an exact quotation for the website your business needs.
What ‘Cost’ Really Implies
Whether it is web design costs that you are looking to evaluate, or the costs to host your new website, “costs” should imply more than just the designing and hosting aspect of the web service. To get value for money, your web service provider should provide a wide range of supplementary services that will make your website a success over the coming months and years, including:
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• Exceptional Customer Support – you will need to contact them a number of times during the year and you need a speedy response.
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• Accessible Direct Dial Number – a lot of companies employ “ticket systems” so you'll have to submit your query on a ticket system and wait for a reply which will very often take many hours or a day+.
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• Availability - from, at minimum, 9 AM-to 6 PM
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• 24-hour Service Monitoring And Upkeep – you want a web agency who are experienced at website monitoring so you don't have to worry about checking that your website is live 24 hours every day. And if there was an issue with your website you want 'pro-active' website management so that they go ahead and fix the problem and report back to you when it's complete.
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• Business Building Tools – you need a web team with extensive adwords and marketing experience so you will have a stream of new sales leads from day one of the website launch.
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• …and a lot more! - you want an experienced team, quite simply. One that has come across all sorts of requirements and issues over the years and has dealt with them all with assurance and without delay.
These are the elements that are integral to assessing whether the website design costs offered by one service provider are comparable to the costs quoted by other competitors for your business. But as you start evaluating the costs, you should also assess other aspects of what you are receiving.
To Receive True Value For Money, You Must Ensure:
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• Transparency: All of the related website design costs are disclosed up front
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• Simplicity: The service provider is not hiding behind 'legalese'. Their contracts are concise without excessive fine print
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• Fairness: The costs shouldn't be excessively out of sync from other comparable service providers
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• Competitive: For the given cost, the service offered should be highly competitive (in terms of both quality and variety)
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• Security: You are confident that your payment details are secure. Find out if the web design firm invest in working with reliable payment processing partners and security measures
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• Flexibility: The terms of the web design costs quoted should be suitable to you, e.g.: monthly, annual or instalment plans, or payments via MasterCard/Visa, Paypal, etc
Web designing costs cannot, and should not, be assessed in isolation, by simply looking at the amount charged for one particular service – be it web hosting, logo design, online marketing or designing a website. The actual monetary outlay must be given careful consideration; however, when packaged together as a complete service offering, all of the factors discussed above should be looked at as a whole, to display real value for money over the first year and subsequent years. Remember: total cost of ownership is what matters to your business.
Web Design - At What Cost?
You must keep in mind that web designing costs are a function of the value you receive for the money you pay, and not about “less is more” or “find the cheapest quote”. A cheap looking, low cost web site design, which doesn’t really highlight your company well, and doesn’t stand up to what the competition is displaying, isn’t really worth the cost you paid for it – even if that was €100.
On the other hand, good quality design doesn’t mean that you have to break the bank to get it. It’s all about partnering with a professional web design agency, and working with them to get good value for your business for the cost of the overall web service. It’s really that simple.
If you have any questions about the above and would like to talk to an experienced web team give us a call on 01-6216866 or info@myit.ie .
