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How Much Does It Cost To Build a Small Business Website?
Having a website for your business is crucial in today’s digital world. It can help you reach your audience worldwide and provide an accessible way for customers to buy your products.
But how much does it cost to build a website for a small business? Prices can vary widely depending on the type of website you want to create and how you want to do it. Keep reading below to learn about the importance of building a website and the factors that affect small business website costs. We’ll also reveal how you can create a free pre-launch page on Indiegogo to start building a community around your business even before opening a website.
The Importance of Building a Website for Businesses: Getting Started
There are plenty of reasons why small and new businesses should create a website. These are just some of the benefits of having an e-commerce website:
- Lower startup costs. Your startup costs for a website (even with all the work) can be more cost effective in the long run than selling on digital marketplaces or hosting in-person events.
- Wide reach. A website has the potential to reach people all over the world. In addition, you won’t have to worry about time differences, since people will be able to view your products any time of the day or night.
- Simpler management. Tracking your inventory and supplies is easier with a website since you can integrate your other tools and software.
- Gather market data. You can learn about your customers’ demographic information, contact information, and browsing habits to improve your customer journey and marketing.
6 Factors That Influence the Cost of a Small Business Website
The cost of a website for a small business can vary widely depending on the types of features, designs, functionalities, and more. Learn more about how some of these factors can affect the website cost for small businesses below.
1. Custom Website Design
Your website’s design is a huge factor affecting the cost of a small business website. There are many different ways to create a website design, including using ready-made templates known as themes (more on those later) or hiring a website developer to make and implement a design.
You’ll likely spend more if you hire a developer to build your website. With that in mind, you’ll also have more freedom to customize your design. You can choose the exact layout, content, and branding elements you want to include.
2. Domain Name & Web Hosting Cost
Domain names can range widely in price. Short, simple domains ending in .com or .org are likely to cost more, but it can be beneficial to invest in them so your audience has an easier time finding your website.
Web hosting can also tack on a few dollars depending on your choice of service provider and what kinds of add-ons you need. Small businesses typically use hosting providers that charge monthly or annual subscription fees, or they may use a website-building platform to build their e-commerce stores, which sometimes includes hosting.
3. Premium Plugins & Themes Cost
Plugins and themes customize your website’s design and functionality. Themes are premade designs that you can customize but not to the extent of a web developer.
Although there are free themes available, investing a couple of bucks in fully customizable ones may be worth it. You can often find fully customizable themes for less than $100.
Plugins are similar in that you can customize them for your website, but they typically only focus on one feature. For example, you might have a plugin to manage email subscriptions while another processes payments. The premium versions offer more features, which can help make your website more user-friendly.
4. Number of Pages & Functionality
The more pages you have on your website, the more expensive it will be to build a website for a small business. E-commerce websites will have individual pages for each product. However, the price increases as you create unique page templates. If every page on your website has a different design than the last, that will cost more than having the same layout on every page.
Your website will also cost more if you have an abundance of features. Integrating payment systems and other business software will increase the cost, along with other design elements and services like content creation and language options.
5. Maintenance Costs
Over time, you’ll likely need to update or revise your website to maintain functionality, security, and branding. If something goes wrong, you’ll need to have someone close by to help you fix your website to get it up and running again. If you don’t have the skills or time to complete repairs yourself, you may need to hire a web developer or marketing agency to do it for you.
6. Security & Safety Features
Security features are essential for e-commerce websites since customers enter their contact and payment information. Hosting providers and plugins are often available to add security features to your website.
However, it can also be helpful to have a monitoring service that continuously checks your website for security risks and ensures everything is functioning correctly.
How To Build a Successful Small Business Website
There are many ways you can go about building small business websites. If you, a family member, or a friend have decent technical knowledge and skills, you might be able to get away with using a website-building platform to keep your small business website costs low. However, you should consider the potential issues that might arise if you don’t have a completely functional, well-designed website for customers to browse.
If you’re not confident in your ability to DIY your website, you can invest in hiring a web developer or marketing agency to handle it for you. They can completely customize your website and ensure you have all the features to improve user-friendliness. In addition, they’ll be available if something goes wrong with your site a few months or years down the road.
Indiegogo also makes it easy for entrepreneurs to set up pre-launch pages. You can use these pages to build excitement about your product without having to dedicate a large budget to maintaining a whole website right away. Get started by choosing a platform for your campaign.
To decide which route is best for you, start with some research on website costs for a small business. When just getting started, it can be helpful to recruit supporters to help you pay for your startup costs. Check out Indiegogo’s essential guide to crowdfunding to get help covering the costs of your website and promoting your new product.
Crowdfunding — An Essential Pillar for Building a Successful Small Business Website
Many costs go into building and maintaining a small business website. But investing in your small business website is beneficial in the long run as it makes it easier for customers to reach you and buy your product.
Entrepreneurs can use crowdfunding to find backers for their business idea and raise the funds necessary to invest in a successful website.
Create a new campaign with Indiegogo to spread awareness for your new business.
