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The cost of going on-line
There is a story circulating about a hairdressing salon that erected a sign outside their shop that read "$10 Haircuts".
This strategy was a fairly obvious attempt at stealing business away from their competitor who had a salon directly over the road.
Rather than responding in the expected manner by dropping their prices (and their margins), the competing salon erected their own sign outside their shop that read "We Fix $10 Haircuts". And it worked!
We all know that you get what you pay for. Often the lowest priced quote for a product or service isn't the best value. What is usually built into a higher-priced quote is the 'intangible' that we can no longer take for granted - Service!
What will it cost me to get a website?
This is one of the questions asked most frequently by those thinking of going 'on-line'. There is no simple answer, but there are some standard costs that you can expect to meet.
Registering your domain name: The cost of domain name registration depends on the suffix you choose (.com.au, .com, .org etc) and the length of time you choose to register the name. The cost of registering a '.org' suffix can start from as little as $20 per year. The cost of registering a '.com.au' may be closer to $60 for two years. You also need to be aware that some domain names (most notably .au) will require some form of authentication (for example, a registered business name).
Hosting your website: The cost of hosting is similar to the cost of a meal at a restaurant. A small serve with no trimmings will be a lot more economical than a fancy three-course meal. Your requirements in terms of space and facilities will determine the cost of your hosting service. If you plan a large database and server-side 'added-extras', expect to pay more. The 'entree-size' hosting will probably only set you back something like $120-$150 per year. This will usually include a 'side-order' of email addresses and an entry-level database.
Developing your site structure and content: This part of your web development project should be treated separately to the 'design' of your website. Realistically, you cannot design a website if you don't know what you are going to put in it. Creating your web content can be something you do totally yourself, or you can outsource it as part of the design process. If you plan to do it yourself, you need to prepare a site map and have a good idea of the words that will be used on each page. Write out your content using a sheet of A4 paper for each page on your website. Lay these out on the floor to reflect the logical structure of your site and — VOILA — you have your site map. Don't forget to record the order of the pages on another page!
You also need to think about whether you wish to provide your own photos and/or graphics. Stock photos can be quite expensive, but you may be able to take some photos yourself. However, it is worthwhile bearing in mind that a poor quality or badly-prepared photo is worse than no photo at all.
If you would like to totally outsource your content development, allow for the cost of creating a sitemap/navigation, content (words) and images. Expect to pay by the hour for this — the more hours the better quality the end product.
There is a design component that will required whether your site is one page or 10 pages. Ten hours for the design process and template preparation, and another couple of hours per page, should get you up and runnning with a straightforward site.
