What are the costs involved in setting up a small business website?

The principal costs of operating a website are as follows:

Buying your domain name

This is the name of your website – the ‘address’ – which you buy from a website registrar. The costs depend on the type of domain – .com, .co.uk, .biz etc  and on what other services are provided.In general, .co.uk names cost around £7 a year, and .com names around £20 a year.

Web hosting

Your website will be hosted on a server which is permanently connected to the internet. Hosting costs depend to some extent on how big and complex your website is, but are rarely more than £100 a year.

Check how much it could cost you here

Website design and development

This is the process of actually creating your website, and is likely to be the single most expensive element of having a website. The total cost will depend on variables such as:

• the number of pages
• the complexity of the design
• what content you provide, and what you have to buy in from subcontractors
• how much animation or streaming video is used
• what kind of interactive facilities you need – eg a shopping cart system
• whether you have a content management system

As a guide, a simple website, from copy/images provided, for under £300, although this can increase if the site becomes bigger and more complicated.To create a more complex and dynamic site,charge between £300 and £750 a day, and for a very complex website the cost will be several hundred,or even several thousand pounds. However, it’s important to see this as an investment in the future of your business.

Maintaining the site

You’ll need to keep your site up to date, to take account of changes to your business, to technology, and to design styles. If you have a very complex site, the design company is probably best placed to handle maintenance. The cost of maintenance contracts depends on how complicated the site is.

The biggest single cost of having a website is likely to be its creation, but – as with the ongoing maintenance – it should be seen as an investment in your business success.

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