Piyush Jain
When it comes to designing and developing a new website, the first question that comes to mind is how much it cost to design and develop a website. Websites are the entry point of any business these days. Having an updated website is important for almost any company. When developing your website, there are many factors that can affect the web development cost. Whether you’re developing it from scratch or using a CMS (content management system), you need to consider various factors in order to keep your costs low. In this article, we will discuss some of the factors that impact its cost and look at various elements that can reduce the cost.
Table of Contents
Website Type
To make it easy for you to understand how much your website may cost, you should first decide the type of websites you need. These four types of websites: are small websites, Medium-sized websites, eCommerce websites, and large websites.
A small website consists of a few pages and has little customization. So, they will cost less.
A medium-sized website will have around 50 to 75 pages, a content management system, a custom-designed layout, and some unique functions. The cost of developing medium-sized websites is a bit higher than small websites.
If you want to build a website where customers can browse different products and make a purchase, it will come under an eCommerce website.
A large website could include hundreds of pages, custom designs and images, a CMS, blog integration, and so much more.
Custom vs Template
The cost of web development depends upon how you want to develop your website for your business. There are many ways of creating websites: custom web development and template-based web development are two of them. If you want more control, ease of use, and carefully curated copywriting and graphics, Custom building a website from start to finish might be good for you. However, it will also take more time to develop and cost a lot more. You may save quite a bit if you choose a “templated website” instead. Template websites may be created by anybody and may look as good as custom websites if done expertly.
Responsive Design
Websites are now viewed on devices of multiple screen sizes. Maintaining user experiences on these screens will drive up costs due to the additional development time and quality assurance testing required. The number of visitors to your site and the devices they use is the most critical thing to grasp in these situations. Accurate website visitor data is crucial for making decisions about which mobile devices and operating systems to support.
Platform and Technology
The technology on which the website is developed will influence prices. Choosing the right platform and tech stack is crucial, as your developers must be familiar with them. Using a fancy, modern language that your developers find difficult to work with may result in buggy code, which may decrease your ROI. In addition, you must fix your KPIs, such as the compatibility of browsers and devices you would like your website to work on efficiently. How the developer writes the code, the time it takes, and the effort the developer team needs to put in, will directly affect the cost of the web development.
Also Read: What Makes ReactJS Important For Web Development
Features and Complexity
The features and complexity of the solution you provide for your website play a significant role in determining the cost of website development. The more features you request your designer to include, the more expensive your website development will be, as it will take more time. It will also increase the cost if you prefer to use premium equipment or have customized software.
Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
When designing a website, SEO greatly impacts the overall cost. SEO improves your website’s organic ranking in search engines, resulting in more visitors to the website, which results in more leads and sales. Beyond link building and keyword targeting, SEO is a complex discipline. SEO is all about capturing the user’s attention and keeping them engaged for a longer time.
Development Team and Its Location
The development team should be basic or highly skilled according to project requirements, which directly influences the cost of web development. The development team can be an in-house team, an external web development agency, or freelance developers.
An in-house web development team may cost you more and require domain expertise to handle the team. However, hiring an external web development company can benefit you in various ways. They have various resources and expertise in multiple domains to deliver quality services. The most affordable option is hiring freelancer web developers, though there is no guarantee of quality work. Also, finding the right freelancer developer is a very tough task.
The location of your web development team or freelancer developer is also a vital factor influencing the product’s final price. The cost of creating a website in the USA will differ from the cost of web development in the UK and other regions.
Key Takeaway:
- Create a detailed RFP.
- Prioritize your features list which is paramount.
- Create a minimal viable product first (MVP).
- Choose off-the-shelf templates.
- Use an open-source CMS like WordPress.
- Do the user acceptance testing yourself.
Piyush Jain is the founder and CEO of Simpalm, a web development company in Chicago. Piyush founded Simpalm in 2009 and has grown it to be a leading mobile and web development company in the DMV area. With a Ph.D. from Johns Hopkins and a strong background in technology and entrepreneurship, he understands how to solve problems using technology. Under his leadership, Simpalm has delivered 300+ mobile apps and web solutions to clients in startups, enterprises, and the federal sector. He leads the business and engineering team to build mobile and web product solutions for clients. He loves to write thought leadership articles on IoT, Mobile, Blockchain, Bigdata, Web, and other software technologies