By Chase Rogers May 15, 2008
I'm writing this article to shed some light on the process and decisions a business needs to make when developing a website for their business.
I seem to get this question almost every week. My usual response is, "it depends on what your goals are with your site" I usually get a puzzled look with a strange stare.
I ask people to look at it like this... How much does a car cost?
Do you want an import or domestic, SUV or sedan, v6 or v8, leather interior, GPS, etc. All these decisions affect the final price. The same goes for a website.
Upfront costs
The initial upfront costs are not too much. It will cost you around $20 for 2 years of a domain name. You will need to re-up this name on a yearly basis, so buying it in 5-year blocks is a good idea. Hosting plans have gone down considerably over the last couple years. Expect to pay around $7-$25 per month. You will need to buy these in 6 or 12 months blocks. Basically, your costs will be under $200.
Domain Name -First thing you need to do is purchase your domain name. Go to a site like GoDaddy, eNom or Network Solutions to see if your name is available. A lot of names in the .com TLD are not available, but if your name is original enough you may be able to get just what you want. Otherwise be prepared to try multiple variations. Here's a tip; if your name is not available for example www.mikescontracting.com, try using dashes, www.mikes-contracting.com. Read more on Choosing a Domain Name
Purchase a hosting plan - A hosting server is where your website will live and connect to the world. There are 2 types of servers to choose from. A Unix/Linux server or a Window NT server. A good portion of the Internet lives on Linux servers due mostly to the ability to use open source code like php.
When looking for a host provider, look for these features in comparison to price; hosting space, bandwidth, amount of databases, and email boxes. Some companies will offer many other applications and features, but many you will never use.
Development Costs
Creating a website requires the services of a professional web developer. These cost and fees will vary depending on the size and skills of the company/developer you hire. Expect to pay at least $750 for a simple 5 page website to thousands for a B2B corporate website. As a way to estimate, figure on a $100 per page. This is an average price. Some sites end up paying more, depending on the complexity or the site.
Web development companies factor in several phases in web development.
Phase I is the design stage. After a discovery session with you, creative comps are created. You choose what you do and don't like about the design. A second design is created with your changes and hopefully you like what you see.
Phase II is the front end development and has several parts. The first is the gathering and organization of your content. The second part is creating the html part of the site and inserting your content. From there you should see a development version of your site to see how it's coming along and that everyone is on the same page.
Phase III entails making minor corrections, assuring that everything that needs to there is there and most importantly hooking up any backend technology like forms and mailto's.
This could require the services of a design, a web developer and a programmer. Most web development companies have these people in-house to handle the whole project.
In Conclusion
Custom web development is more involved than most people think. People commonly under estimate what can and can't be done on a website. Developers don't just push a button and "poof" the site is created. After doing this for many, many years I can honestly say that web development is getting more and more complex. Talk to your developer on what kind of server and services you have and how you can make the most of your site.
Chase Rogers is the founder of Chase New Media, LLC. Chase can be reached
at (561) 702-8251. The company's web site is http://www.chasenewmedia.com. |
