Being able to create websites a lot faster than in the past has enabled us to lower our prices for website designs.
The average small business will invest between $2,000 to $10,000 to have a professional-looking website built. However, for most small businesses a premade theme can be used and this will lower the investment of the website build to $500.
| Small Business Cost Chart | Web Design Cost |
Annual Site Maintenance Costs |
|---|---|---|
| Informational or Small Business Website (8-16 pages) |
$2,000 – $9,000 | $400 – $1,200 |
| Corporate Website (25-75 pages) |
$10,000 – $35,000 | $2,000 – $15,000 |
| Ecommerce Website (100-1000 products) |
$5,000 – $55,000 | $15,000 – $30,000 |
| Database Driven Website or Website Application (20-2000 pages) |
$6,000 – $75,000 | $30,000 – $60,000 |
| *Website build cost | 1 -8 pages | 9-12 pages | 13-20 pages |
| Under 1,000 words | $197 | $347 | $447 |
| 1,001 – 2,000 words | $297 | $447 | $547 |
| 2,001 – 3,000 words | $397 | $547 | $647 |
Before you invest in a website you need to be aware of a few things before investing in a website design company. This article will give you the insider secrets to having a website built for you at the lowest possible cost.
As mentioned earlier using a premade theme that has already been coded can save the website design company many hours of employee hours and this will translate into a huge saving for the small business owner who has hired this website design agency to create their website.
Click below for the Google story version of this article:
Further down we will discuss the following topics:
- How much should a small business pay for a website?
- How much does a website cost per month?
- How much should a small website cost?
- What features should a website have for a small business?
- Should I build the website myself?
- Why do I need a website for my small business?
- Best website design company for a small business
- Marketing agency for small business
How much should a small business pay for a website?
A small business needs a website but even though website design costs have dropped it still is a big investment for a new small business owner.
The prices for website design services have come down to reasonable prices but you still can expect to invest at least $1,500 for a small website with under 10 pages. When first starting that can be a huge investment for you.
We have a cost-effective way to have your website built for a fraction of what it normally costs to have your website built. This is because we will use a premade website theme to place your personalized website on.
How we do this is not a difficult process. In a matter of fact, it is such an easy process for us that at times we can offer a free website to small business owners that want a website that is under 8 pages.
We do not always run this sale because we do get busy. If you join our email list you will be notified when we are running the sale.
We have themes that have already been coded with beautiful and professional looking website templates that will be perfect for any small business owner who is trying to grow their business as fast as possible.
A few theme examples will be sent to you to choose from and once you decide on the perfect theme for your website we will get started on developing the rest.
The theme is already done so building the website will take a fraction of the time that it would starting from scratch.
The theme will have stock photos that are samples so we will have to replace all the pictures with pictures that are related to your business. If you could send in pictures that display your services in an authentic way that would be even better.
All the text on the website will have to be swapped out for text that is related to your business. The text on the main front pages will help Google understand what your website and business are about.
You will also need a domain name for your website. We include the domain to all our website design packages for small business owners. If you want to buy your own domain or if you want to check if a domain name is available you can check for it here: Namecheap.com
Namecheap.com has the best domain prices and they are easy to change DNS options.
The price for a domain name is about $10.
After the domain name is linked to the website we will start to design the website. The website will have pages like:
- Home
- About Us
- Services
- Contact Us
- Blog
- Terms and Conditions
- Privacy Policy
That is 7 pages and we can add another page and you still would be in our lowest website build package.
The lowest website design package includes a maximum of 1,000 words of text. This is plenty for any small business that wants to get a professional-looking website built.
Each page has a maximum of 3 pictures and 1 video that we can place onto the page.
We offer this inexpensive option to our small business clients because we have been in your shoes before.
At LGM Marketing Group we understand how it is to start a new small business. We know first hand how it is because we have owned small businesses before and it was such a struggle to get off the ground.
I remember trying to save at every corner when we opened up our salon. We were hit with a big expense that we were not anticipating and this really put us in a bad situation.
When we first opened we did all of the cleaning ourselves because we did not have the budget to hire a cleaning company to come and clean the place. We did it all and getting a break for any service that we were paying for was what helped us get started and grow.
I understand why you may want to save where you can but having a good website with a good marketing plan can really help your business. Click the link if you want to see my article about “why a small business should have a website”.
How much does a website cost per month?
A website typically will only have a hosting monthly fee. This hosting fee will vary on the size of the website. For a typical website for a small business, the monthly hosting fee will average to be $50 a month.
Some website design companies will offer a small business owner a different payment option. Since most website design agencies will charge the small business owner the full amount to build a website from scratch the build cost for the website will average to be $2,000.
The deal that is presented is that the small business owner does not have to pay for the website design fee or if they do pay something it is a small amount. But then the hosting fee will be a lot more than $50 a month.
A small business owner that opts for this option can expect to pay at least $250 a month. A contract will have to be signed that the hosting will be kept for at least one year.
This will bring the website cost to $3,000 for the small business owner after one year. This option is a win-win for all parties involved. The small business owner does not have to invest a large amount of money at the start of the business and the website design agency gets the client and profits a little more for the website.
At LGM Marketing Group we do not offer this option because our website design package prices are affordable, to begin with.
Our hosting fee is only $27 a month because we have a way to save on our hosting cost and we in turn pass the savings off to our small business clients.
We share server space among several clients. This will keep prices down and when small businesses are first starting their website will not have huge amounts of traffic where we will need to place the website on its own server to handle the high traffic.
Placing multiple small websites on 1 server will lower our cost. If the website grows and starts to get a lot of traffic we can upgrade to a better server option but at the start, we have found that this is the best strategy to save money.
The monthly hosting investment will be the same no matter the number of pages that are on the website. We only increase the monthly website fee after the website has at least 100k visitors a month.
You can expect to have other monthly fees for any extra feature that you may possibly want to add.
The extra monthly features that we offer for our clients are:
- A contact form that leads directly email you from – $5 (monthly)
- Automatic website backup – $5 (monthly)
- SSL security on the website – $5 (monthly)
- 30 minutes of billable work on the website – $20 (monthly)
- All of the above features can be bundled together for $22 (monthly)
How much should a small website cost?
A small website will cost $1,000 if the website you need to be built is no more than 5 pages. If you find a website developing agency that can reuse a website theme that is already coded with the bulk of the website, that same 5-page website will be no more than $500.
A website takes a lot of work to code and that is why they typically cost so much to have one built. To code, a website correctly will take time. However, now we have a website creating software that website themes can be saved and reused.
This saved website template can be loaded instantly and the addition of pictures and video can start right away. Then after that, the text for the website can be added.
A small website of 5 pages would take a couple of days to complete and now with this method, this same exact website can be made in a few hours.
This is how we at LGM Marketing Group can create a professional-looking website fast and for an affordable investment. All you need to do is send us the text that you want to be used on the main pages and send us any pictures and videos that you may want to have uploaded to your website.
For a website that is under 8 pages, we ask that the investment on your part be $197. We know how difficult it is to start your own business and that is why we are passing our savings over to our clients. We want to see you succeed just as much as anyone else does.
What features should a website have for a small business?
A website for a small business should have your contact information posted on the home page. The home page will get the majority of your traffic and having your contact information on it will increase conversions.
Feature 1: Call to action (typically contact information on the home page)
Typically a small business wants the call to action to be a phone call and this is why your contact information should be on your website’s home page. The home page will get most of the traffic and if the visitor has to click on the contact page they may bounce right off the website and then you lose the lead.
Make it as easy as possible for the visitor to convert into a paying customer.
The contact form that I use for all my clients is Gravity Forms, click here for their discounted rates.
Feature 2: Chatbox for visitors
Another great feature to have is a chatbox. It is a good feature to have and can now be outsourced.
Have a virtual assistant write down any questions or concerns that they hear several times. This information can be vital to your business.
What if they tell you how one of your links on your website is broken, this information can save you from losing money if this is a link to an affiliate offer.
Getting reports back from the virtual assistant about a recommended feature change can increase your product users’ experience. Doing this can increase sales and should not be ignored.
The 1 chat option that I would recommend is Olark.com.
Feature 3: SSL security
SSL security is extremely important especially since Google now places a huge banner on a website that does not have SSL set up on its website.
This can be a huge deterrent to anyone who is visiting your website. The website will not load until after the visitor agrees to proceed to the website. The bounce rate for websites without an SSL certificate is 70%. Source
Not having this feature added to your website will prevent your website from growing. With a loss of 70% of the traffic to your website, you will not see many leads come in.
Not many visitors will be willing to agree to proceed to your website after seeing this warning from Google. They will click the back button and look for a competitor that seems to be more trustworthy.
All of my websites and my client’s websites are SSL certified through my hosting companies. The only 2 hosting companies that I use are:
- BlueHost.com
- WPX.com
Feature 4: Email capture
Email marketing is the highest converting marketing strategies and if you do not have an email campaign drip set up you are losing money every month.
The best part about email marketing is that you do not have to pay much to have a 3rd party company store your emails and to automatically send out emails for you.
When someone visits your website they are exposed to your services and they will know who you are. Marketing to this person who has already been to your website will have a higher conversion rate than marketing to a cold lead.
The hard part is getting the person to your website, after that you can market to them via your email marketing campaign for the next 6 days.
I recommend having the email campaign set up to send an automatic email thanking them for joining the email group. Then within the next few hours, your email drip should send the first of 6 marketing emails.
The marketing emails should come in once a day and after the 6th email you can drop down the frequency to once a week. You do not want to email them every day after 6 days because they will get tired of seeing your emails coming in and then they will opt-out of your email list.
Keep the emails short and fill it with valuable information. This can be a sale or helpful tips that they can find value from. Each email should have a call to action but as the person keeps reading the emails every day the emails can get more aggressive but not too aggressive.
The point is to get the conversion but do not be too pushy because they will drop from the email list. It is a hard balance but with a good email marketing tool, it can be done.
The email marketing tool that I use is AWeber.
They are not the cheapest despite them having a free version of the software now. Once you have 500 emails in your list you will have to start paying and as I mentioned I have found other cheaper companies.
I even left AWeber for a competitor but the ease of use and functions on AWeber made me go back. I can have several different email list and for me, that is a must because I want to keep my client types separated.
The best part about AWeber is that it integrates easily with all my other software. I also use Gravity forms and all I had to do is hit the integrate button on Gravity forms and now when someone fills in one of my Gravity forms the information is automatically sent and inputted into my AWeber list.
For Aweber’s discounted page click here: AWeber.com
Should I build the website myself?
If you want your website to appear on Google search results and you do not know SEO then it is recommended that you do not build the website on your own. Without properly optimizing your website for Google search, the website will not rank.
If the purpose of your website is to rank on Google so that you can people find your services then you will have to do a few important things to your website so it can have a chance to be ranked in Google.
If you are willing to spend a few hours or possibly a few days to learn the main optimizations that you will have to do to your website then yes you can try to build the website yourself.
But I have to warn you if you do opt to do this on your own, you could spend all this time and effort building your website to have it never rank on Google.
If you do decide to build your website on your own I recommend at least doing the following 3 things. If these three things are not done the website is highly unlikely to rank at all.
Build your website tips 1:
Make sure that it is built on a word press theme. The internet has a lot of websites and 30% of all the websites out there are on WordPress. Source
With WordPress, you will have plugins that you can add to your website to help you build the website and will help your website rank faster on Google.
To download WordPress click here: WordPress.com
Build your website tips 2:
Use NAP on the footer of your website. NAP is your Name, Address, Phone Number. This information should be on your footer because then it will be visible on every page of your website.
Having NAP on every page of your website makes it easier for Google’s algorithm to understand where your business services. With NAP in the footer, your website is more likely to rank for local searches.
Build your website tip 3:
Use Yoast SEO plugin to help you create content on your website that Google will crawl and rank.
Without Google understanding what your website is about you will not be able to rank. Having a website that is invisible to Google is almost as bad as not having a website at all.
Yoast will give you tips and tell you when your content needs to be changed. Do not spend too much time trying to make everything green in Yoasts checker because at times it is impossible but try to get it as close as possible.
It is no big deal if your score is red as long as you have the main strategies correctly done on the page.
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