Website development and planning the budget correctly

Create a website costs

Nowadays, a professional website is a must for every company that wants to be successful in the digital age. A well-designed website allows you to effectively target your target audience, build your brand (branding), increase your sales, and attract more candidate candidates.

In this article, we'll discuss the various factors that influence the costs of building a website and help you develop a better understanding of how to best plan your investment.

The basic elements of a website

Domain & costs

First of all, you need a domain, a web address, to make your website available to the public. The costs for a domain are usually between 10 and 50 euros per year. For exotic variants, the purchase of a domain can amount to several thousand euros (see screenshot below)

Hosting & costs

Hosting is the space on a server where your website is located. Hosting providers usually offer various types of hosting services, such as shared hosting, virtual private server (VPS) hosting, or dedicated hosting.

The costs for hosting websites can vary between 10 EUR and 100 EUR per month. These depend on the size of your website, the number of visitors to your website and the storage space that you need to display your data.

Web design & costs

Web design is the process of designing and maintaining websites. It comprises various elements such as layout, graphics, content, and structure to create a visually appealing and easy-to-use website. A well-designed website not only attracts more visitors, but also improves their user experience and increases the chances of website users getting back to you to make a purchase.

Two types of web design have now established themselves on the market:

• Template-based websites: These types of websites are based on pre-made templates. The prices for template-based websites are usually between 1500 and 4,500 euros. You will either lend a hand yourself or hire a freelancer. ATTENTION: Don't be fooled by the low prices of the templates. They are only rough templates that need to be adapted.
• Individual web design: These websites are developed specifically for your needs and offer a high level of customization. The prices here vary depending on complexity and requirements, but are usually between 9,000 EUR and 15,000 EUR. To do this, you usually hire a web design agency. Make sure that if you are looking for web design agencies, they only design in-house and do not use ready-made templates.

web development

Now that you've created a web design, it's time to turn the design into code. And this is where you have to choose the right system to get the best price-performance ratio for your website project.

There are several systems where you can have your website created:

Modular systems

These are systems where you can easily set your own Have a website created Can. As a rule, such systems are inexpensive and only offer the basic functions. If you're planning a larger project, you'll quickly reach your limits. In addition, it is almost impossible to depict an individual web design here.

The one-time cost of a website builder is a few thousand euros if you let freelancers do it for you. Running costs rarely exceed 100 EUR per month.

A website builder is only a short-term solution at the beginning. Photographers like to use such kits to create a portfolio website with their photos.

The big disadvantage of website builders is the limited support. The providers of website builder systems work more on the product itself than on customer satisfaction. As a result, you either don't have simple functions at all or have to wait a very long time for them.

content management system

A content management system (abbreviated CMS) enables them to create larger websites. Compared to a simple website builder, you can publish and manage hundreds of pages and articles here.

Such systems have advanced design options and are ideal if you want to have a professional website. The most well-known CMS include WordPress and Webflow.

If you want an individual design when creating a website and want to have a professional website created, then you should always choose a CMS. The running costs are only slightly higher, but the design and scaling options are available right from the start.

Redesigning your corporate website is the best time to put your system to the test. Depending on the type of website, you can make the perfect choice here to successfully relaunch your homepage.

Depending on the size and size of your website, the costs of a website with a CMS can vary between 12,000 EUR and 40,000 EUR for companies.

online store

An online shop offers many advantages over a traditional store. One of the biggest benefits is the ability to sell 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

From a purely technical point of view, online shops are advanced content management systems where you can manage a wide range of products and product variations.

A website is set up that has a large content management system. This content management system is connected to inventory management software.

A website builder from Shopify makes it easier for you to create an online shop in a short time. This is perfect for a small business. The costs range between 50 and 200 EUR per month, depending on the size of your online shop. The good thing about Shopify is that it's a scalable system.

Copywriting web pages

High-quality content is the key in marketing for a successful website. Copywriting is the art and science of writing appealing, informative, and compelling texts for websites that aim to grab readers' attention, get them to take action, and ultimately become your follower, subscriber, or customer.

When creating a website, you must differentiate between advertising texts and SEO texts.

advertising texts (texts that sell)

The aim of these texts is to persuade readers to buy a product or service. Advertising texts should be emotionally appealing and convincing in order to arouse the interest of the target group and persuade them to take action. The focus is on the language, stylistic devices and arguments that are used to highlight the benefits of the offer and build trust. Advertising texts can appear in various formats, such as advertisements, sales letters, or product descriptions.

Search engine optimized texts (SEO texts)

The aim of these texts is to achieve a higher ranking on search engines such as Google in order to attract more organic (unpaid) visitors to the website. SEO texts are written in such a way that they are easy to understand for both people and search engines. They use relevant keywords, meta tags, and other on-page optimization elements to be better found and indexed by search engines. SEO texts focus on structure, readability, and information density to improve user experience and increase time spent on the page.

Which texts cost how much?

When you hire copywriters, these experts are concerned with your company, your target group and your market. He creates creative and appealing texts for various marketing and advertising materials.

The main goal of an ad copywriter is to attract the attention of the target audience and get them to take a specific action, whether that's buying a product, signing up for a newsletter, or contacting a company.

Here you can plan a budget of between 5,000 EUR and 20,000 EUR, depending on the size of the project.

An SEO copywriter is a professional who creates content that is optimized for both search engines and human readers. SEO stands for “search engine optimization,” i.e. search engine optimization. The goal of an SEO copywriter is to write texts that are both informative and worth reading, as well as achieve a good ranking in search engine results.

For SEO texts, you should calculate a budget of 500 EUR to 5000 EUR. It depends on the opportunities in your market. It is best to talk to an SEO consultant about the necessary scope of search engine optimized texts.

Homepage Costs - How should you plan?

Here we explain the steps necessary to plan the right budget and approach. A website is the first thing your potential customers see of you on the Internet. When they're having a website built, it's important to know:

1. Do you want to create your own website or let a web agency do it for you?
2. How do you start planning and what is the first step?
3. Is your goal to attract customers with the new website or what is your goal?

The first step: Create it yourself or ask a web agency?

Your business should be their core focus. In all cases, it makes sense to talk to freelancers and web agencies. You should pay attention to the following:

• Freelancers are usually very moody. This could have an impact on the creation process. Having one person build your website could be dangerous, so you should always look for a specialist here.
• Even with web agencies, it is important not only to look at the portfolio of websites, but also at experience and specialization.
• You should plan the steps one by one for your website project as follows:

1. At the beginning, the structure for the website is defined
2. You can then hire an agency to design the web
3. Development takes place after the website has a finished design
4. And this is exactly where the fine-tuning comes with SEO measures

For both freelancers and agencies, the first category you judge by is: Experience with a specific CMS software. Only after the purely technical choice has been made can you start narrowing down the services and prices.

The second step: prices

Agencies and freelancers like to work on an hourly basis. Great care should be taken here: once you have defined the exact scope for your project, you should also receive a fixed price. Working with hourly billing right from the start shows gaps in experience as well as in the contractor's know-how.

You should also obtain all running costs for the domain, licenses, hosting, plugins, maintenance and GDPR tools beforehand. After launch, your website should function correctly all the time. This means that you not only have the costs for your website, but also all running costs at a glance.

Factors that can influence the price include:

• Number of sub-pages with texts
• Complexity of a search function
• Animations when you visit your website
• Content management system maintenance

The third step: the assignment

If you have arrived here, the decision should now be made as to which offer you accept. A good gut feeling is only half the story. There is one factor that puts all other criteria at the bottom of the selection process.

Every reputable business that listens to customers and understands their wishes is able to assess the total effort well and make an understandable and clear offer.

That is exactly what needs to be examined now. They accept the offers, completely omit the prices. Now judge only by the points in the offers. In the offer, where more than 95% of your wishes have been taken into account, you will find a reliable and long-term partner. You're in good hands here. As a rule, you should develop a preference for an agency or freelancer as soon as you make your selection.

Hidden costs for a website

A tricky issue, but there may be a few unforeseen costs if you and your supplier have not defined everything correctly. The following is often forgotten when it comes to offers:

royalty

Licenses for plugins that your website requires must always be paid by the client. With WordPress websites, we have seen that these license costs can range from 500 EUR to 1,000 EUR.

Extra review rounds

Be sure to define the number of review rounds when a service provider creates a website. If you have to pay a high hourly rate for every small change later on, you will quickly settle for a mediocre result.

Let the website be created and the no-go's

There are a few things you should refrain from doing once you've found someone to build your website. This can lead to misunderstandings, especially for web agencies. We have compiled the following 5 important points for you:

No. 1: Neither the freelancer nor an agency will like it if you involve someone external to the process of creating your website. This means other service providers. Communication overload is increasing and the creation of a website is delayed.

No. 2: Web design & web development should usually be able to work from a single source, for example with webflow. If you separate the process here, then you should ensure that you receive all raw web design data. This is what you bought and you are usually entitled to these materials too.

No. 3: If you notice that the launch deadline might be tight, talk about this in good time. Your supplier has immense work pressure in the week before the launch of your website.

No. 4: Try to provide all necessary materials at the very beginning. In the beginning, you are responsible for delivery.

No. 5: If you don't like the design of the website - then give examples of other websites that you like. This simplifies expectations and the communication process. So they're all on the same denominator.

Ongoing costs for a website

Operating a website involves few costs. To have a clear figure, calculate server costs of between 50 EUR and 120 EUR per month. Maintenance contracts with service providers are a major factor in increasing costs here. Such maintenance contracts start at 300 EUR per month when you let webflow build your website.

If you have created a website with WordPress, the maintenance costs, license fees and maintenance costs will start at 600 EUR per month. In some cases, these costs aren't necessary for your company.

When should you create a new website?

There are many reasons for a company that Redesigning the existing website to start. One of the major factors for motivation is new customers or employee recruitment.

Companies that haven't redesigned websites for more than 5 years will lose a lot of customers today. Because every year there are new technical requirements from Google and you should always check that these are up to date on your own website.

In addition, your business is developing from year to year, perhaps not as fast as the Internet, but you should keep your website up to date.

What characterizes a professionally created website?

There are clear indicators that your website needs optimization, namely a low stay time, a high bounce rate, and a low number of returning visitors. But what makes a popular website that is appreciated by visitors and therefore frequently used? How can you increase their attractiveness and encourage visitors to stay longer and return more often?

A professional website is characterized by:

• A suitable domain with appropriate content that is simple and concise
• Target group-specific orientation
• Exciting, varied and target group-oriented content
• Regular update of information
• Use an easy-to-read font that is applied consistently on all pages
• Texts clearly structured through subheadings and highlighting, which consist primarily of short and understandable sentences
• Correct spelling and punctuation
• User-friendly and clear navigation
• Fast website load times
• A responsive design that adapts to different screen sizes
• SSL encryption, data protection compliance (GDPR) and compliance with security standards to ensure data security