The cost of a website depends on the range of services you need, the difficulty of the work, the time required and the cost of third party services the developer needs to use. Here are ten of the latest innovations that affect website costs. We’ll also explain the factors that affect the cost of these features.
New Domain Extensions
Registering the website domain costs money. Depending on the risk of your rivals taking over similar domain names like yourdomain.org and yourdomain.biz, as well as the problems it poses if they capture your would-be visitors, you may want to claim the similar domain names. This, of course, adds to the cost. It doesn’t take much to set up a redirect to move people from a similar domain to your main landing page.
Cloud and Shared Website Hosting
Website hosting is a critical but often underappreciated issue in website design and in achiving a speedy WordPress website. Web hosting on cloud servers means you don’t have to maintain your own servers to keep your website up and running. They also offer much better deals on average. Web hosts typically let you pay more for more memory and more bandwidth, making it possible to scale up quickly as necessary. Your initial website cost may include paying for the website hosting service for the first year; after that, it becomes an ongoing overhead expense.
High Resolution Images
If you take your own pictures of products and facilities, you own the rights to them. There’s no issue with using these images on your website. If you use images from the public commons or sites that offer images free for use with proper attribution, there’s nothing to be concerned about. However, if you use any image you find on the internet and the owner finds out, you could be sued for intellectual property rights violations and made to pay for using their images without permission.
The Functionality You Pay For
Tons of new functionalities have been added over the years, such as chatbots and AI. If you want a chatbot on your website to answer the most common user questions per content you provide, the time spent developing it will be added to the website’s cost.
Fancy Animations
You’re typically going to pay for fancy animations on your website, since there is either coding involved or payment for the animation files, though this is typically modest. If you’re creating interactive animations like a storyboard to share the history of your company or a complex infographic, it will cost more than a simple image file.
Advanced Database Connections
Many websites connect to databases to present critical information. You will also pay more for each connection your website has to make. For example, the developer will charge you for setting up a popup that collects someone’s email address fed to a customer relationship management system in addition to the cost of integrating your MRP system’s costs and lead time into the ecommerce site. If the database connections you need are not standard and a subject matter expert needs to be consulted, their consulting fees are added to your website cost.
Advanced Testing
The cost of testing a website depends on its complexity and what you need tested. For example, running through standard use cases for checking out products on the ecommerce page and checking store locations on a map module built into the website are relatively inexpensive. Thorough IT security testing of a website and its connections to your order processing and financial systems is more expensive.
Social Media Integration
Social media integration is its own set of functions. Whether you want to put social media sharing buttons on all of your webpages or let the RSS feed run on the top corner of your home page, you’re going to have to pay for someone to take the time to put it in place.
Data Imports
If someone is setting up a website that lets you add your own content and your team posts your existing FAQ and technical specifications, your website cost will only include the initial setup. Adding the content and maintaining it becomes your job. If you’re asking someone to import your existing content from another platform or various formats, the cost will vary based on the difficulty and the amount of time involved.
Advanced Search Engine Optimization Analysis Tools
Search engine optimization tools have greatly evolved over the year, and so are the costs associated with them. Fortunately, tools like Google Analytics allow new website owners to perform in depth analysis of their website for free, something that could cost hundreds of dollars not too long ago.
All these innovations have changed how people approach web design. While some allow you to save, like cloud hosting, others will add to your site’s total cost. However, this hike in price usually means better performance as well.
