When it comes to web design, there’s one question that gets asked more than most; how do you set a budget for a new website?
Budgets are essential as they let you figure out how much money you need to spend on your project. Of course, web design costs can fluctuate based on a series of things. So, it’s unrealistic to just throw out a random figure and say that’s how much your website should cost.
If you don’t take the time to set a proper budget, then your website can end up costing far more than you anticipated. Or, you build a below-par site because you’ve tried to keep the costs below some magical figure that you plucked from thin air.
With all that in mind, here’s how you correctly set a budget for your new website:
It’s impossible to set a realistic budget unless you have an idea of what your website is going to do and how it will function. The web design costs of a site that’s only purpose is to provide basic business information will be much lower than one with the intention of selling products online. The second website needs e-commerce functions, so you can’t have the same budget for both!
To help you understand the purpose of your site, you must focus on these main concerns:
With this point, you’re thinking about all the different functions your website must have. As mentioned before, you need to consider whether or not you need e-commerce. Are you hoping to provide downloadable content on your site? Will you display lots of videos for people to watch? Are you going to need secure payment gateways or member log-in portals? Think about the various things your website will deem essential for it to operate as you hope.
What do you want the website to look like? Work on your initial design ideas to get a vision of what the site is going to ideally look like.
Every website needs content, so think about what yours will look like. Do you need multiple pages for blog posts? Will most of your content be visual? Do you need to factor in freelance costs if you can’t produce the content yourself?
The next step is crucial as it gives you a first look at how much your site will cost to build. Once you have ideas for the overall purpose of your website, you can contact web design agencies. Look around for some free quotes, and collect a handful. You don’t want just one or two, look for five at the very least.
By viewing these quotes, it shows you what web design experts believe your site costs to make. Hopefully, there shouldn’t be too many fluctuations, so you get a good idea of the average costs.
When you’re armed with various quotes, you can go back and re-assess your initial website ideas. In all likelihood, the quotes you’ve been given are much more than you expected. This is good because you’ve found the costs out now, so you can react to them. If the quotes are too much for you, then look at your site and figure out how you can maybe reduce them.
A good idea is to run through everything to do with design, functionality and content. Consider all the original points you made, and see which ones are absolutely essential. You’ll soon find a few things here and there that you don’t necessarily need – at least not right now. So, cut them out, and you could see the overall costs drop to something more affordable.
Then, you could go back and get quotes for this new site proposal. Hopefully, the figures you see are more to your liking, which lets you set a realistic budget for a site that will perform how you want it to.
It’s unwise to build a new website without a proper budget. If you have no budget at all, then you’re basically walking on thin ice from day one. A few weeks or months into the project, and you’ll find out you’re spending way too much money than you can handle.
In the end, you pay far too much for your website, which sets you back a lot. Or, if you just pluck a budget out of thin air, then you run the risk of designing a site that won’t end up performing how you want it to.
So, follow these three steps to set a more accurate and realistic budget for your site. Consider the purpose of your website, look for quotes, then re-assess things, and align your needs with what you can afford.
