Websites: what are the costs?

Filed Under Business |

by Ashley Bryan

It can be confusing when getting a website, to understand what the costs are, and exactly what is involved. There are many factors to consider such as website hosting, domain names and email addresses and how these come together to form your website project. Furthermore what do you need in your website, what is the development process and what will it cost?

The first step is to think of a suitable domain name. The name of your company can be a great start, so you get www.mybusiness.co.nz or www.mybusiness.com . Which do you need: dot co or dot com? I believe that a dot co domain name is OK for most New Zealand businesses, and that a dot com name still really implies an American site, although this is not a fast rule. Why not identify your business as a NZ one straight off and use dot co, which will promote our country to overseas net users? Something else to think about is whether the name lends itself to what your business does or provides. So the domain name www.circusanimalhire.co.nz (it doesn’t exist, I checked!) tells you pretty much what the website is all about. A name like www.prsmythe.co.nz doesn’t give as much information about the core business, and so users then have to actually view the site to determine what is provided. You need a lot of advertising, PR and brand marketing clout to get a name like www.amazon.com to be synonymous with books right? But it is possible as we know. When you’ve thought of your name, register it: $39.95 will secure you the name for a year.

What about the website development or build itself - what does that cost? Websites can cost anything from nothing upwards, and your options here are huge. You could use an online provider of “do it yourself” websites for practicallly nothing, but you then you have the hassle of making the website yourself, and are constrained to their system. Or you can contact a web development company to build a website for you. Informational (brochureware) websites are generally cheaper then dynamic, or database-driven ones.

As well as the domain name pucrhase and build of the website, be sure you factor in other costs such as website hositng and email hosting, as well as marketing and search engine optimisation services.

About the Author:

Before you get a website built you should know and understand what the costs are. This articles reviews those costs.