The term “website” is ubiquitous today. Most of us surf the Internet every day, search for information, buy products or interact on social networks. However, how well do we understand what a website means? If we want our business to have its own online store, what are the steps to take to make this happen? And, just as importantly, what are the costs behind building a website?
Whether you’re a budding entrepreneur, a passionate blogger or simply someone curious, this article will clarify these issues and help you understand what’s involved in the process of creating a website, from concept to completion and beyond.
What is a website?
Basically, a website is the virtual equivalent of a physical shop.
If you want to open a shop in a shopping mall, you need to rent a commercial space and invest in the shop’s layout. In the case of a website, the process is the same: you rent the virtual space and invest in “setting it up” in order to attract customers’ attention and generate sales.
Now let’s take a practical look at what a website is.
Technically, a website is a set of publicly accessible web pages hosted on a web server. These pages are interconnected by links and may contain text, images, video and other media elements, as well as scripts and styles to enhance interactivity and design.
There are numerous technologies and programming languages used in website development, including HTML, CSS, JavaScript, PHP, Python or Ruby. These technologies allow the creation of dynamic websites with advanced functionality and attractive designs.
Complicated work, what else.
Fortunately, however, there are now faster, simpler and more cost-effective alternatives for creating a website, as you’ll see a little later in the article.
Until then, you should know that websites can serve different purposes, including:
- Information: sites that provide information on a variety of topics (e.g. Wikipedia)
- Commercial: sites that sell products or services (e.g. Amazon)
- Social: sites that allow interaction between users (e.g. Facebook)
- Educational: sites used for training and learning (e.g. Udemy)
- Entertainment: sites that offer entertaining content, such as games, videos or music (e.g. YouTube)
Most often, users access websites using a web browser, such as Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox, Safari, or Microsoft Edge.
Therefore, in addition to the Web Development component, creating a website requires other specialized knowledge, such as Web Design services, User Experience and User Interface, Copywriting or SEO (Search Engine Optimization) services you need to tick the following performance criteria:
- With the help of SEO optimization servicesyour website will be displayed with priority in front of potential customers when they search for the products or services you sell in the search engine.
- With copywriting services, you’ll ensure that visitors to your site will clearly understand where they are and what benefits your products or services offer.
- With Web Design, UX and UI services, you’ll ensure your customers have a fast and predictable website browsing experience, thus optimizing the conversion process and therefore sales.
How much does it cost to create a website?
The cost of creating a website can vary significantly depending on a number of factors, including the complexity of the site, desired functionality, platform used, design, content and any additional costs such as web hosting, domain name or maintenance.
Here are some basic points to evaluate the cost of a website:
Website type
- Personal website or blog: If you use platforms such as WordPress.com, Blogger or Tumblr, you can even get started for free or at low cost, depending on customizations and features.
- Business website: Costs start from a few hundred to thousands of euros or more, depending on complexity and functionality.
- Online shop: Platforms such as Shopify, WooCommerce for WordPress or Magento can have variable costs, but for a more sophisticated online shop costs can quickly reach thousands of euros.
Design and development
- Free templates or themes: some platforms offer free themes, but these may be limited in terms of customization.
- Premium themes: these can cost between 20 and 200 euros, or more.
- Custom design: if you hire a designer or a web design agency, costs can range from a few hundred to tens of thousands of euros depending on complexity.
Features and extensions
Many platforms have free plugins or extensions, but if you need premium features, the costs for these can range from €20 to €500 or more.
Web hosting and domain names
Hosting is basically renting virtual space on a dedicated server, which acts as storage space for the site’s memory (measured in megabytes), and can range from a few euros per month for shared hosting (shared with other platforms), to hundreds or thousands of euros for dedicated or cloud servers.
Besides hosting, the domain is another vital element in the process of creating a website. Purchasing a domain is done on a pay-as-you-go basis from specialized websites and can generally cost between 10 and 20 euros per year, but can be much more expensive for premium or popular domains.
Maintenance and updates
A website may require regular updates, backups, security and other maintenance, processes that often need to be performed by a specialized team such as web design and development agency specialists who were involved in the construction of the site, and in this case the costs may be recurrent.
Content
Depending on the graphical complexity of your website, and the level of quality of the visual and navigational experience you wish to display on your site, you may find it necessary to hire copywriters, graphic designers, photographers or videographers, which will add additional costs to the overall cost of your web platform.
Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
If you want professional website optimization servicesThese will, of course, have an additional cost, both in the On-Page SEO stage (the actual optimization of site performance) and Off-Page SEO (link building and other strategies to increase the authority of the site to target the top positions in Google results, on keywords relevant to the specifics of your business and your offers).
The site is ready. Am I ready to sell?
Not really. After the site is finally ready, the next step is online promotion to increase the visibility of the site.
When you have a physical store, you either place it in a high traffic area or you’re looking to let people know about your store, so you invest in ads to try to bring them into the store.
Well, the website is the equivalent of a physical store, only positioning it in a high traffic area is done through online promotion campaigns through Google Ads, and tactics to increase visibility can be done through dedicated campaigns on social platforms like Facebook, Instagram, TikTok or LinkedIn.
Note that all costs expressed so far, both in the website creation and promotion stages, are estimates and prices may vary depending on region, specific requirements and industry changes.
For an exact cost, it’s best to contact an agency that specializes in website creation, or a marketing agency that offers the full package of web development and online promotion services, as we do.
Let’s talk! Contact us today and request a chat with unosoft agency specialists to see how we can turn your business plans into a successful project. Are you from Bucharest? We are also a marketing agency in Bucharest, so we invite you to a face-to-face meeting.
