How much will a new website cost?

This guide is designed to provide marketers and business owners with a better understanding of what makes a successful website project, and what exactly influences the final quote from a web agency.

Your website is the most important component of your marketing strategy.

It is the front window for your business online. Your website is often the first experience a person has with your business, and, can make the difference between customers choosing you versus your competition.

So, it’s important that it’s made well, and in line with your business objectives.

Contents:

  1. Do you need a new website?
  2. Your marketing strategy
  3. What functions will be included in the web design?
  4. Who will be creating the website’s content?
  5. Search Engine Optimisation (SEO)
  6. How to find a web designer or developer
  7. How to create a website project brief
  8. Estimated cost for a new website
  9. How to choose your website builder
  10. How we can help

This guide is designed to provide marketers and business owners with a better understanding of what makes a successful website project, and what exactly influences the final quote from a web agency.

Do you need a new website?

The first thing to ask yourself when planning to build a new website is, do you actually need one?

  1. What challenges are you facing with your existing website?
  2. Are the challenges harming your business’ commercial opportunities, or are they simply internal struggles?
  3. Can these challenges be overcome without a new website development project?

By answering these questions, you will be confident in knowing if a new website is required, or a different project needs to be implemented to achieve your goals.

Your marketing strategy

Before creating a website brief to send out to agencies, you first need to have a clear understanding of what you want to achieve from it.

This will come from your marketing strategy.

The first step in building a successful marketing strategy is to know exactly who you are marketing to.

Before you begin, conduct extensive research and gather insights on your existing audience, the channels they use, and the needs that will lead them to contact your business.

From here, you can develop the right message and the best possible user experience to generate the best results.

This will also be valuable information for any prospective web designer to understand what you are trying to achieve with a new website and the audience who will be using it.

What functions will be included in the web design?

Websites are completely customisable. An experienced web designer or developer will know how to make your website completely bespoke, however, this customisability will come at a cost.

An important aspect to consider when hiring someone to design or build a website for you is what kinds of functions and integrations you will need for your website.

These can range from the most basic functions to more complex systems.

A useful strategy to implement prior to hiring anyone would be to create both a list of functionality that your website needs, and a list of functions that would be nice for your website to have. This will be useful to any web builder, so they can provide you with an accurate quote for the website’s overall cost.

Who will be creating the website’s content?

Your content is the backbone of your website. It’s what your audience comes to your website for, to learn more about your business, and your products and services.

Content is composed of the text, images, videos and technology that you use to acquire website visitors and engage your audience to convert into customers.

An easy way to save money on a website project is for your company to create its own website content. However, it’s easy to underestimate how big a task this will be, especially when having to balance this work with your teams existing outputs and workload.

If you do not have the capacity or resources to create the required content for your website, full-service website design and development agencies will often have a dedicated team of in-house content makers that you can utilise to create your website content if you don’t have time, however, this will come at an additional cost.

Website pages typically can take anywhere from 2 – 6 hours to create, depending on the levels and medium of content required, including time for revisions.

Search Engine Optimisation (SEO)

Search engine optimisation is the process of making your site better for users and compatible with search engines with the goal of increasing your online visibility.

Every search engine contains algorithms that review all the technical elements on the website, and this directly affects where the website appears in search engine results.

If your website is not providing a good user experience for search engines, then it’s unlikely you will be rewarded with strong ranking positions.

Experienced website builders will understand SEO best practices, and how to build websites that not only satisfy your audience but Google too.

This expertise may come at a premium. However, if your website is built on a solid foundation to achieve long-term results within search engine ranking positions then it could be an investment worth making.

Budgeting for a new website

Finding a web designer or developer

One of the biggest determining factors as to how well made your website will be is determined by who builds it.

The experience of your website designer, developer or agency will greatly impact the final product, with less experienced creators potentially overlooking important aspects to the build.

For this reason, we highly recommend hiring a professional web designer or agency who knows what they’re doing and can customise your website to your specifications.

We recommend doing your research, don’t just choose the first web designer you find online. Look around, take a look at their previous projects, and ensure they have the capabilities to successfully deliver against your requirements.

Ideally, you’ll have a shortlist of 4 – 6 web designers that you would like to brief on the project.

Creating a website project brief

When creating a website project brief for website designers be transparent providing information on your business, your requirements, and most importantly your budget.

We recommend that you provide the following information to a prospective builder to ensure they can recommend an appropriate solution to achieve your goals.

  • Your business details
  • Your budget
  • Your expected project timeline
  • Your target audience
  • The purpose of the website
  • Any KPIs you are looking to achieve
  • Your core messaging and values
  • What makes your different from your competitors
  • Why customers choose you over your competitors
  • Your company’s brand guidelines (if you have them)
  • What your website is currently hosted on
  • Any third-party platforms or systems that are connected to your website
  • If you require a website rebuild or complete migration
  • The functionality or options on your current website that you plan to keep
  • What you like most about your current website
  • What you don’t like about your current website
  • What functions are necessary for your new website
  • A wish list of features would be nice to have
  • The types of things you see on other websites that you really like
  • The types of things you see on other websites that you really don’t like

This will provide any prospective builder with all the information they will require to make an informed decision on whether the project is of interest, and if they’d like to pitch for it.

Estimated costs for a new website

The below list is comprised of the major factors that go into determining the cost of a website build, but it is by no means a complete list.

Other factors that can influence price include the specific tools and platforms used for your website, migrations and specific SEO activities such as structured mark-up, content optimisation and URL mapping.

Book A Free Website Scoping Session

Book a free, no-obligation website scoping session to discuss your vision, goals, and what you are trying to achieve in the short, medium, and long term.

Estimated costs for a large website

A bespoke website for a large-to-enterprise organisation with a high number of pages and custom functionality to be created.

  • Base price: £30,000+
  • Marketing strategy: £12,000+
  • Custom designed templates: £25,000+
  • Custom functionality: £20,000+
  • Content creation: £15,000+
  • Data imports: £5,000+
  • Agency website hosting: £2,000+

Estimated costs for a medium-sized website

A website for a small-to-medium business with a high number of pages and custom functionality to be created.

  • Base price: £15,000+
  • Marketing strategy: £6,000+
  • Custom designed templates: £15,000+
  • Custom functionality: £10,000+
  • Content creation: £10,000+
  • Data imports: £3,000+
  • Agency website hosting: £1,000+

Estimated costs for a small website

A website for a small-to-medium business with a low number of pages and limited custom functionality to be created.

  • Base price: £8,000+
  • Marketing strategy: £3,000+
  • Custom designed templates: £3,000+
  • Custom functionality: £2,500+
  • Content creation: £4,000+
  • Data imports: £1,500+
  • Agency website hosting: £600+

Choosing your website builder

It is crucial to pick a website designer or agency that is best suited to your needs. While price is an important factor in the decision-making process, it shouldn’t be the only factor.

As previously mentioned, your website is the most important component of your marketing strategy. It’s important that it’s built well, and the cheapest option may not be the best option.

Before any project, you should conduct a thorough scoping process to ensure expectations are set for all parties.

This will allow you to ascertain if your prospective builder has the knowledge, skills and experience required to deliver against both your short term and long term objectives.

It is then that we believe we are best positioned to offer you the correct technical solution and create the blueprint for the project ahead.

How we can help

A great website is not just about looks (although this certainly helps), a website needs to consider a wide range of factors such as the usability and experience, its interface, above all your business goals and objectives.

As part of the project, we will always start with a scoping session where we can fully understand your vision, goals, and what you are trying to achieve in the short, medium, and long term. This will allow us to visualise a suitable website and start the design process.

We place priority on the user experience within our web design, making sure every element from a UX and UI perspective is transitioned into the final concepts.

Once the designs are completed our development team will review the concepts to make sure your website can be produced to a high-performance specification.

We take great pride in producing highly engaging, visually impressive, conversion optimised websites that meet your objectives and demonstrate a clear long-term ROI.

Our website design and development services include:

  • Website scoping and consultancy
  • Wireframes
  • UX & UI design
  • Website design
  • Website development
  • Content management
  • Website bespoke integration

Book a free, no-obligation website scoping session to discuss your vision, goals, and what you are trying to achieve in the short, medium, and long term.

BOOK A FREE WEBSITE SCOPING SESSION

Book a free, no-obligation website scoping session to discuss your vision, goals, and what you are trying to achieve in the short, medium, and long term.