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This is the second post in the three-part series, Does Your Small Business Need A Website in 2022? To read the first post, go here. This post addresses the second main reason why many SMEs don’t own websites; their owners don’t have the money, time or skills to build one.
According to Impactplus, website design costs range “anywhere from $100 to $3,000 or more. A simple custom website design from an agency can range from $15,000 to $30,000, whereas bigger and more complicated websites will cost between $40,000 to $75,000+.”
Expectedly, most small business owners like you will be looking to get a functional, profitable corporate website at the lower end of the price table.
Also, it’s important to note that website design rates aren’t fixed. Pricing typically depends on a range of factors – number of website pages, design needs of the business, the skill level of the web designer, and the timeframe of the project.
But not everyone can afford a $1000 website. You might be a newbie freelance writer without a penny in the bank. Or you might be a retailer who can’t afford a website now because current business overhead costs are too high .
Indeed, there are many reasons why small businesses may be unable to afford a website, no matter how important it is.
Another alternative is to design the website yourself. But while some blogs encourage small business owners to do this, and save money, I think it’s a bad idea. Attempting to design a website for your business will only cost you more money, waste your time, bring frustration, and might even affect your focus on the business.
How do I know this? Well, here’s my personal experience.
My Horrible Experience: Designing My Small Business’ Website
In mid-2018, while interning at a digital marketing agency, I decided to become a professional freelance writer. I would need a website for marketing to prospects, displaying my portfolio, and convincing visitors that I was a professional.
But I couldn’t afford a website. While some of the online guides I read claimed that I could, without any prior experience or expertise in web design, design a site using WordPress in five days, I couldn’t get past the first barrier – GoDaddy’s domain and hosting fees. (A domain name is the name of the website address, for example, www.stanley.com while the hosting plan is a piece of online real estate where your website’s data will be stored. Without both, you can’t run a website).
I was so broke.
For a while, this stalled my progress until I came across a Google Ad for an inexpensive domain/hosting company, Hub8. They said it was specifically created to help small business owners own and design great websites by themselves within a few days. Voila!
I quickly registered a domain name and bought a hosting plan. According to Hub8, I could either use their free website builder or buy a WordPress.org package. I opted to use the free website builder to save more money.
But nothing went according to plan. I spent two weeks trying to design a website but could only produce junk. My site didn’t just look bad on mobile screens, it was messy on desktop. It didn’t matter that I had spent a better part of the two weeks reading lots of confusing blog posts and watching YouTube videos on web design.
And that’s not all. When I eventually decided to abandon the Hub8 free builder and buy a WordPress.org package, I realized that using WordPress wasn’t as easy as some blogs claimed. Again, I wasted a few more days trying to convert my homepage from its default blog page design to an actual homepage but failed.
It wasn’t until I’d spent another three weeks in the WordPress backend, seeking help from blogs and from a graphic designer who seemed to know a bit about WordPress, that I was able to eventually build a standard homepage using the Elementor plugin.
And it was then that I realized my website didn’t have an SSL certificate installed. (An SSL certificate, according to leading security company Norton, is a type of digital certificate that provides authentication for a website and enables an encrypted connection. SSL certificates aren’t just important because they protect your website’s visitors’ information but because Google’s web browser, Chrome, and some other leading browsers block users from accessing websites without one. This will affect your reputation and frighten potential online visitors).
What did I do?
I tried consulting with Hub8 through their online chat feature. Their customer service rep recommended a few solutions which didn’t work so I kept asking for directions. After I kept doing this daily for the next three to seven days, their rep finally stopped replying. I guess he was tired of my continuous requests.
Long story short – that website never got me any visitors, leads, or clients and I didn’t renew the plan with Hub8 once it expired.
Moral of the story? Don’t build your website unless you’re good at web design.
The Real Cost of Websites
Designing a website is only one part of a coin. You must manage it too. And while the former is a one-time activity, website management is continuous and will ultimately determine if your site is profitable or not.
Most times, managing the site will require investments in time, money, or both. You may have to:
- Create, publish and update blog content regularly.
- Create new website pages or update old ones to attract new customers.
- Renew security and hosting services.
- Integrate third-party software to your website in the future.
- Manage, clean, and analyze incoming website data.
But how can you handle all these when you neither have the skills nor the money to hire someone to manage the site?
Inexpensive Ways To Get and Manage a Good Website
- Get a free website at the Free Website Guys who’re rated number one out of 7600 WordPress Agencies on Clutch. You’ll get to work with a Senior Developer who will build you a mobile-friendly, SEO-optimized and secure site for absolutely nothing. To get started, visit the Free Website Guys, make an application in two minutes and they’ll reply within 24-48 hours. Please note that they only accept 28% of the applications they receive, and acceptance is based on how good your business idea is.
- Get an affordable freelance website designer at iWorker or Fiverr. Both platforms help small businesses get excellent digital services at very low rates. Pro Tip: Get a designer with a marketing background who can develop a website marketing plan and offer advice on what it’ll cost to manage the site.
- Collaborate with a website designer. This is one of my favorite tactics and it doesn’t have to cost a dime. Simply find a local website designer or someone through LinkedIn who needs to build her portfolio and offer to collaborate by exchanging your services for hers. For example, if you’re a writer, you can offer to create amazing email newsletters for the web designer in exchange for her free website design services. Or if you’re a tech consultant, you can connect the designer to your network of consultants who may need website design services now or in the future.
Stanley Igboanugo is a digital marketer specializing in SEO, web design, content and inbound marketing. He has helped media companies, startups and organizations in the US, Canada and Europe attract inbound traffic through his guest blogging efforts. Some of these organizations include the Federal Government of Canada, Raindance UK (the largest film festival in the UK), Thrive Global (a reputable tech startup in the US), Hackernoon (a top technology blog with a million readers every year). His guest post for Raindance UK currently ranks on the first page of Google and Bing for the target keyword.
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