Websites are like vehicles in two major ways:
- They require an initial investment to build/purchase.
- They require ongoing investment to maintain.
In fact, websites and vehicle costs are roughly equivalent as well. Click here to read a detailed comparison between vehicle and website costs.
WordPress websites have several components that should be understood as you make critical decisions about your project:
Server
The server is the ‘computer’ that stores the files of your website and ‘serves’ those files across the internet. When you visit a website on a browser, you are requesting to view the files for that website and the server fulfills your request. It’s like the baker who fulfills your order. You don’t see all of the ingredients and equipment used to produce the product—you only see the outcome. The server does all of the work for you.
WordPress Core Files
WordPress is the environment that powers your website. Think of it as the foundation and walls of your house. Everything you add to your site is built inside of your WordPress environment.
WordPress Theme
The theme provides basic styling and website functionality. Some premium themes offer advanced functionality that would otherwise be possible with plugins or custom code.
WordPress Plugins
Plugins expand the functionality of your website. Without plugins, your website would be an extremely minimalist blog (which is actually what WordPress was originally designed to offer).
Database
The database stores all of the information for your website, such as the website content, settings, colors, products, etc. The information in your database is what makes your website different from another WordPress website with the same theme and plugins, etc.
Initial Investment
Below are simple explanations of everything that can affect the cost of a website build:
The design of your website is determined by two elements: your theme and your page designs.
The theme determines the default style settings (and often the base functionality) for a website. WordPress themes can installed and replaced inside the WordPress dashboard in seconds.
Some websites only use the theme for the design while other websites use the theme and page builders for the design. We prefer to use Elementor Pro to design our clients’ themes and pages.
There are two ways to add functionality to your website. You can 1) hire a programmer to add custom code to your website—which can be pretty expensive and complicated, or 2) you can “plug-in” packages of software called “plugins” for free or relatively cheap.
Plugins are add-ons that quickly boost the functionality of your website with minimal effort or additional cost. Most plugins are either free or use a freemium model where you only pay for advanced features or automatic updates.
Many important plugins will cost money (although far less than it would take to hire a developer to add that functionality with custom code). Typically, you will be required to pay an annual fee to keep each premium plugin up-to-date (important for maintaining functionality and security).
Depending on your unique website needs, it may be necessary to subscribe to integration tools and workflow software, such as Zapier, to power certain automation. It really just depends on how much you want to automate your business.
You will want to create a “brand” for your website which includes a color palette and a collection of font styles.
There are hundreds of free fonts, but if you choose premium, custom fonts for your brand, that may increase the cost of the website build. There are also hundreds of free icons that we can use on your site, but if you choose to use premium licensed icons in your design, that can add a recurring cost to your website.
If you need help writing content for your website, copywriting can be a significant addition to your project budget. It’s always cheaper to write your own content, but if you would like professional help we can connect you to some of our favorite copywriters and editors.
Migrating existing content from an old website is generally quick and straightforward. However, content migration can also be extremely tedious and expensive if best practices were not used or if a different page builder was used extensively for pages and posts. In most cases, a quick peek under the hood can help us determine how easy it will be to move your content.
Your initial website build includes several steps:
- WordPress installation on your host
- Pointing your domain DNS records to the host files
- WordPress configuration to get it ready to host your website
- Content implementation/migration
- SEO-related content adjustments
- Optional: Custom code development for special functionality
- Custom theme setup
- Page designs
- Creation of navigation menus
- Creation of images, graphics, and other media
- Setting up additional security features
- Caching setup & website optimization
- Backup system implementation
Ongoing Investment
After making the initial investment in a new website build, it’s going to take ongoing investment to 1) keep your site secure and on internet, and 2) to make it profitable.
A website is a collection of thousands of files stored on a special computer called a server. If the server is connected to the internet, those website files can be viewed through special apps called web browsers, such as Chrome or Safari.
You can either purchase your own server for hundreds or thousands of dollars (overkill for most businesses), or you can rent space on a server for your website. Hosting can cost anywhere from $3-4/month to $100+/month, depending on the size of the website, how much traffic you receive, how fast you want your website to be, and several other configurations you may need.
Most hosting companies can give you a free WordPress installation.
SSL certificates are used to encrypt your website so that users can safely interact with your content, such as processing payments, filling out forms, and avoiding viruses.
SSL certificates can come free with some hosting companies. Otherwise, they can cost anywhere from a few dollars to a couple of hundred dollars per year.
Considering that your website is typically a pile of files on a single server somewhere in the world, we need a way to direct a person’s website request to the correct server. Every server has a unique IP address which is a string of numbers (i.e. 45.55.70.986). Think of it like a home mailing address. Since it’s hard for people to remember long strings of numbers, we purchase memorable text-based domain names (like arcfires.com) that direct traffic to the correct servers.
Domains can be cheap and typically cost less than $15/yr. However, some highly sought-after domains sell for an initial premium of hundreds or thousands of dollars.
Plugin Updates
Plugin updates can both solve and cause glitches, so updates need to be managed carefully or your site can break. Updating a plugin is very simple, but knowing when and how to update to avoid issues is something that requires some specialization.
Some plugins are specifically designed to help with backend tasks, such as security and performance. Performance plugins help your website run quickly and efficiently. Your website can be optimized and secured a great deal using free plugins, but advanced features often cost money.
As we mentioned before, websites need maintenance—just like cars. In fact, they generally need much more maintenance than cars.
Theme, plugin, and WordPress core updates can be set to occur automatically. However, plugin conflicts can cause the website to crash unknowingly causing lost revenues and frustrated customers. “Managed updates” are scheduled efforts to force the updates to happen at a specific time so that potential website traffic interruption is minimized and conflicts can be solved by an expert quickly.
WordPress Core Updates
The WordPress environment needs to stay updated and secure. Updated plugins generally require newer versions of WordPress core files.
Theme Updates
The website theme needs to stay updated to stay secure.
Plugin Updates
Plugin updates can both solve and cause glitches, so updates need to be managed carefully or your site can break. Updating a plugin is very simple, but knowing when and how to update to avoid issues is something that requires some specialization.
Some plugins are specifically designed to help with backend tasks, such as security and performance. Performance plugins help your website run quickly and efficiently. Your website can be optimized and secured a great deal using free plugins, but advanced features often cost money.
Database Updates
Plugins often require updates to the database to improve the way newer versions of the plugin interact with the database.
PHP Version Updates
WordPress websites are powered by a programming language called PHP. The language receives security and performance updates from time to time. This generally doesn’t need to updated more than once every year or two.
Your website will come under constant attack from every direction. Concerted effort on security enhancements and vulnerability mitigation will probably be necessary.
Website backups will be your best friend in the event that your website gets hacked, or if a team member makes a mistake and valuable content is lost.
After your website has been launched, you may need to pay for marketing campaigns to get your website in front of your target audience.
Direct marketing may include social media campaigns, email campaigns, sponsorships, and all kinds of other indirect costs used to drive traffic to your website.
This boosts unpaid traffic to your website by making your website more visible in search engine results.
Getting Started
Once you understand the categories of costs associated with building a website, you’re prepared to talk through details with our team to develop a specific quote for your project. Use our Getting Started Checklist so we can help you launch your project quickly!
