Blogging Expertise

The cost of a blog or web design often comes across as a somewhat arbitrary decision. Many blog designers encounter extreme cases of “sticker shock” when they provide quotes to folks who have inquired about their services. This is usually the result of the client and the designer having wildly different expectations.

We’ve put together this page in hopes that it will help you get a better idea of where those cost numbers come from and what to look for beyond just the number. This applies when working with us or any other professional design firm. Your feedback is very much welcomed.

You do get what you pay for… but what are you paying for?

Every designer has heard some variation on this protest: “But my nephew will create a site for $50…”

Designers tend to whine to each other about those comments, but that’s because they understand the difference in actual value between the nephew’s $50 site and the site they would build for the client. The client, on the other hand, honestly doesn’t know what they’re paying for, so it’s a very logical question.

What are the things you will receive from a professional designer or design firm beyond just the finished website?

• Details. Professional designers and firms pay particular attention to the details that will make or break your site. For instance, there are some very specific standards established for the behind-the-scenes code that runs websites. Across the board, sites with code that follows the rules will be found more often in search engines, giving you a much better return on your investment. Having a site that no one sees is like putting a physical store in the middle of nowhere; but that’s effectively what happens if the details are ignored.
• Time. You are almost certainly smart enough, and the resources are good enough, that you could learn everything you need to know about using a website to help your business. The trouble is that learning takes time. Starting from scratch takes lots of time. Most people who end up using a professional designer or firm understand that their time is worth something, and that spending your time on your core business is one of the best places you can invest your time. Working with web professionals allows you to tap into our experience and knowledge and save hundreds of hours.
• Experience. A professional designer or design firm isn’t just selling you hours on a project; we’re selling you years of experience in the sometimes-overwhelming world of the Internet. We’ve learned, over time and many projects, what works and what doesn’t in areas like color, style, and the different ways that information can be presented to get to a specific goal. The result is that you get a site that accurately conveys the distinctive elements of your business in a way that makes sense to your target audience.
• Knowledge. When you hire a professional designer or firm, you are also getting access to a wealth of information that we’ve gathered and are happy to share. A successful website or blog depends on accurately answering all sorts of strategic questions about goals and audiences, as well as having the technical expertise to turn those answers into a site that helps accomplish goals and reach audiences. We know the right questions to ask and what to do with the answers.

For the sake of comparison

One of the things that makes the cost of a website such an unknown for most business people is not knowing what to compare it to. That’s a reasonable frustration, because a website or blog is fairly different from most of the other marketing tools out there. That said, just looking at the other types of marketing that most businesses do can be helpful in creating reasonable expectations.

For instance, look at these average costs (according to Gaebler Ventures, a business incubator and venture capital fund with many good articles on business marketing):

• “The cost of billboard advertising ranges from about $700 to $2,500 a month. At that rate, ten billboards could run as much as $25,000 per month. That sounds like a lot of money, until you realize that a full-page ad running for one day in a major newspaper costs about the same.”
• “How much does it cost to exhibit at a trade show? … [B]ooth space is generally inexpensive ($13 per square foot on average, with the typical small booth covering 100 square feet).”

In many areas, phone book yellow pages ads are less expensive than either of the above options, often in the range of $1500/year or so for a small ad.

So the next question is: how do websites compare in efficiency to traditional marketing options?

• Reach: A website, unlike the options listed above, is available to interested customers anywhere in the world. Even if you’re a local company, and only interested in reaching a local market, your website can reach that local market for a fixed cost, regardless of the number of people you are targeting. Because it’s so easy to reach millions of people with a website, many local companies end up expanding certain services or products to a regional or national market.
• Content: How much information can you reasonably present on a billboard, a newspaper or phone book ad, or even at a trade show exhibit? It’s pretty limited (and should be, if your audience is going to have any chance of absorbing the info). But what happens when they want to know more? A website is a very efficient way of presenting the information that people are looking for, without requiring employees to answer routine questions.
• Interaction: A website allows you to collect information from your prospects (in a way that is respectful to them) and track where that information came from more accurately than other forms of marketing. If you’re not actively using a website for this purpose, you’re missing out on a huge source of relevant info.
• Flexibility: What happens when you add a service or product line? With traditional marketing, you have to take out new billboard or newspaper ads, create new marketing collateral for the trade show booth, or even wait until next year to update your phone book ad. With modern websites, you can update your information as easily as editing a Word document. Talk about flexibility!
• Other costs: A good billboard or trade show exhibit or phone book ad have their own design costs associated.

All things being equal, a website is much more efficient than traditional marketing.

But how much will it actually cost?

If you’re like me (Sarah), you probably found the information above interesting and somewhat compelling… but now you’re wondering: am I being set up for the mother of all expensive quotes?

The short answer is no. Now that you have a good understanding of what goes into professional website and blog design, you’ll probably find our prices make good business sense.

Many designers don’t like to publish their prices on the web for two reasons:

1. The “sticker shock” effect. Many visitors will look at the price, not understand what’s included, and head for the hills (or the $50 nephew site).
2. The inherent differences from project to project. Some websites take much more work than others. Honestly, some clients are more difficult to deal with, and it takes extra time to keep things moving along properly. Web design is definitely not a one-size-fits-all proposition.

I’m going to go ahead and trust that #1 isn’t an issue at this point, and address #2 by giving you ranges.

Here at Blogging Expertise, our “starter packages” are the baseline. As you can see from that page, custom design starts at $2700 for a standard blog design. The costs start going up from there as you add bells and whistles, but you’ll find that web and blog design will rarely come in over $7000 (with us; I’m not attempting to lay out other designers’ prices!).

Go ahead and compare that $2700-7000 range to traditional marketing, and look at how much more your money will get you online.

Get the most for your money

Would you go to a car dealership and say, “I want a vehicle but I don’t really know what I’ll use it for… and I don’t really have a budget in mind… Why don’t you just tell me what it will cost me?” Of course not! But that’s effectively what many people do with their websites.

They know that the Internet is the new thing and that they “should have a website” but don’t have any specific goals for the site beyond having one. This is an area a web professional can help with, but it really helps a designer give you the best “bang for your buck” if you can tell us what you hope a site can help you accomplish for your business. The best goals are very specific (”increase the number of leads we get from our current 3 per week to 10 per week”) but even less-concrete concepts (”get more customers”) will be a start.

Next, don’t hesitate to ask questions about pricing. Ask “what does that include?” and “how will that feature help my business accomplish this goal?”. Any professional designer or firm will be happy to answer those questions (most of us really like working with thinking clients, and questions are an indication that you’re thinking!).

Hopefully this article has helped you sort through some of the questions you had about web design pricing. Have more questions? Please ask us!