"OK so first off, good design and development skills are not cheap and we are not cheap!"
SO WHAT ARE YOU PAYING FOR?
I am sure that you will find someone willing to beat any price we give you but what we ask you is to consider all the factors Like originality, your brand ambitions, your mission, your market and your customers and most importantly what functionality you require from your online business presence.
We have created this resource to answer this question of WHAT we charge and WHY. Please take a look through it.
How to build a cheap website
Yes you could get some kid who has probably just finished an online website development course to build you a website...
- ..and even if he doesn't make the mistake of using some instant website/hosting service
Why not? Because these services eventually increase their prices and hold your website and domain hostage... - ..he will probably take a deposit from you and either deliver an acceptable looking website using someone else's ready made template,
Eeuch! imagine if it looks just like your competetors website... - ..which he most likely will not be capable of tweaking or modifying much to offer the functionality your business requires and will never quite match your brand desires! Therefore no luck achieving anything unique yours or remotely close to your brand propriety...
- ..if he actually has learnt how to code, he will most likely just ramble out a bland unrefined, visually unfriendly...
- ..and most likely hack vulnerable website
- ..but you have already given him a deposit so you are now committed to pay for what he delivers even if it doesn't tick all your boxes..
..and that is how you get a cheap website! That if he ever finishes the website.
Keep in mind we, at DiG, have gained most of our cients thanks to "Cheap" website developers who have left their client hanging and we have had to rescue many businesses from such projects.
At DiG we normaly have a one week turnaround time on a website if the client participates in the discovery process (Needs Audit) and provides us with all the content and information needed on time.
What then?
Then there is the issue of what comes after the site is live. Will you be able to update it with new or current information yourself or will your cheap developer now charge you an hourly rate every time you wish to have a change made, that is if he is actually capable of make those changes? This is where the con men get you they give you a cheap bare minimum non responsive un interactive website, barely finished and then they bill per hour every time you ask them to update something small or even fix things they messed up when first building the website!
We offer retainer packages for the totaly PC illiterate, but truth be said our websites are properly created when they go live and are all user friendly and interactive, but more importantly as part of our package we develop the website so that it is easy for you to make small changes to content or update time sensitive items in real time without even needing to give us a support call!
What do I actually want or need from my website?
- What do you need your website to do?
- Is it there to communicate into a prospective market place?
- Do you need it to manage your clients or staff using online interactive systems?
- Do you need it to show how big and important your venture is?
- Is it there to help spread information?
- Maybe it is there to gain feedback from the marketplace about your services or products?
- In some cases it might be used to unite like minded people together in collaborative action?
- Hey it might be needed for all of the above!
You have to start thinking of your website as a living evolving thing. For this to work it has to start life with a strong stable yet easily scalable foundation to work from. Then there is the actual work needed to keep your website current and ad new content as it is needed. I suppose you could skill yourself up and take time away from running your actual, business servicing your clients and prospecting for new business and do all the monthly security upgrades and ad all the content updates you need to keep your SEO current and your site looking fresh, or you could leave it to a professional like us.
So once again you must be thinking what will all this cost me? can I afford it? Dreading the part where we give you a price!
So what does it actually cost to build a good web presence?
Note I didn't say website as there is more to your online business presence than just your website as there is your strategy to penetrate your desired potential online market involved as well.
There is about 100 hours of labour needed to build a really good functional and well branded online business presence. Unfortunately there is a lot more that goes into website development than what goes into building a good Powerpoint presentation for example . And to explain this would take just as long as the rest of this articles put together But this resource will explain that:
Diving into the Deep End of Web Dev
And then there is the time needed to be allocated as a monthly support retainer to do all the needed updates and content additions on a monthly basis there could be upwards of five hours per month involved in that if your developer does not develop with your access in mind!
We offer retainer packages for the totaly PC illiterate, but truth be said our websites are properly created when they go live and are all user friendly and interactive, but more importantly as part of our package we develop the website so that it is easy for you to make small changes to content or update time sensitive items in real time without even needing to give us a support call!
The average website developer (average not highly skilled) works for about R500 per hour a well skilled developer works for about R850 per hour.
So if we where to bill for our actual labour time based just on an average website developer doing it it would come to more that R50,000 and close to R100,000 if it is a skilled developer like the members of our team. So when someone quotes you R5,000 for a website you have to ask what is their skill level and what will they deliver?!!
Now keep in mind Mark Simon our lead developer was the National Graphic Design Expert at World Skills in 2019, he also has 25 years of development experience as well as 35 years 35 years of Business Development experience in all sectors. He is part of a Business Inovation & Incubation think tank at the Biic at Cape Peninsular University of Technology as well as a memebr of South Africas strongest development mentorshiip program through Plum Systems.
Unfortunately we also live in a world where some kid fresh out of school who has just completed a five hour online tutorial on how to build websites will offer to do it for about R3,000 -R5,000. So this tends to mess our market up completely
So is it only big successful corporates and those with big family trust funds that can afford to have a proper website built. RIGHT? While all the rest of us trying to make a buck or get our one man business off the ground have to make do with that kid straight out of school, which also means our money will be wasted and we will end up with something that approximates a website but will never really offer our business any real value. In this case you might just as well throw the towel in and settle for a face book page instead of a website for all the good it will do you.
Don't stress...DiG has found a way to help you spread out the price
Well we at DiG feel your pain we have all been there ourselves in one way or another. So we have designed another way to help you get on your feet with a proper website.
The anuity model.
We take a big risk on you but you reward us with your loyalty and annuity into the future effectively we spread you price pain out over time.
So you offer us a deposit say R10,000, 15,000 or what ever your budget can afford we are open to discussion here and then we begin your website development, generally you should have a live website within a month as long as you get stuck in with your duties like providing us with as much information and content as you can about your business. Don't worry we have a guide document to help you with this.
Then we ask you also agree to a monthly retainer payment over two years. Generally this is R2,500 per month and this covers both your development costs as well as the labour needed to keep your website current and secure monthly. We also help you with some social media marketing and general marketing, graphic design and business advice. Hey we want you to succeed after all!
This way we can all be happy with the price and work towards building your online business presence so that it can successfully augment your business venture!
Further helpful articles: