
Ever been told you will have to pay £3k - £4k for a new website? And then seen some dodgy looking ad on facebook which says you can have the all-singing, all-dancing wonder-website for £65? You may well be thinking 'Hang on a minute...there's something funny going on around here!'
So why are some websites so much more expensive than others? Do you want me to let you in on a few little trade secrets? Then read on dear reader!
There are a number of reasons for this. I've been in the business of both building snd selling websites in my local area of Stone, Eccleshall and Stafford for years. So I know a thing or two about the biz!
The first thing to point out is that some websites are different. Let's say you have an idea for a very specific function you want your website to undertake, which nobody has particularly thought of before, and you need it to query your databse to manage certain tasks. Your going to need some very clever people on your team. These wouldn't be your website designers, these are developers, highly skilled in the dark art of coding, who create unique, bespoke functions from scratch. That needs to be expensive!
But as the years rolled on, more and more companies began making templates for those mere mortals amongst us who didn't need that kind of bespoke work. I often found myself having to explain to clients why certain websites were so much more expensive than others, and talking to them all about the bespoke coding, which frankly they DID NOT NEED!
Moving on now, and it gets a bit funny here in our journey to discovering the truth of why some websites are so much more expensive than others. It's perception.
When I first left the company which will remain unnamed, it's because I knew perfectly well that there were thousands of potential customers out there who simply didn't need to pay £1,800 for a brochure, or a starting price of £3.5k for an e-commerce website. I bought a little office in Stafford, employed some team and began using templates. Really great, functional templates which did exactly what the customer needed. And you know what happened? I discovered another reason why some websites are so much more expensive than others: Perception.
Here's the deal. When I started selling gorgeous, functional e-commerce sites at £800, I had customers literally turn away from me saying 'I wanted to spend a bit more.' Yes, those exact words were spoken to my face. No, they weren't saying my websites didn't look nice, or they didn't have the functions that they needed, or they didn't like my shirt! They were saying they literally expected to pay more for a website, and my low prices undermined my credibility. Isn't that something? I put my prices up to £999 for a brochure and £1,499 for e-commerce and started doing much better. And to be fair on me, we were still very cheap compared to our competitors, and we had a lot of very happy clients.
But I don't charge that for a website now do I? And that leads me on to the next uncomfortable, if womewhat obvious truth: there's something else you're paying for. Some websites cost so much more than other because the company have to pay for offices. They have to pay for all thier utilities. They have to pay for their company cars. They have to pay for a whole set of computers, even when most people already have one at home, and on and on it goes. And of course, you know what's coming...you're paying for those things in the price of your website.
Since Covid hit we've learned something really valuable, not only is it possible to work from home in many sectors, it can actually be more productive. And it's certainly far cheaper for you.
So what about those websites like Wix, aren't they supposed to be £19 a month? So here's where the industry is at today: We love Wix. It's an amazing tool, and some really BIG businesses use it! But most people with a small business or organisation simply don't have the time, the inclination or the skills to learn how to set it up AND make it look great. That's where we come in, you pay a skilled team who work from home to do the setting up for you, walk you through how to use your shiny new site, and then just pay the monthly Wix fee according to your specific website needs, from £4,50 a month. So it seems like over the years we've refined what we do for clients and landed in a pretty solid place, removing unnecessary costs while reaching for world-class quality.
So that's the truth right there. Templates used to be a dirty word, not so any more. Find out more about what fantastic websites we can make for you without spending silly money, get in touch today, click HERE.
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