The 8 Hidden Costs of Web Design Services
If your business is in need of a new website you may be wondering ‘what are the hidden costs of a website and web development project’?
In this article we’ll cover the most common hidden costs of a web design project along with some insider tips you can use to avoid getting surprised so you have can have the right website design costs and budget in place.
Web Design Scope Creep and Budget Overruns
What is website scope creep? It’s when additional items are added to a website project after it’s started.
What typically happens, is once a project begins, new and better ideas come to mind.
Those new ideas are passed along to the website agency requesting that they be added in before the launch date.
The challenge, is that the additional items delay the building of your website and the initial launch date.
The extension of the launch date also gives more time for new ideas to get added to the website project, which delays the launch date again and can increase fees. It ends up becoming a cycle that delays the launch indefinitely.
Before you know it, a website that should take 60 days from start to finish can drag out for 6 months, 12 months or more.
The hidden cost can be all the lost sales.
The sooner your website is launched, the sooner you can get new customers.
Every month that your website is delayed, is another month of lost opportunity.
Scope can result in hidden costs in the form of losing tens of thousands in revenue.
Action Items (Website Design Costs)
- Work with your agency to identify the core items your website needs to launch while also being effective enough to get sales.
- Have a scope of work agreement that both you and the agency sign.
- Stick to the agreement and hold off on adding anything else until after your website launches.
The Cost of Content
Content creation includes the wording, images and videos.
While the design of a website is very important, it’s the content that earns visitors from search engines and turns those visitors into customers.
If the wording and images are an afterthought, the costs to your business could be quite a bit in lost visitors and sales.
Action Items (Cost of Content Services)
- Either work with an agency that has writers on staff or hire a professional website copywriter to work with them.
- Have a clear content strategy for your website, from the beginning, that factors in rankings and visitor conversions.
- Either hire a photographer or acquire free-to-use images that complement the written content.
- Avoid off-the-shelf video. Instead create your own videos that complement the written content and images.
Hosting and Domain Name Pricing
No matter how or where your website is created, there will be web hosting and domain name registration fees.
The issue arises when you pay your site agency to also manage your website hosting.
You end up paying more for the hosting when the agency bakes in their fee to the pricing.
Also, if you ever want to switch agencies, you may not be able transfer your website to a new hosting account results in an additional cost.
Action Items
- Tell your website design agency that you’d like to buy the hosting directly. If they are reputable, it should not be an issue and they should recommend some WordPress site hosting options.
- After buying the service, invite the agency in as a collaborator and they will handle all the technical work on your site.
Regular Website Maintenance
Like anything else, someone needs to keep your website up-to-date from a security standpoint.
Depending on where you build your website, that typically means updating and testing your website at least once a month.
While this isn’t quite as costly, it’s important that someone either on your team or the agency, is responsible.
If your website goes down or gets hacked or both, it could mean lost sales until it’s resolved.
Action Items (e.g. Web Designer and WordPress Building Services)
- Ask your website design agency if they will handle the monthly maintenance and support services or if it will be your responsibility.
- If it’s your responsibility, then complete site updates once a month with this step-by-step guide.
The Cost of Updates
Updating your website is an on-going process. You’ll want to keep your customers updated, as things change in your business.
This could include things like additional features, revisions, and customizations or development of custom design.
Whether it’s your site agency or an internal team member, since someone will need to take the time to keep your website updated, there will be a real cost to pay them for their time.
Depending on the size of your business and number of pages, it may be quick or may a number of hours to complete each month.
Action Items
- Ask your website design agency, how they handle updates after launch. Depending on the size of your business, the skill set of your team and frequency of edits, it may make more sense to do them internally or for your agency to take care of them. Either way, have this conversation at the beginning so you are prepared.
Monthly Marketing
While building and launching a great website is the first step of your marketing, it’s typically not enough effort to generate more leads can you can handle.
Let’s say your new website ranked #1 for all your important keywords on the first day, that would be excellent. But since about 95% of search visitors are asking questions (not ready to buy), you would only get in front of about 5% of all search visitors.
The hidden costs in marketing is thinking that your new site is enough.
Website Action Items
- Make a short list of marketing channels where you think your customers are asking questions or hanging out. (e.g Facebook, Google, Instagram, Linkedin, TikTok, Youtube, etc.)
- Rank them from most likely to least likely.
- Ask your website design agency if they are experts in the #1 most likely channel.
- If they are, consider using them for monthly marketing.
- If they are not, hire an expert agency in that particular channel.
Time is Money
Measuring how much time you’ve lost trying to get your website launched can be pretty hard to calculate.
This typically happens when you hire an inexperienced agency or web designer to save on costs.
The loss in time is from constantly following up, correcting items and double-checking all the work on your site.
While there’s a time and place to bootstrap your site, if you have the budget, you’ll save tons of your time by delegating your project to professionals and you’ll get better results.
Website Action Items
- Research agency reviews.
- Avoid someone who is just getting started.
- Ask lots of questions before choosing. If it’s hard to get questions answered, that is a red flag.
- Get sense of how organized an agency or designer is with their designing process.
- Dive deeper and learn how to make the right choice.
The Cost of Lost Leads and Sales
If you hire the wrong website agency for your project, it can cost your business more in the end.
While a major focus will be the website costs incurred, the bigger concern should be the return on your investment.
If you make the wrong decision, you could save money on the launch of your site, but lose money with lost lead and sales.
Website Action Items
- Before reaching out to a website agency, write down a clear set of goals that you want to achieve for your business.
- Find agencies that have achieved similar kinds of goals for other businesses.
- Request proposals from 2-3 agencies.
- Dive deeper and learn how to make the right choice.
Hidden Costs of a Webiste
There are a lot of moving parts to launching a new site.
If you follow the action items above and create a website budget, you’ll be prepared and avoid any hidden surprises when it comes to the cost of your new website.
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