What's a website worth? The BlogWhiz Blog

Blog Whiz:

What’s a website worth?

As a web designer, I cannot tell you how many times each month I am contacted by prospective business owners about launching a website for their new enterprise.

Of course, that’s a perfectly sound move in 2007. If you are going to start a new business, whether from home or from a ‘brick-and-mortar’ location, you’ll need a website. Most savvy people realize that potential customers might never learn about their products and services without a website.

A website is a core business requirement.

For the most part, the business website has supplanted expensive ‘yellow page’ phone directory advertising, the printing costs for thousands of marketing brochures, direct mail campaigns, and, even the huge payroll overhead of a captive sales force. Why? Because, when people want something today, they go online to find it.

Okay… yes, we still use the yellow pages to order pizza or find a plumber in an emergency. And, brochures are always handy to give an undecided customer who doesn’t own a computer. And yes, yes, some marketing applications (insurance comes to mind) still utilize sales people to cold call potential customers… But, let’s face facts. Those tools are so horse-and-buggy. Today, your customers travel digitally.

But, there’s a problem: Websites cost money. Isn’t that odd?

The very idea sounds crazy to some people: “Websites cost money.” You can almost sense the indignation coursing through the phone line: “Imagine someone actually profiting from designing and creating websites! How rude.” Or, “It’s not that I object to paying for a professional website, but my even my 16-year old nephew can build a website, after all.” Whatever. One thing is true, though. Guys actually do exist in this world who charge money to design and develop websites.

Ahhh…well. How did the web design business ever arrive at this sad dilemma? I don’t really know, but I place most of the blame on Matthew Broderick. Yeah: The movie actor, Matthew Broderick. You remember. He was the kid in the 1983 movie “War Games” that showed the world how easy it was to use a computer to hack the Internet and start WWIII. Broderick began this whole “any smart kid can program a computer” thing. Look at where we are today: Name an action movie set in modern times that doesn’t have a scene with some young person urgently tapping into a keyboard and (Ding!) 2 seconds later, out pops the identity of the NSA’s most secret deep cover agent, or the Pentagon’s plans for the invasion of Lichtenstein, or DuPont’s latest diabolical climate-killing chemical formula. See? Computers are easy, especially for kids.

So, armed with this intelligence and prevailing world view, the careful, soon-to-be prospective business novice calls up the local web guy. The guy tells him he’s looking at a couple of grand for a professional business web site. “Holy Cow! A couple of thousand dollars for a lousy website? Why, why I know a guy who’ll do a website for $300 bucks! Jeez!” Conversation over. Business vision crushed.

As a web guy, I try to be philosophical. “Websites are a lot like cars.” Want a BMW? Bring bucks. Just need a VW? Ah, well, bring bucks anyway. No, wait. Just need a junker? Bring, what? A grand – or two? Okay: That’s probably a bad analogy.

Regardless, I am mystified. No one has this problem with the printer. You walk in there and it’s a cool hundred for business cards on up to a couple of thousand if you want stationary. Oh, and by the way, that’s one-color. Decent logo design? Ha! Count yourself lucky to get a bargain rate for $3200. Need a professional computer rig for your business? Well, a couple thousand more. Want to run any software on that computer? Another grand. Now, you need a website? That’s going to be just $300 bucks? Come on.

But, we stray too far. So, what the hell does a website cost?

Well, a professional, custom-designed website with search engine optimization built-in costs around $2400. That price also gets the business owner full content editing capability. Ecommerce functionality (online store with shopping cart) and special programming will jack the price up considerably. Regardless, $2400 is near the low end for professional design. I mean serious businesses pay tens of thousands for websites. Really.

The real question should be: “In the world of my business, what place does my website occupy.” Ah ha! Answer that one and reality dawns. Today, your website is a critical component of your business. In some cases, the website IS the business. In most cases, the website plays an indispensible marketing and sales role vital to the profitability and success of the enterprise.

Websites cost money

The solution is: Whatever your budget for your new business, first and foremost, set aside a major portion to design and build your Internet presence. This isn’t 1983, it’s 2007. And, truthfully, most kids really don’t have a clue how to design and build business websites.