Deciding to build a website is an exciting time for anyone. Whether you’re an experienced business owner trying to improve your existing website or starting your own business, a new website plays a very significant role in how you connect with customers.

Websites help businesses reach their customers and sell their products or services. In a survey conducted by PWC, it was found that a majority of customers purchase products directly from a brand’s website. With most things moving digital, websites play an essential role in the user journey. You can’t really do business without one.

Maybe you doubt that a bit, which is ok. We’re here to help you understand the cost of building a website and why building a good website is massively important.

Do you need a website?

Put simply: yeah, you do.

According to Statista, the number of internet users worldwide stood at 5.3 billion in 2023. This is around two-thirds of the global population — a lot of active people!. It truly is a world wide web.

But what are they doing on the internet? Searching for solutions.

Where do they find them? On websites.

If you want to sell products or services, you need to appear in places where people are looking. If most of the population is connected to the internet, it pays to have a website people can find when they’re looking for solutions. Although your website won’t be the only medium you use to sell your products or services, it is one of the most effective.

This is because it’s one of the few places people can go to get a comprehensive snapshot of your business without directly speaking to you. The purpose of a website is to give people the information they need to understand your business and what it is about within a few seconds. The most important information should be on the first page to show how you can provide a solution to a user.

Websites are convenient. No back-and-forth emails. No brochures or printed pricing lists. Everything in one place on one page to make the purchasing process easier.

Forbes says: “Some businesses still don’t realise that a majority of their customers will visit their website before making a purchase.” Word of mouth and other marketing channels are still incredibly important and effective, but most of the journey now starts with a website.

What do websites cost?

Depending on your goals, the cost to build a website can range between $5,000 to $50,000, and sometimes more — WHOA! That’s a lot of cash, but there are a lot of factors that go into determining the cost of building a site. There is a lot that happens before and after a website goes live. These items are completed in the website development process:

Discovery
Wireframes
Content
Design
Development
Testing
Launch

Design

Before people shop with their wallets, they shop with their eyes. It’s a fact: good designs result in more sales. The benefits of a good design are not only in sales but also in other areas of business. According to a survey done by RMIT, “companies with high design maturity see cost savings, revenue gains, and brand and market position improvements as a result of their design efforts.”

Good designs focus on both the user experience and user interface of the website to achieve these goals. By finding solutions to problems users face when interacting with websites, brands can deliver information more effectively, resulting in positive user experiences. Cheap website design focuses on one thing and one thing only: keeping costs low. Little time is spent on considering how design can address problems, instead, it is spent simply on the cheapest way to get the job done.

Take your own behaviour when interacting with a website as an example. Your motivation to keep using the site quickly decreases if roadblocks prevent you from ordering, finding content, or submitting information. Google even knows this and measures websites against their core web vitals.

If your goals extend beyond making a good impression on social media or in your emails, then your design needs to do more than just get the job done. Design involves several steps to deliver a complete and enjoyable user experience. Cheap website designers often skip over all these steps to help reduce the overall price. You need to keep in mind that users who enjoy their experience are more likely to trust your brand and do business with you, so taking the necessary steps will only help your business.

Content

Content is king, and it’s no different when it comes to websites. As much as a website might be easy to use, is it easy to understand? Content is the written information, images, and video on a website. It plays a role in presenting information to humans and search engines.

Why is content important in a website? Content also plays a significant role in informing the structure of the site and the overall design. The importance of website layout cannot be overstated. Failing to balance the design so that it fits into a logical structure will result in your website either not being found in search engines or users just not understanding how to use it. Which is worse? We’ll save that for another blog post.

Development

This is where things get complicated. A custom-built website will have a more complex design, so it will take longer to develop, making its price higher. More complex designs also have more features that improve the user experience, so it’s a fine art of balancing price with usability. The price is also influenced by hosting plans and domain name registration. You can’t have a website without either of those.

How the website is developed also significantly impacts the user experience. Bulky code, cheap hosting plans and images that aren’t optimised impact how fast your website loads and how responsive it is. Excessive plugin usage adds to the code and can slow it down as well.

Be very cautious of cheap websites. These are often developed carelessly and in a rush, and with little design consideration. They’re also typically hosted on very cheap servers and look templated and unoriginal.

The key difference between cheap and expensive websites is that every step is involved before the site goes live. Still trying to wrap your head around it? Here’s a table comparing the key differences between cheap and expensive websites to help illustrate the differences.

Depending on the size of your business and your requirements, a cheap website might be sufficient for you. But just be aware that it will not be unique and will have very limited functionality. You are also unlikely to get the support you need to use it after the site has been developed. Websites should be designed for the end user, which includes you and your customers. When developing, our goal is to ensure you are able to use it after we have finished.

Inexperienced developers that build cheap websites are also prone to quoting without scoping. They might promise something cheap initially that quickly stacks up over time as development starts and the project gets appropriately scoped out. The other problem with this approach is that there’s no accountability on the delivery of the final product, so you might find that you’re doing more work to get things done on time than you initially anticipated.

All things considered, we think Red Adair summarises it best: “If you think it’s expensive to hire a professional, wait until you hire an amateur.” Custom website development services might seem expensive, but they can save you time and plenty headaches in the future.

Should you build your own website?

This isn’t a bad idea for some small businesses, but as your site becomes more complex, it will require input from experienced designers, copywriters and web developers.

That being said, if you’d prefer to have a crack at it yourself, page builders like Squarespace, Wix and the like are a great place to start. These page builders have made website building incredibly accessible, but they have limitations. Unless you have a thorough understanding of HTML, CSS and JavaScript, you will be limited by their pre-built widgets, meaning you’ll have the same features as everyone else who uses these platforms. ColorLib says that there are 2.96 million websites on Squarespace alone.

The other problem is that you won’t only be responsible for building the site, but writing the content, sourcing images, designing the assets, purchasing and connecting the domain, placing tracking codes, indexing the site and a whole bunch more. AI tools like ChatGPT and Gemini can support you in many of these areas, but you need to keep in mind how unique you want your website to be to avoid it getting lost amidst the millions of others.

Ready. Set. Go!

Your website is the foundation and glue that ties all your marketing efforts together. If done well, it can set you up for long-term success and provide assets and marketing material for future campaigns and other marketing channels.

Websites that follow all the necessary procedures are more likely to succeed on search engines and serve your business in the long term. If you build your site correctly, you will likely avoid costly upgrades when your needs change.

While custom website development might seem expensive, we think it serves your business better in the long term. If it’s well outside your budget, you can choose to build it yourself, but you’ll be quite limited in its functionality, and it might cost you more money in the long term.

How Much Does it Cost to Build a Website in Australia?

Do you need a website?