Table of Contents
- Introduction
- Various Costs Involved In Building A Website
- Website Building Cost Breakdown By Business Size
& Type - Website Building Cost Breakdown By Elements
- Website Building Cost Breakdown By Method
- Breakdown Of Website Maintenance Costs//Ongoing
Website Costs - Breakdown Of Website Marketing Costs
- The Costs Involved In Building A Website: A
Detailed Analysis - The Costs Involved In Maintaining A Website: A
Detailed Analysis - The Costs Involved In Marketing A Website: A
Detailed Analysis
Introduction
Regardless of the nature, industry, and type of customers of your business, having a website is almost compulsory to attain success. Reports show that there are 4.66 billion active daily users on the web, with approximately 700,000 new additions being made every day.
That’s why having a business website is not optional anymore. The biggest concern around building a website is the cost involved. On average, the design and development of a business website costs around $1000 USD to $50000 USD. Then there’s also website maintenance that costs anywhere between $50 USD and $ 1000 USD.
You can explore more about what goes into buiding a business website below:
Learn More About Website Creation Costs
Calculate The Cost Of Building Your Website
Various Costs Involved In Building A Website
In this section, we share the average costs of everything involved in creating and managing a website. As mentioned earlier, besides the initial design and development, the cost of maintaining a website should also be factored in. Besides these, the cost of marketing a website is also an important consideration. After all, there’s no point in having a website if nobody knows about it.
Website Design and Development
Website Maintenance
Website Marketing
Scroll down below to learn more about the costs involved in using the different options available for building a website. Find out the costs of building a website yourself (using a website builder) and how they compare with working with a freelance website developer and a web development agency.
Website Building Cost Breakdown By Business Size & Type
Placing a price tag on a business website is not a straightforward task. This is because the actual cost of a finished website depends on a variety of factors including the size of the website and the features added to it.
As mentioned earlier, the cost of website design only varies between $1000 USD and $50000 USD. By categorizing websites based on the size and the features they need, it is possible to bring some more perspective to the actual cost of a website. The following table is dedicated to this exact purpose:
Small Business Website/Blog
Corporate Website
Ecommerce Store
Web Applications
Website Building Cost Breakdown By Elements
Besides the design and development of the website code, or interface (using a website builder), there are a number of other elements required to keep a website “live” on the web. Thankfully, most of these are one-time expenses. Meaning, the initial cost of creating and making a website live on the web is usually higher than the subsequent maintenance costs.
| Element/Feature/Task | One-Time/Recurring | Cost |
| Domain name | Recurring (annually) | $10 – $1000 |
| SSL Certificate | Recurring (annually) | $10 – $500 |
| Hosting | Recurring (annually) | $10 – $100 |
| Theme | One-Time | $20 – $10000 |
| Multimedia | One-Time | $10 – $1000 |
| CMS | One-Time | |
| Ecommerce functionality | One-Time | <Figure> |
| Database integration + management | One-Time | <Figure> |
| Page Design + Development | One-Time | <Figure> |
Website Building Cost Breakdown By Method
When it comes to creating a website, businesses usually have a few options. The most popular DIY options are using the WordPress platform or using a Website builder. Both have their advantages and disadvantages.
For instance, one big disadvantage of using WordPress is that if your business doesn’t have an in-house web development expert, there will most probably come a point when you will need to seek help from a professional WordPress developer. Despite being advertised as DIY-friendly, developing and maintaining a WordPress website is a technically intensive undertaking.
Similarly, website builders like Wix and Squarespace present themselves as complete web development solutions. While these website builders can enable non-technical teams to create aesthetic websites, adding functionalities and making those websites user-friendly is a common challenge. Meaning, if you are planning to truly customize your website using a website builder, technical xpertise will be needed.
These are perhaps the reasons why using the services of a freelance web developer or a web development agency are the most popular choices made by businesses looking to build an online presence. Here’s a breakdown of how the costs compare between options:
Website Builder/DIY
WordPress Development
Website Development Freelancer
Web Development Agency
Breakdown Of Website Maintenance Costs//Ongoing Website Costs
Building a website is one thing. Making sure it performs well after the development phase is over is an entirely different task. Routine maintenance is a critical part of ensuring your website is truly offering the kind of experience that is fit for your prospects and customers. Here’s a breakdown of all the costs involved in the routine maintenance of a website:
Domain name
SSL
Hosting
CMS
Ecommerce tools
Code maintenance
Cost of hiring freelancer/agency or website builder subscription
Breakdown Of Website Marketing Costs
Simply creating a website is not enough to achieve success online. Investing in Digital Marketing is crucial for businesses that want to generate business online. This entails consistently implementing traffic and conversion strategies to ensure more website visits, more conversions, and more revenue.
Even if you have a physical store that sells offline, Digital Marketing services like local SEO, PPC, and social media marketing and advertising can be utilized to establish your business as a locally recognized brand. Moreover, these services can also increase the footfall in your offline store.
Here’s a breakdown of the average costs of different digital marketing services:
| SEO | $1000 – $50000 |
| PPC | $1000 – $50000 |
| Content Marketing | $1500 – $5000 |
| Copywriting | $1000 – $5000 |
| Social Media Marketing | $1000 – $7000 |
| Social Media Advertising | $1000 – $50000 |
| Email Marketing | $500 – $5000 |
The Costs Involved In Building A Website: A Detailed Analysis
A website or a website redesign can result in a measurable positive impact on any business’s bottom line, assuming that the development and marketing activities are done right. With that said, the cost of building a website falls in an incredibly broad range, somewhere between $1000 USD and $50000 USD.
This range makes the undertaking that is website development daunting to many businesses, especially if they are just starting out with building their online presence. This section of this guide is dedicated to helping you understand the costs involved and the benefit of specific investments made into building a website.
Our objective here is to help you make an informed business decision based on hard facts. Let’s jump right in:
Domain Name
Definition
Simply put, the domain name is the name of your website. For example, www.google.com is the domain name for Google’s search engine, www.facebook.com is the domain name for the Facebook platform. Domain names are unique and no two websites can have the same domain name. Other websites may have a similar domain name but they cannot have the same domain name as your website. In other words, a domain name is the unique identity of your website.
Importance
The importance of a domain name is not difficult to understand. It is the most important part of your business’ online identity. This means, even when you change all or most of the other things that will be discussed in the upcoming sections, like the hosting provider or the CMS provider, your domain name will remain the same.
It is the name your business will be associated with online and the name your customers and prospects will use to find your website online, either through the address bar in their browsers or through search engines. With that said, in some cases, the business name and the website name may differ due to a variety of reasons. For instance, someone may already own the domain you want to be associated with your business.
Another reason that your domain name is important is that it is where advertising platforms send the traffic resulting from your pay-per-click or PPC campaigns. Without a domain name in place, you may be forced to send the traffic to other web properties such as your business’ social media handles.
Cost
A brand new domain name can cost anywhere between %0.9 and $15, depending on where you purchase it from. Popular vendors that sell domain names are Namecheap, GoDaddy, and HostGator. However, these are only a few names among the hundreds of companies that offer domain names for sale.
In case someone already owns the domain name you want, purchasing a domain name may incur a larger cost, sometimes thousands of dollars. The exact cost of a pre-owned domain depends on a variety of factors including the age of the domain, its history, and the terms that appear in the domain name. If you wish to buy a pre-owned domain name, you will have to contact the owner and strike a deal with them.
Renewal of domain names is a recurring expense for website owners.
SSL Certificate
Definition
A Secure Socket Layer certificate or SSL certificate, as the name suggests, adds a layer of security to your website. An SSL certificate is responsible for safeguarding the sensitive information associated with your website. This can include employee data, sensitive intellectual property, or customer data, including card numbers used for making online payments.
Whether or not a website has an active SSL certificate can be revealed by looking at the domain. A domain without an SSL certificate looks like this:
On the other hand, one with an SSL certificate looks like this:
There’s only a small difference here. In the initial part of the URL, the example without an SSL certificate features “http” while the one with the SSL certificate features “https”. Besides this small but important difference, another difference that can be noticed between websites with and without an SSL certificate is the small padlock icon that appears at the extreme left of the address bar of a browser.
For websites that don’t have an SSL certificate, such a padlock will not be visible. For those that have an SSL certificate, the padlock will be visible. Clicking on the padlock will reveal the information about the SSL certificate of that website. Here’s what it looks like:
Screenshot
Importance
The importance of an SSL certificate from a security point of view is quite obvious. However, an SSL certificate, thanks to the security features it offers, is also used by the users on the web to discern whether or not a website is trustworthy. Anyone that is aware of the purpose of an SSL certificate and the method to verify whether or not a website has one is likely to look for it before they interact with a website.
In other words, if you expect your prospects and customers to make payments or enter any kind of personal information on your website, having an SSL certificate is absolutely critical. In some cases, browsers like Google’s Chrome will also warn users if they attempt to visit an ‘unsafe’ website that does not have an active SSL certificate.
Cost
There are a number of companies that offer free SSL installation for any website. However, it is recommended that websites that record and/or store sensitive customer information opt for a paid SSL certificate. An SSL certificate can cost anywhere between $0 and $1500 for a year. This means it is a recurring or ongoing expense for website owners.
As one can expect, a paid SSL certificate offers better encryption and advanced protection.
Some of the most well-known vendors that offer paid SSL certificates are GoDaddy and Norton.
Hosting
Definition
In simple words, website hosting allows other people to access your website. Without a hosting service, your website will not be “live” on the web. A hosting service provider offers space on their server, which is connected to the web. This space is used to “host” websites.
Importance
The fact that website hosting is essential for keeping the website live on the web offers a piece of great evidence that hosting is important. However, besides this function, the choice of hosting service type and provider can greatly influence the way your website functions. Some of the aspects of your website that are influenced by a hosting service are:
- Speed of the website
- Security of the website
- Quality of support you get when your hosting service is down
The last point, about the support you receive when the hosting service is down, is often an important factor when choosing a hosting service provider. While most hosting services claim to offer 99% uptime, problems still occur, and without quality support on your side, navigating through the technical problems can become an enormous challenge. This is why, despite the availability of free hosting providers in the market, most businesses don’t choose them.
Cost
On average, hosting service providers can charge you between $2/month to nearly $2000/month. Sure, the exact cost of hosting service varies between different providers but the actual variation occurs because of the type of hosting you choose. Most hosting service providers offer three types of plans or hosting options:
Shared Hosting:As the name suggests, with shared hosting, your website will be sharing the hosting provider’s server space with a bunch of other websites. As a result, this may affect the speed and functionality of your website. However, shared hosting is still the most widely used type of hosting because it is affordable. Shared hosting plans can cost anywhere between $24 and $120 per year.
Virtual Private Server (VPS): With a VPS, the hosting service provider “divides” their server into smaller virtual servers and dedicates different virtual servers to different clients. Meaning, your website can make complete use of all of the resources available in your virtual server. Since there are no other websites sharing the same bandwidth, VPS hosting offers considerable performance and security benefits over shared hosting. It is also more expensive than shared hosting, with plans ranging between $250 and $600 per year.
Dedicated Server: A dedicated server for a single website offers enormous advantages over the other two hosting types. However, most websites that serve less than 100,000 monthly users will not be able to enjoy the full benefits of a dedicated server. In fact, websites that attract more than 100,000 monthly users must subscribe to a dedicated hosting server in order to ensure a delightful experience for their users. A dedicated server hosting can cost anywhere between $1200 and $24000 per year.
Besides these options, website builders like Wix and Squarespace also offer their own hosting service for their website builder clients. These companies may charge anywhere between $60 and $180 per year for their hosting service. This is a great option for small businesses and customers of these services. However, it may not be as well-suited for enterprise or mid-size businesses.
While we are still on the subject of the cost of hosting service, it is worth noting that offering big discounts for the first year subscription of hosting service is a common practice in the industry. Meaning, even if you do find a pocket-friendly hosting service, it is important to pay attention to the renewal charges as they are considerably higher than the initial cost of setting up hosting.
Businesses that are working with professional web developers or web development agencies should seek advice from their vendors while choosing the best hosting service for their websites.
Theme/Web Design
Definition
Themes are pre-made website layouts, usually used with WordPress websites and those created using website builders. In both cases, website owners can choose between free and premium themes. As you may have guessed, premium themes offer significant advantages over free ones. Premium themes offer more features, better designs, better usability, better security, and are often backed by support from the developer of the theme.
The design and templates of all other websites are designed from scratch. As one can expect, this is the most influential aspect of developing a website.
Importance
Besides dictating how aesthetically pleasing your website looks, the design of your website also greatly influences the experience of the users that visit it. From being able to easily navigate through the website to find relevant information to the time it takes for each page to load, the design of your website can make or break your brand image with the experience it offers.
If users find your website difficult to navigate or find the design clunky, they will move on to a competitor’s website. Regardless of the industry, modern internet users have a wide variety of options to find information and products.
Other websites that will be sending traffic to your website will also pay a lot of attention to the experience offered by your website. This is especially true in the case of search engines. Search engines like Google are one of the biggest sources of organic traffic on the web. However, attracting traffic using search engine optimization is an attempt in futility unless you have a great looking and great functioning website.
Cost
Based on the complexity of the design and the choice of the designer, a complete website design created from scratch may cost anywhere between $2000 and $15000. Simpler website designs will cost less than complex website designs.
Having said that, a complex website design, loaded with many features is not necessarily better than a minimal and simple design. The choice should entirely depend on the nature of your business, the kind of products and services you offer, and the preferences of your target audience.
Responsive Design
Definition
Responsive design makes your website viewable on any device. Basically, a responsive design makes your website adapt to the screen of the user to provide a seamless experience across devices. Regardless of whether a user uses a tablet, or a smartphone, or a desktop, they will get a consistent experience on your website if it has a responsive design.
Importance
As mentioned earlier, when it comes to getting more traffic directed to your website, and converting that traffic into revenue, the experience on your website plays a decisive role. Keeping that in mind, when you also know that more than half the users on the web use mobile devices to access websites, the importance of having a responsive website instantly becomes clear.
Cost
Some businesses opt for creating separate websites for mobile device and desktop users. However, this is not recommended. Creating separate websites doesn’t just incur additional development costs, it also increases the cost and work that goes into marketing. For this reason, it is best to invest in making your first website or your existing website responsive. Adding responsive features to a web design may incur a cost of around <figure>.
Individual Website Pages
Definition
The term “individual website pages” is self-explanatory. The number of pages on a website is often the most important factor that freelance developers and development agencies consider while quoting a price. More pages usually cost more.
Importance
The decision of how many pages should there be on your website is a critical one and it varies depending on a number of factors. Most small and local business websites can do away with only a handful of website pages. On the other hand, large businesses or businesses that offer a wide variety of products and services may require more pages on their websites.
Ecommerce websites also typically tend to feature a large number of pages. In some cases, even small businesses may opt for a higher-than-needed number of website pages to support their future content marketing and search engine optimization efforts.
Cost
As mentioned earlier, the cost of website development can significantly vary depending on the number of required pages. Most pricing structures change with the number of pages in the following ways:
| Number Of Pages | Cost |
| 1-10 | <figure> |
| 10-50 | <figure> |
| 50-150 | <figure> |
| 150-300 | <figure> |
Multimedia And Interactive Media
Definition
Multimedia refers to website elements like videos, images, illustrations, infographics, and other such visuals. Interactive media, on the other hand, refers to website elements that users can interact with to actively participate in dictating their experience on a website.
Importance
Multimedia on a website is important for a couple of reasons. The primary reason behind the importance of multimedia is that it improves a user’s experience on a website.
Think about it, would you rather visit a website that exclusively features long, monotonous blocks of text or would you prefer visiting a website that uses graphics, images, and illustrations to explain concepts?
The other reason behind the importance of the use of multimedia on websites is that organic traffic sources like search engines give them preference. While the use of multimedia doesn’t guarantee your website will be able to attract more traffic, it definitely helps.
Similarly, interactive media also contributes to a better experience on your website. Businesses that offer products that solve complex problems, like many software businesses, use interactive media on their websites to show how their products work.
The combination of interactive media and multimedia can play a crucial role in engaging your website visitors and creating a lasting impression on them.
Cost
The addition of multimedia to a website may not cost a lot, or even anything if you have your own visuals to supply to your web designer. However, interactive media demands technical expertise. A lot of time and work goes into the development of interactive media features on websites. Depending on the work required and the complexity of the features you want, interactive features may cost anywhere between $300 and $2000.
CMS
Definition
A content management system or CMS allows website owners (and their teams) to make changes to a website’s information without having to edit the code of the website. In other words, without a CMS, website owners may require the help of a developer to make changes to their website.
Importance
A CMS is important for any business website that takes marketing seriously. This is because most marketing on the web is powered by a consistent supply of high-quality content. Since most of this content will be uploaded to your website, you need a way to do it without needing the help of a development expert.
In other words, if you don’t have in-house website development talent, a CMS will enable you to have complete control over the content of your website. It will not only save the cost of enlisting the help of a developer every time you need to make an update to your website, but it will also help you save a lot of precious time.
Cost
Integrating a CMS to your website may cost anywhere between <figure> and <figure>. The exact cost may depend on the CMS your purchase and the complexities involved in the actual integration. The most popular CMS currently available in the market are WordPress, Magento, and Hubspot, but there are many other options available. Your website development expert or agency will be the best place to get advice about choosing the right CMS for your website.
Ecom Functionality
Definition
Ecommerce functionality is actually not a single function. It refers to a variety of features and website elements that differentiate eCommerce websites from websites meant for service-based businesses.
Different eCommerce features ensure that your customers can make payments and purchase from your website and you to process payments and orders. Some examples of eCommerce features include:
- Consistent product pages
- Active payment gateways
- Multiple payment options
- Shopping carts
- Shipping systems
Importance
Ecommerce features turn a normal website into an eCommerce website. Their importance to an eCommerce business is pretty self-explanatory. Without a shopping cart set up and product pages, you cannot showcase your products or enable users to pick and choose from your collection. Similarly, without a functioning payment gateway, you cannot process online payments. Without a shipping system in place, you cannot fulfill orders.
Cost
The cost of eCommerce functionality, like most costs involved in the creation of a website, varies for different websites. One of the most influential factors in this matter is the size of the product catalog that needs to features on the website. A bigger catalog will need more pages and may incur larger development costs. Similarly, bigger companies may require more complex features. Implementing these features may also lead to additional expenses. The cost of development may also depend on the number of orders processed by the website on a daily, weekly, or monthly basis.
Factoring in all these variables, the cost of adding eCommerce functionalities to your website may be anywhere between <figure> and <figure>.
Database Integration
Definition
Businesses work with a variety of different databases. A dedicated database of customer information or a dedicated database of employee information are the most common examples. If you want your business’ database to be made available on your website, or if the database is to be used to classify users coming on the website, database integration is required.
Importance
Database integration enables businesses to digitize their data and store it in a secure place. In the case of eCommerce websites, database integration can also enable customers to view detailed information about products, pricing policies, and other policies related to the products.
Similarly, database integration can enable your business to launch, manage, and track the impact of loyalty programs. The same database can also be used to send personalized offers and content to shoppers to motivate them to make another purchase.
Database integration is not a mandatory step in the website development process, but it is definitely a useful addition.
Cost
The cost of data integration can depend on many factors but two of them have the most influence. These are the complexity and size of your data, and the level of customization required. If you are planning to integrate years of legacy company data, it will cost a bit more than integrating a third-party database with your website.
Based on the above-mentioned factors, database integration may cost anywhere between <figure> and <figure>.
The Costs Involved In Maintaining A Website: A Detailed Analysis
Building a website is the first, most basic step of creating an online presence. All the subsequent steps that lead to a holistic and impactful online business presence are dependent on the uninterrupted functioning of your website.
This is where website maintenance becomes relevant. With regular maintenance, you can ensure that your website is continuously live on the web. You can also ensure that every aspect of your website, every feature, every element, every piece of content, every graphic, every illustration, and everything else is looking and working exactly as it should.
Luckily, most of the maintenance tasks related to a business website are not as much tasks as they are expenses. Let’s look at what these are:
Domain Name
As mentioned earlier, domain name renewal is a recurring expense, and an important one at that. Timely domain name renewal is critical to ensuring your website is live on the web. Failure to renew the domain name purchase can result in loss of ownership of the domain and unavailability of your website to your audience.
In some cases, domain renewal cost comes as a surprise to website owners because the domain name is often sold for “free” with hosting plans. However, a year later, this brand new expense pops up. However, it is an unavoidable expense.
The good news is, if you have paid a hefty amount for your domain name, the renewal will not be as expensive. Website owners can expect to pay anywhere between $2 and $20 to renew their domain names.
SSL Certificate
The importance of having an active SSL certificate on your website has already been mentioned. But just to recap, it is the most basic and important layer of security on your website. Your SSL certificate, just like your domain name, will need annual renewals. These renewals can cost anywhere between $10 and $1500.
Hosting
Hosting is a service and has a recurring cost associated with it. Bearing this cost is an absolute necessity if you want to keep your website live on the web.
As mentioned in the previous section, many hosting providers offer huge discounts for the first year subscription of their service. However, it is important to note that the discounted rates offered at the time of subscription are not applicable at the time of renewal. Renewals are done at the actual cost of the service.
Depending on the choice of hosting provider and plan, some website owners may be charged a renewal fee that is three times the original amount they paid at the time of signup.
To avoid bad experiences, it is strongly recommended to depend on the advice of your web development agency while choosing a hosting provider. With that said, website hosting renewals may cost anywhere between $100 and $10,000.
CMS
The initial cost associated with a content management system also involves the cost of integrating the CMS with your website. This is important to remember because there are a number of amazing free content management systems that you can continue using without having to worry about a recurring cost. One of the best examples of a free content management system has to be Joomla.
With that said, premium content management systems like Hubspot may incur a monthly or annual renewal fee. In some cases, large enterprises spend up to $30000 per year on a CMS.
Ecom Functionality
Maintenance of eCommerce functionalities, in the case of small eCommerce businesses, only refers to the cost of using a bank payment gateway to process online payments. However, as your brand grows and starts serving more and more customers with more and more products, the number of maintenance tasks will increase, and so will the cost involved.
For starters, eCommerce business owners should be prepared to pay $200 to $300 per year for their online payment gateway.
Code/Website Maintenance
Code and website maintenance is not a single task. It can include a number of tasks that don’t fit under any of the above-mentioned categories. Some examples may include database maintenance, making changes and updates to the CMS, tracking and resolving usability issues on the website, and catering to customer support requests, among many others.
While all the other “tasks” on this list are actually expenses, this is an actual task that will require human intervention. You may need to enlist the expertise of a website developer or web development agency for regular website maintenance.
Thankfully, most web development agencies offer website maintenance packages along with their web development packages. This way, website owners save on the expense and trouble of hiring a dedicated resource for the job.
For small and mid-sized businesses the cost of website maintenance can vary between $200 and $1500. It may be considerably higher for enterprise websites.
The Costs Involved In Marketing A Website: A Detailed Analysis
Simply creating a website and maintaining its presence online is not nearly enough for businesses that are looking to monetize their online presence. In order to turn your website into a revenue-generation machine, digital marketing is imperative.
Since digital marketing is not a single task, but actually a series of marketing activities, the cost of marketing on the web can vary greatly from business to business. Besides the variation in cost because of the choice of vendors, the cost of digital marketing also depends on what marketing activities your business undertakes. For instance, pay-per-click advertising or PPC advertising is an expensive undertaking. Relatively speaking, search engine optimization or SEO is more pocket-friendly. Businesses that invest in either will incur a relatively lower cost than those that opt for both.
Let’s learn more about the individual marketing activities involved in bringing qualified traffic to a business website:
SEO
Definition
Search engine optimization (SEO) is a whole gamut of strategies and activities that website owners must undertake if they want to improve the visibility of their website in search engine results. Search engines use keywords to serve relevant information to their users. This information is usually served in the form of links to the website that feature the information that is relevant to the user’s search query.
For instance, when you search for “running shoes”, Google understands you may be interested in buying running shoes and displays websites that sell running shoes in the search results.
In a similar manner, you must also identify the search terms that your potential customers may be using to look up information and even products and services relevant to your business. However, this part of SEO, called keyword research, is just one step in a long process to attract organic traffic to a website. Search engines like Google evaluate websites on hundreds of parameters before placing them in their search results. Search engine optimization is all about optimizing your website to meet the expectations of search engines.
Importance
Search engines are hands down the most popular source of organic traffic on the web. So much so that the term “organic traffic” is now being used interchangeably with “search engine traffic”. This fact alone is a glaring evidence of the importance of search engine optimization.
Another big reason to invest in search engine optimization is that most of your customers probably use Google to find information and products. This is a safe bet when you know that Google entertains over 3.5 billion search requests every single day.
Another curious observation here is that most of the people conducting these searches never look past the first page of the search results. This means, for businesses that are hoping to attract organic traffic, getting placed on the first page of the search results of relevant search terms is absolutely critical.
Cost
Many companies advertise organic traffic sources as “free” sources of traffic. While it is technically true that website owners don’t have to directly pay for each visit on their website, SEO incurs a different type of cost. The cost of SEO lies in paying the experts and professionals that make it possible for a business website to rank well for relevant keywords and attract relevant traffic. On average, this cost lies between <figure> and <figure>.
However, some companies may incur a more substantial cost if they are trying to rank for a large number of keywords or if they are operating in a highly competitive industry like insurance.
PPC
Definition
PPC is short for pay-per-click. PPC is an advertising strategy that allows businesses to pay for each visitor that comes to their website through an ad. This means, with PPC, instead of paying upfront for an ad placement, your business pays only in the event when someone actually clicks on the ad and pays a visit to your website.
Just like SEO, PPC advertising is also done by targeting keywords. Meaning, as an advertiser, you will be able to select the keywords for which you want your website to rank.
Importance
PPC is one of the most affordable ways to advertise a business. Unlike search engine optimization, PPC ads can be optimized to target users that are using search engines for looking up products to purchase. Well-optimized PPC ads have the potential to generate a lot of business and deliver a handsome return-on-investment (ROI). With that said, obtaining a positive ROI may depend on a large number of factors including ad copy, landing page design, and the user experience of the process of making a purchase on your website. For this reason, it is strongly recommended to enlist the help of experienced professionals for your PPC advertising needs.
Cost
PPC, while it is more affordable than many other forms of advertising, is still an expensive undertaking when compared with other digital marketing avenues. This is because, with PPC, businesses aren’t just paying search engines for the traffic that they generate. In order to generate a positive ROI, businesses must enlist the help of, and pay, ad management experts, landing page creation agencies, and copywriters. Together, these costs can incur a total expense of <figure> to <figure>.
Copywriting
Definition
Copywriting is the act of producing (usually) written content that serves a specific purpose. In the digital world, website owners must depend on copywriters for a large variety of tasks- from on-brand, consistent website copy to conversion-focused copy for SEO, copywriters are an important cog in your online revenue generation strategy. In fact, almost every single digital marketing activity depends on good copywriting for its success. It may not always be the only factor that influences the rate of success but it is often one of the most influential ones.
Importance
Good copywriting enables your business to deliver the right message to the right prospects. It helps you create a brand by bringing consistency to your brand messaging. Another way copy and content writing help you build a brand is by enabling you to publish content that helps users. This allows you to become visible to users that are still researching before making the purchase. This way, when their research is finished, and it is time to make a purchase decision, it is highly likely that these prospects think of your brand.
Cost
The cost of copywriting varies dramatically between <figure> and <figure>. The exact amount will depend on the experience of the writer you are working with and their skill level. The charges of copywriters also depend on the demand they have. Inexperienced copywriters may still be able to produce amazing content and copies and may charge premium rates because of the high demand that they enjoy.
Content marketing
Definition
Content marketing refers to the practice of consistently producing and publishing content that serves a specific marketing objective. Depending on the kind of content being produced, content marketing can be used to create better brand awareness, create more industry authority around a brand or person, build trust, guide users through their buying journey, and even compel them to purchase from your brand.
Importance
The low cost and fantastic returns associated with content marketing are some of the biggest reasons behind its growing popularity. Statistics show that content marketing costs up to 62% less than other marketing activities and still produces up to three times as many leads.
That’s not all. Online buying behavior has evolved. Users these days are making fewer impulse purchases and doing more research. Content marketing is the perfect solution for businesses that are looking to adapt to this change and book great profits online.
Cost
How much a company invests in content marketing can vary greatly. It totally depends on how high content marketing is on their priority list. Having said that, companies regularly spend anywhere between <figure> and <figure> per month on content marketing.
Social Media Advertising
Definition
Social media advertising refers to the practice of creating and publishing ads on social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn, among others. Like PPC advertising, companies that invest in social media marketing also pay only for the clicks on an ad. However, many social media platforms like Facebook offer the ability to run ads that are optimized for brand awareness, page likes, and even pre-defined actions on your website. For instance, if you run a service business, you may consider a booked call with a prospect as a conversion event. In this case, Facebook will let you optimize your ads to maximise the defined conversions.
Importance
A lot of consumers use social media to discover new products and find new product recommendations. Meaning, social media platforms are great for advertising products to a well-defined audience. Social media advertising is also incredibly pocket-friendly, even more affordable than PPC advertising in some cases.
Cost
Like PPC advertising, when you use social media advertising, you will have to pay for the ad budget and for the ad management services. This makes social media advertising almost as costly as PPC advertising, with companies regularly investing between <figure> and <figure> into the marketing activity every month.
Social Media Marketing
Definition
Social media marketing is the organic way of gaining visibility on social media. With social media marketing, brands can create top-of-the-mind recall within their audience and with the right kind of innovation, various platforms can be used to send traffic to your website too. The best part is, because of the nature of social media platforms, these can act as another point of contact between you and your audience and can be used to create an online “tribe” that loves and follows your content.
Importance
Social media platforms together command an audience of billions of users, making them impossible to ignore from a content distribution point of view. The truth is, if you are not engaging your audience on the right social media platform, your competitors will definitely do it and secure competitive advantages.
Another benefit of building a social media brand presence is that you can actively participate in conversations around your brand that others are having. In fact, some brands are even using social media to receive and resolve customer queries and are seeing amazing success with the same.
Cost
Building a brand and creating engagement on social media is often a team effort. It usually requires a combined effort of a social media manager, a copywriter, and a graphic designer. However, more contributors, like social media analysts and content strategy experts can be added for bigger campaigns and of course, for making a bigger impact. Factoring in the varying costs, brands can expect to spend anywhere between <figure> and <figure> on social media marketing.
Email Marketing
Definition
Email marketing is a lead generation and nurturing strategy. By obtaining emails of prospects, you can send them emails that motivate them towards a favorable action, like setting up a discovery call or signing up for a plan, or purchasing a product. While email marketing needs its own supply of conversion and nurturing focused content, the task of obtaining the emails is often up to the content marketing efforts. In other words, content and email marketing together form a complete strategy. However, both work very well individually as well.
Importance
The most important benefit of doing email marketing is that it is cost-effective. Some stats say that brands can generate as much as 44 times ROI with email marketing. Besides the fact that email marketing is pocket-friendly, it is also highly impactful. It’s a numbers game. Meaning, if you have collected the right email addresses and are sending the right messages to the right prospects at the right time, the likelihood of success is quite high. The best thing is, email marketing by its very nature enables marketers to do a lot of experimentation with messaging, timing, and segmentation of the audience. This way, email marketing campaigns can be consistently optimized to produce better results.
Cost
As mentioned earlier, email marketing is a pocket-friendly undertaking, assuming website owners are ready to put in the work themselves. Crafting emails and setting up automation is not incredibly complex and many website owners do it themselves, only paying for an email marketing and automation tool. The cost of these tools can be as low as less than $10/month. However, many website owners depend on the skills of email marketing strategists and conversion copywriters in order to produce better results with their email marketing campaigns. Such website owners may end up spending as much as $1000 per month on email marketing.
