Tauranga Web Design Prices

What Will it Cost You to Get a Website Built for Your Tauranga Business?

There are many answers to that question, and without being evasive, the answer is it depends entirely upon what you want your website to looks like and what you need it to do. In many ways it's a bit like approaching a builder and asking them how much will it cost to build a house. The builder is going to ask you how many bedrooms, bathrooms and living rooms you want, and how big they are. They would then work out a price based on the floor area you need and arrive at an indicative price. The standard of fittings and fixtures also have a bearing on the final price. While this helps to explain that all web sites are not equal in terms of aesthetics and functionality, it doesn't answer the question. Below are some of the common answers that you might find:

1) You Can Do It Yourself - Price: $10-20 per month, but immeasurable blood sweat and tears.

These days there are numerous "site builders" such as Wix, Weebly, Webflow, Squarespace or Shopify if you want to sell online, that allow you to pick a pre-designed theme or template and set up you own site. This can often be a good way to get started if you have the time and energy to devote to the project. For some people this can work quite well. But not everyone can turn their hand to doing their own building, plumbing, electrical work or fitting out their own shop, or indeed building their own website. For many people in business, it's often less expensive to pay to get your website built by a reputable Tauranga web design company that has done the job hundreds of times before, than it is to spend their own time solving problems that only they as the business owner can do. More often than not, when you do something new for the first time, it takes you several times longer than you expect it will. What is your time worth? Can it be used more efficiently doing only the things you can do, and not on the false economy of saving money on something that can be done by a third party? These are questions that only you, then business owner can answer. Where does the $10-$20 per month price come from you may ask? The answer is that in order to associate your website with your chosen domain name, you generally need to be paying a monthly fee. It is possible to run these DIY sites without a domain, but they invariably carry advertisements, or announce that they are "Proudly Powered by" whatever design tool you have used. Is that really the look you want to give your prospective clients?

 

2) Your Mate, Relative or Offspring Who Has Done Web Design at School - Price: Probably free, but at what cost to your relationship?

We all have friends, relatives and kids who can do things we can't. Some of them are probably very talented people and you might well get lucky and end up with an awesome website for your business.  Most of us have probably got a story to tell about letting a friend do a job for us which didn't end well and unless you're a forgiving soul, it can have a damaging effect on your relationship. There is wisdom in the platitude: Never do business with someone you can't afford to fall out with.

The other major disadvantage of having a family member build you a website is whether they do in fact have the time to do it. It can be really tricky to apply pressure to someone who is doing you a favour but can your business afford to wait until they can find the time? You also need to be sure that the site they build is able to work on any device, not just their laptop. These days, if your site does not support mobile phones and tablets, you are instantly shutting the shop to more than 50% of your customers.

 

3) A Marketing/Branding Agency - Price: highly variable, but often little or no ongoing support

There a lot of marketing and branding agencies out there, who will build you a website as part of a branding or marketing strategy. Usually they don't have skilled developers working for them, and they tend to contract out the development process to third parties who are typically off shore. More often than not, they'll be using the Wordpress blogging platform as their starting point. Wordpress has been around for 20 years or so which is an eternity in computer terms. There are without doubt thousands of plugins and themes that are available to do just about anything you can imagine. You'll need at least half a dozen plugins to make it do anything useful, e.g. a contact form.

There are numerous problems with Wordpress, and what you usually find is that the work involved in keeping it up to date and secure is a lot higher than you might imagine. You'll frequently face "plugin hell" where an updated plugin conflicts with other plugins which lead to an odd looking, or worse, a non-functional site. A lot of Wordpress plugins are commercial and usually have an annual licensing fee. It's usually in the $40-$60 USD range, but with half a dozen of those, each year, you're looking at $500 NZ every year before you even start to make them all play nicely with each other. The company that put the site together has usually gone on to the next project, and the subcontractor they used to build the site is no longer working for them and they've been through several since they built your site, none of whom are that keen to pickup where the other lot left off.

Your alternative is not to bother updating it, which is a bit like closing your eyes before crossing the road, except hackers won't swerve or brake to avoid running you down. Do you, as a business owner, want a website that contains links to illegal content, serves up malware (which may lead to your hosting provider shutting down your site) or is otherwise defaced in a manner that is damaging to you and your business?

 

4) Large Established Web Design Company - Price: Starting from $10,000 and the sky's the limit

There are a good number of large web design companies out there, who have been around for years and have got away with charging huge sums for five page brochure sites for the last decade or so. They'll usually but not always do a good job and the site will look great. Quite possibly they'll be using an over complicated content management system (CMS) which they'll tell you means that you can make your own changes. While this is true, the realities of doing so can be hard to achieve. You may find that they require knowledge of HTML code in various places, if you can even find those places six months after you've forgotten what they told you on the training course they gave you. You'll probably be paying a monthly support fee of a couple of hundred dollars. You may also find that they have used their own proprietary CMS system which means that you are locked in to them unless you choose to start from scratch. No chance of moving your site to another provider. These guys probably make sense for larger companies who have an IT department or people dedicated to their online presence. Small businesses need not apply.

 

5) A Local Tauranga Web Design Company, With Dedicated Developers - Price: From $2,500

We've saved the best for last! If you're a SME or small business in Tauranga, a local web design company is most likely the one to go for. A small local company doesn't have the overheads and overbearing corporate structure that can be tricky to deal with. You will be dealing face to face with the person who is actually doing the work and your requirements won't get lost in translation. They'll have a can-do attitude and because they've been building websites and doing software development for 30+ years, they have the skills to get the job done quickly and cost effectively. They'll be making your life easier by using an open source CMS system that is easy for you to use but also easy for them to change and enhance. Being open source, there are no restrictions on moving your site to another provider if you choose to. You'll find that they are able to host your website too, in New Zealand, and not farm out the hosting to an oversubscribed virtual private server somewhere in the USA or Australia, so your website will load quickly. Because they've done the job right, and given you, the business owner, the tools and confidence to manage your own digital presence you won't need a pricey support contract, only a modest hosting fee. Support if it is needed, is only a phone call or email away.

If you've read this far, well done! Feel free to contact us to discuss your requirements further, with no commitment.