It’s now essential to have an online presence when you launch a business or open a store. That’s why you need a professional website to help you communicate with customers and prospects.
Why create a professional website?
A professional site is a site aimed at prospects, employees and customers, which is why it must represent the company and inspire confidence in its visitors. A professional site must also comply with a number of rules, such as being RGPD-compliant and presenting general terms and conditions of sale.
In reality, creating a professional website for your business allows you to benefit from several advantages, namely :
- high visibility;
- a showcase for the company’s expertise;
- online sales.
Whatever the service you offer or the product you sell, creating a professional website helps you to be more visible to potential customers. If someone is looking for a business like yours, or looking for your business, they’ll be able to find you easily. A professional site also allows you to showcase your expertise using a portfolio and images. Last but not least, a professional site helps you sell your products and services online by implementing various online sales and delivery techniques.
What to do before creating a professional website?
It’s true that creating a professional website grants you many advantages as an entrepreneur, but it’s important to think about a few things before you start creating the site.
Set a budget for the site’s creation and operation. Also consider the time you have available to put your site online. You’ll need different solutions if you want to put your site online in 1 month or 8 months. Then take stock of the resources you have to create and manage the site. Do you have the skills and knowledge to create the site? Or do you need to call in a specialist? Are you going to manage the site, or are you going to call on a friend, your spouse or an outsider to do it for you?
Before entrusting the creation of your site to a service provider, define your needs, taking into account your point of view as well as that of your customers.
The autonomy of the professional site is a point to which you should attach importance, as it determines the technology the service provider uses to create your site.
Visual identity is the part of a company that customers remember, so it needs to be well thought out when creating a professional website.
How do I create a professional website?
Now that you’ve defined your needs and objectives, you can move on to site creation. You have three options:
- create your own professional website;
- contact an agency ;
- contact a freelancer.
Even if creating websites isn’t your specialty, you can still do it using website creation software that you can easily get to grips with.
Calling on a digital agency or communications agency is the solution most frequently used by entrepreneurs who want to create a professional website quickly and efficiently. This type of digital agency has a great deal of experience in the field, and their teams are trained in a wide range of professions, including :
- web development ;
- graphics ;
- project management ;
- web marketing, etc.
If you’re planning to use the services of an agency, you’ll need to budget around €5,000.
Another option is to hire a freelance web developer . This solution is more flexible and less costly than the previous one, and allows you to receive your site within a fairly short timeframe. However, a web developer may not be able to write content for the site or work on your corporate identity, in which case you’ll need to call on other, additional skills.
How much does it cost to create a professional website?
Having a website for your business is the new way to promote your products and services. Websites are important for your business, as they can be used to make sales worldwide, promote events and get in touch with customers quickly. But pricing can sometimes hold you back, so get informed.
How do you judge the prices of professional websites?
Having a website for your business is the best way to promote your products and services. However, if you’re not careful and don’t know where to look for a good deal, you can easily find yourself in debt with an expensive website that does nothing for your business. To get an idea of the cost of building a professional website, we decided to compare the average prices of different services according to various criteria such as site type, size or source.
When looking for a professional web designer or web agency, it can be difficult to find accurate pricing information, as every project is unique. You should look at their website first. If they have a portfolio of work and you like what you see, ask them to send you an estimate based on the details of your project. You can also ask for references from previous customers who have worked with this company.
To get an idea of the time and effort spent on each project they undertake for their customers. And whether or not they deliver high-quality results, in terms of design, functionality and user experience (UX). So you need to take into account a number of criteria that can have an impact on the final price, for example:
- the size of your site: the more pages and images, or complex coding, the higher the price;
- the complexity of your site: in other words, how many headaches the developer will have to deal with to offer you the exact vision you’re looking for;
- number of languages: if you want to set up an online store in more than two languages, you’ll need to invest more time and effort;
- management of secure online payment services ;
- whether or not to add chat and communication services or notifications.
Rates for the creation and maintenance of professional websites by major platforms
If you’re using a professional website builder and management service, be aware that prices are also charged on a monthly basis. Here are the pricing details if you’re looking for a website builder that gives you a base to start with:
- Wix will cost you between €23 and €500 per month;
- WordPress costs between €7 and €59 per month;
- Squarespace will cost you between €16 and €54 per month;
- Godaddy will cost you between €6.99 and €14.99 per month;
- Weebly will cost you between €0 and €26 per month;
- Jimdo will cost you between €0 and €39 per month.
An idea of professional website prices
The price of creating a professional website isn’t always easy to know, since it depends on several factors such as its size, type, or the additional features you want, but also on the country in which you intend to create your website. We’d like to take a look at the current prices for professional websites.
Design usually costs between €2,000 and €75,000, and annual maintenance can cost between €400 and €60,000. Keep in mind that these are average prices, which means that if your website has additional, more complex options, the price may rise. A simple 8- to 16-page information site costs between €2,000 and €9,000, and annual maintenance costs between €400 and €1,200. A website for a large company with 25 to 75 pages will cost between €10,000 and €35,000, with maintenance costing between €2,000 and €15,000.
Another example is an e-commerce website, which may have between 100 and 1000 products, will cost between €5,000 and €55,000, with a maintenance fee of between €15,000 and €30,000 annually. Finally, for a database that archives between 20 and 2000 pages, it will cost between €6,000 and €75,000 (up to €95,000 in some cases), with annual maintenance costing between €30,000 and €60,000.
