Are you looking for a website that stands out in the online space? If that is so, you might want to consider hiring a digital marketing and web design agency to take care of developing and designing a website for your business. The usual cost would be between $4000 to $50,000 in Australia depending on various features.
With the rise of online shopping, the way customers research and shop for products and services have changed massively over the past years. Earlier in the day, people usually learned about products by relying on advertisements on newspapers, radios, TV and recommendations by people they knew. The information that was available and accessible was limited in comparison to what is available online nowadays.
Websites have evolved considerably over the past years. As website development trends are constantly changing, you need to consult a digital marketing agency that has experts who are on top of all these new and changing trends.
When choosing a service for website development, there are different things you need to consider such as customer reviews, cost and portfolios.
A great website is not just about aesthetics, it also concerns aspects such as functionality and user friendliness. This article will discuss website development costs in Australia.
The cost of website development in Australia, it depends on things like the number of pages needed, the functionalities and features you expect your website to have.
There are different services available that let you build your website for free. But rather than doing it yourself with no prior experience, and investing so much time and effort into acquiring the skills you need to create a compelling website. It will be a considerable challenge to build a fully functional website as a beginner and might give a less impressive first impression to those who are browsing through your website.
There are different factors that need to be considered when developing a website, marketing strategy, CMS platform, themes, premium plugins, web hosting plan, SEO digital advertising, branding and content creation. If you are unfamiliar with these, then it is best to let a digital agency take these for you so that you can spend time on other priorities.
What is the Cost of Website Development Cost in Australia?
The usual cost for designing a website can differ from between $4000 to $50,000 or more, which will vary according to the CMS platforms used, features of the website and other important components.
The internet has dramatically changed how customers shop for products and services, as more and more customers turn to the internet to find out more about products and services. Now, with the internet, customers can easily find out more about the products and services and what others are saying about them. Having a web presence can have a number of benefits such as helping a brand build credibility and reputation. This can give your business an extra advantage when it comes to standing out among your competitors. Having a compelling online presence will help your customers and potential customers discover and shop for what interests them
If you are wondering how much it really cost to design and build a website in Australia in 2024 then it can be said that on average it could cost as little as $10,000, if it has only a few pages and if it’s a larger project like an ecommerce site with complex features and functionality, the expected cost might go up to around $50,000.
What is Involved in the Website Development Process?
The process of designing a website is complex and can be divided into 4 main steps. Each step will only begin once the previous step has been approved. Every step involves designers, developers and stakeholders collaborating closely to ensure that all requirements are adhered to in the website development process. Once the website design project starts it is divided into steps or sprints to help with budget planning, forecasting, and investment. These offer clear deadlines and deliverables with reports and objectives to be shared with clients at the end.
The Designing Phase – Focusing on Aesthetics and Usability
Once the scope is agreed upon, designers will usually begin the designing process. The User Interface (UI) and User Experience (UX) design is crucial to a successful web development project. User interface is related to the overall visual representation of compliments on the page and the interactivity according client requirement. User Experience UX is focused on adjusting to the user journeys that will deliver the best experience for your target user.
Having excellent UI and UX will not just increase the chances of a user converting to a customer and becoming a repeat customer, it also increases the chances that a website has on ranking higher on search engine result pages, making the website more discoverable to potential customers. A well designed website is responsive, meaning that the design will adapt to the screen of any decision the end user has, be it a desktop, phone or tablet.
The Development and Testing Phase – Enabling Functionality
This step involves bringing the design to its optimal functionality. This is usually assigned to a project manager who ensures that every project remains on track by giving constant updates about this development stage.
Once the testing is done, the website is tested for QA or quality assurance, and UAT user acceptance testing. This is done to ensure that all the requirements are met by developers and that everything has been done as expected. Once the internal testing has been done, the website is given a staging link so that the client can carry out their own testing to check if the project delivered meets their level of satisfaction.
The Final Phase – The Launch Phase
Once the client has approved the website to go live, the liver server is provisioned and the DNS of your website is reconfigured marking the end of the web development project.
Breakdown of the Costs Involved
This section will look closely at the costs that are involved for different levels of services related to website development.
Cost for a Small Basic Website
A small basic website usually has a homepage, about us page, services and blog page. Usually for a WordPress site with all these pages might cost you around $8000 in Australia. This comes with page template designs which include a responsive web design and layout. Any add-ons will add to the cost of the web development project.
Cost for a Medium Sized Website
If you need a website that is larger than a small basic website but not a large scale website just yet, then you might want to consider opting for a Medium sized website. A medium sized website comes with added functionality and security than a small sized website. These usually include extra pages, functionality and complex features. Depending on the level of complexity and the size of your sitemap the costs can go up to over $25,000 in Australia.
Cost for a Large Scale Website
Large websites often need a complicated website build with a large number of pages, features and finality. For instance, this website type is mostly built on Drupal. Drupal is the go-to option preferred by most government agencies as they can take care of more advanced needs and allow a website to be customised completely to suit your needs. A complicated project that involves the development of a large scale website might costs $50,000 or more in Australia.
Factors the Impact the Costs of Website Design and Development
As you might have some idea about the average website development costs, this section will dive into factors that further impact the costs of website design and development.
Number of Pages
More pages means more development and design work, it also requires more complex website structures that need extra navigational work. This increases the design and development costs and depending on if you need SEO and content as part of your website done by the agency. This might end up in higher costs.
Design
Logically, the more complicated the website, it impacts the costs of website development. If you want every page to be customised it will require additional work and be more costly. If you are on the other hand content to use custom designed templates to similar pages, then this will considerably lower the costs required for web development.
If you have a detailed design in mind, be prepared to pay more for the entire web design project.
Content
If you have the necessary skills to create your very own content, you can save a lot in the long run, by doing it on your own. It is best not to use AI tools in your content as it can have a detrimental impact on your SEO or Search Engine Optimization. Content writers might charge $150 to $500 in Australia per page.
SEO or Search Engine Optimization
SEO is the process of optimising a website’s content to relevant keywords so that it can rank higher on search engine results pages. The higher the rank of your website, the more people it will be discovered by, resulting in higher numbers of visitors landing on your website.
SEO experts offer ongoing SEO strategies to ensure that your content is optimised according to relevant keywords, so that your website can be crawled easily. This will help build authority by creating backlinks to your website content. If this is done right, it will help your website to rank higher on SERPs or Search Engine Results Pages in order to drive traffic and increase your revenue. But SEO services might come at an additional cost for your business.
Extra Functionality
The necessary functionality is another key aspect that will impact the overall cost of your website development process. If your business website requires advanced functionality such as it does with ecommerce sites, this means that it will require more investment in terms of time and talent to build your website, and therefore will cost more.
Some examples of additional functionality are client portals, gated content, and calculators. Usually, the more complex the website the higher the cost that you will need to invest in your website. It is important to carefully take into account what functionality is required for your website before you commence the process of building a website.
Maintenance and Website Hosting
Often one overlooked cost is the cost required for the maintenance and hosting of a website. All websites require to invest in hosting which lets a website be accessed by users on the internet. Website hosting will usually cost between $100 to $200 per month in Australia.
When your website is launched, it will require you to ensure that your website stays functional and up to date. This means you will need to invest in costs related to maintaining your website. It is recommended that you set aside a little bit of your budget to keep your website running.
What is an Ecommerce Website?
If your business seels products or services online, an ecommerce website is crucial for your business success and growth. The web design process and prices differ considerably depending on the needs and requirements of each individual business. An ecommerce website often comes with features such as payment gateways, product databases, shopping cart features, shipping metrics and pop-ups that display deals to your website visitors to help increase conversion rates, will all add to the cost required to develop your business website.
There are many ecommerce platforms like WooCommerce which is the online store plugin for websites built on WordPRess and Shopify which allows for businesses to host online stores of different kinds. WooCommerce is completely free for WordPress and Shopify is a paid Software as a Service or SaaS platform which costs $56 per month in Australia.
Ecommerce website design and development costs will vary depending on how many products or services they list, the volume of orders across different time spans, and extra UX or user experience elements. Regardless of what your choice might be, it is important to have an SEO strategy and consider other functionality needs that might be required for your business website. For example, some Ecommerce websites usually costs around AUD$15,000 and AUD$100,000, which comes with custom designs and might sometimes cost up to even AUD$200,000
It is important for any business to consider having an online web presence. It will without doubt boost your business growth, encouraging customers to purchase your products or services so that your employees can process orders using other software like Point of Scale POS, Customer Relationship Management CRM, Enterprise Resource Planning or ERP.
Drawbacks due to Cutting Corners on Website Design
If you are developing a website it is important to pay attention to aspects that might not be immediate such as SEO, costly maintenance, security risks, slow page load time, lack of scalability and low conversion rate.
Here are some clear examples that might demonstrate the drawbacks that can come with not investing on building websites.
No SEO
If you don’t invest in SEO, it might have a detrimental impact of getting you business discovered online. Using SEO you can acquire quality organic traffic. A responsive web design and helpful content can help keep your target audience engaged. Not having your website optimised for SEO means that you can’t reap all the benefits mentioned above.
SEO features can be added later on, but it is advisable to focus on SEO from the start to help improve the chances of your website ranking higher on search engine results pages.
Higher Maintenance Cost
While it is easy to build an HTML website without a CMS or content management system easily and at a lower cost. But on the downside, whenever you want to make some changes to your website you will need to hire a web developer. This can be time intensive and can go out of date fast.
If you decide to build your website on a CMS, this needs a carefully planned process which might not be familiar to someone with little to no experience. Low pricing might sometimes mean low quality and that those handling web development are not as skilled and experienced.
Cheap websites can often mean that you require additional work as time goes on, from cleaning up the code and taking care of errors, updating the UX or user experience to improve the chances of those who visit your website converting into customers.
Security Risks
Website security is needed. This is true especially if your business stores important details such as personal information like credit card details or health records. The problem with a website that has not been built by an experienced website developer is that it uses plug-ins, which makes it likely that hackers will tamper with your website. Also, a website that is developed with a low budget might not have an HTTPS domain, an SSL certification or spam filters.
Usually, cyber attacks can cost a business its reputation and operations, which outweighs what might need to be invested upfront for a quality website developed by an experienced website developer.
Often, the cost of your website being subject to a cyber attack has a negative impact on the reputation of a business. Paying extra for a professional high quality website development service will save you the trouble of having to deal with any negative impact a cyber attack might have on your website.
Sluggish Page Load Time
Nothing has a more detrimental impact on lower conversion rates than having a sluggish or slow website load time. Even if your customers visit your business website to consider purchasing a product or service you offer, considering investing in your business, if your website doesn’t load fast enough, they might be prompted to leave your business website and go visit one of your competitor’s websites.
This is all too common when it comes to websites developed by inexperienced web developers who don’t know or take time to optimise your website for page load speed. This might mean loss of sales for your business.
Difficulty in Scalability
Your business website needs to be designed so that it can grow as your business grows. Cheap websites are more likely to be difficult to scale and therefore require an upgrade or sometimes a total makeover as your business begins to grow.
This might be more expensive for you and can be avoided if you invest in an experienced website development service from the beginning who develops your website with the ability to upgrade your website as yoru business grows.
Reduced Conversion Rate
The main goal of your business website should be to convert visitors into customers. A conversion means any action you intend your website visitors to take from purchasing a product to subscribing to your newsletter or having a consultation call with your business.
In order to drive engagement, which means revenue for your business, you need to have a SEO strategy in place for your website. This will include creative copy that converts, UX to ensure that your customer can easily navigate your website, fast load times, a responsive plan as well as a strategic digital marketing plan. These elements will help your website lead to a higher conversion rate. These are elements that a professional web design agency which will take care of these tasks from the state so you can benefit from the results faster with no additional requirements for continuous revisions to your websites on a regular basis. Promise Media, we are leading web design agency Brisbane, Sydney and Melbourne.
Our Sum It Up
Finally, it is worth mentioning again that the value of having an online presence in the form of a professional website might help your business generate additional revenue and help you scale your business faster than if you do without having a website. The cost of developing and designing your website might vary on different factors such as the needs and the requirements of your business as well as the products and services offered. Investing in a well-designed and developed will be a great investment for your business in the long run, helping your customers discover your products and services from the comfort of their couch. Your website will add the positive reputation of your brand and make your business stand out from your competitors.
