Who is Involved in Getting a Site Online?
This article could also be titled 'How much is this going to
cost me?' There are actually several parties you have to pay
when having a website designed. I tend to use the analogy of a
house, so I'll run with that analogy here.
First off, you may or may not realize that there are both
one-time and recurring fees involved in getting a site online. I
will differentiate between the two as I go through the three
major parties.
Web Designer
The designer is a combination of an architect, builder and
interior designer. And really a number of other things. The
designer ends up handling (or helping you handle) everything
from the purpose of the website to its organization, layout,
design, good coding and plenty of other things that you may or
may not see just by looking at the website.
Like a good house, a lot of things, when done well, will not be
noticeable. And in a lot of cases, that's the point. When a menu
on a site is well designed, you really just use it without
paying too much attention to its exact location, font, design,
etc.
With a web designer, there is definitely an up-front cost. This
is the design of the initial site. This fee can run anywhere
from $300 or so to thousands and thousands of dollars. It all
depends on the size and complexity of the site. If you want a
lot of custom programming or Flash work, that type of thing will
obviously cost you more. In the long run, however, many of these
elements like the custom programming can save you money.
There is also the ongoing cost of maintaining the site. At T&S,
you sign a contract for several (generally 6 or 12) months at a
time, and pay up front. You know the cost ahead of time. Many
web designers charge hourly for this type of work. The downside
is that you don't know how much you will be charged in a month.
The upside is that if you don't have any work done at all in a
month, you don't get charged for that month.
Because of anti-price-fixing laws, many web designers do not put
prices on their website. So you would need to contact a given
designer for an actual estimate.
Web Hosting
This can also be called 'Web Space,' among other things. This is
a combination of the land and foundation your house is on. A
good designer will help you pick a hosting company and package
that will fit your wants and needs for your website.
Some web hosts do charge an initial setup fee of anywhere from
$20 to $75 or so dollars. The bigger the package you get, the
more the initial setup fee is likely to be.
Not all web hosts charge a setup fee. You will, however, be
required to pay an ongoing fee. If you keep in mind that what
you're actually doing is renting space on someone's computer,
this makes a little more sense. The ongoing fees for this range
from around $5 a month to $600+ a month. Most of m clients end
up paying in the $10-$30 per month range.
Domain Registrar
Imagine that you had to pay the post office yearly for your
address. Sure, someone could find you if you gave them your
longitude and latitude, but having a street address makes it
much, much easier.
That is how it works with a domain name. You pay a domain
registrar, and they generally charge you based on the extension.
An extension is .com, .org, .net, .edu and the list goes on.
One domain registrar we've had good experiences with is Go
Daddy. Their domains generally run from $7 to $10 a year. As I
write this, .tv is really popular, so it's quite a bit more
expensive. Still, at $31 a year, it's way cheaper than domain
names used to run. In the late 90's, you had to pay $70 or so a
year for a domain.
The charge for a domain registrar is yearly, though you can
generally buy up to 10 years at a time. We've only had one
client buy that many, but we've had another client buy 11 domain
names in addition to the other one they already owned.
And there you go.