Did you know that budgeting for a website is a lot like buying airplane tickets?

Often I get the question, “How much does a website cost?”  And usually my answer is something along the lines of, “Well, that depends…”  The point being that the cost of website creation has a lot of different factors that may influence the actual investment.  Yeah, but how much does a website cost?

We like to ask the question, “What do you want your website to do?  Asking this question will hep us understand what our client is thinking about their website investment.   Because where they want to go with their website will actually help us find out together what it will cost to get there… kind of like plane tickets.

Actually budgeting for a website is not so difficult if you keep in mind that your website, like any other business purchase, is an investment which should deliver an anticipated return.

So the first question to ask yourself is, “What do I want my website to do?”  Inform new clients about products and services?  Generate online sales?  Intranet for in-house business?  Customer service, feedback, assisting existing clients?  And/or web presence/brand image?  Maybe all of the above?  But once you have clearly decided what you want your website to do, you now need to take it one step further and attach a monetary value to that goal.  The second question is then, “What is it worth to have a website achieve this goal?”  Be honest, because that value is going to be your website budget.

So, for example, if you want your website to increase your product sales 10% you need to ask yourself two questions:

1. How much is a 10% increase in sales?
2. How much am I willing to invest to achieve this result?

That second question will be your website budget.

Bear in mind that a website may have a number of different goals but if you can define each one and assign a value to it then all you have to do is evaluate the worth of each goal and then add them up your expected return on investment (ROI).

One more time…

• know where you want to go
• know what you want to achieve when you get there
• know what you are willing to pay to get there… just like plane tickets.