How much does a website cost?

One of the first questions we get asked whenever someone calls our office is how much a website costs. It’s a valid question and one of the most important questions when someone is trying to plan the marketing budget for their business. Unfortunately it’s not always a simple answer.

The cost of a website varies with the options you choose and the size you want to make it. In this way it’s similar to buying a car. You don’t go to a dealership and ask them how much a car costs because the price ranges based on style, size and features. You can buy the Porsche of websites with all the options and fancy features or you can buy a base-model Ford. Now, there’s no problems with a Ford, I own one myself. It all comes down to needs and budget. A basic website with a custom design and five pages of content might start you around $1,200-1,500 whereas a large corporate site with dozens of pages and custom features could get up into multiple thousands.

So what goes into the cost of a website?

There are many factors in determining the cost of a website. Some of the most common factors are:

Number of pages
Is a custom design needed or will a pre-designed template be used?
Are they static pages or is a content management system needed?
Target market and competition research
Features needed other than basic content (forms, newsletters, e-commerce, etc)
Are stock photos or photography services needed?
Is all content supplied or are copywriting services needed?
Is the logo and brand identity in place or does this need worked on?

As you can see, there are a lot of decisions to be made, and this is just a few of the things that need considered.

When hiring a web design company, just like any other business, they have to take other expenses into consideration as well. Things like time, rent, utilities, employee wages and other operational costs always have to be factored in. This is why you’ll often see individuals offering website design for a very low rate compared to a web design company. Both have their advantages and disadvantages. You just want to make sure that whomever you hire has the experience and reliability to create an effective online presence for your business.

At Logix, our custom websites generally start around the $1,625 mark and increase from there based on client needs. We always aim to be flexible to suit any project and budget so we have a number of options available.

For new businesses just starting out or businesses that have a small budget there are always other options as well. We run a service called ckBusiness.ca for local businesses of Chatham-Kent. In an effort to promote local small business within our community we launched this service as a cost-effective way to get an online presence. A business can get a website for as little as $29.95. The cost here is greatly reduced because there is no custom design work involved. A design is chosen from several pre-designed layouts and then customized to include the client’s logo and colours. It doesn’t offer quite as much flexibility but it’s an easy entry in a time when all businesses should be online.

Hopefully this gives you a little insight into what a website costs. I know it’s not a definitive number like you may have been hoping for but it should give you a good idea of what to budget for.

If you’re interested in finding out more about having a website developed for your business, contact us. We’ll gladly answer any questions you might have.

Facebook Marketing Primer – Custom Facebook Tabs

This is the first in a series of articles focused on marketing on Facebook. As a programmer, this will give you the basic knowledge to program a custom Facebook tab on a page for yourself or a client.

So you’ve been hired by a client to create a Facebook page for their business. You have the page all set up on Facebook. You have all the information about their company filled out and you’ve even uploaded a nice profile photo of the company logo. Now what? The client is all ready to start posting articles and comments to their Wall, but what they would really like is to feature some of their products on the page. You’ve seen other Facebook pages from companies with tabs that display their product lines, advertise promotions or embed content from their website. So how do you create custom tab for your page? Here’s how:

Step 1 – Create the content page

Content that is displayed in a custom tab on Facebook has to be hosted somewhere else. There are Facebook applications that offer the ability to embed HTML or text, but to have full control over the page you want to create your own and host it. If you already have a website for the business then you can host the page on the same server.

Create your page with all of the content you would like to show on your tab and upload it to your server. Facebook tabs are limited to a width of 520 pixels, so make sure any content you include falls within that width. You can include anything on that page and it can be written in any language.

Step 2 – Add the Facebook code to the page

In order for Facebook to load your page inside a tab there is a bit of code that you need to include in the page. The first thing you’ll want to do is edit your <HTML> tag and add the Facebook namespace attribute. The line should look something like this:

<html xmlns:fb="http://www.facebook.com/2008/fbml">

In the head of your HTML you will also need to include the Facebook Connect URL:

<script src="http://connect.facebook.net/en_US/all.js#xfbml=1"></script>

Inside the <body> tag add:

style="overflow:hidden;"

Wrap all of your content inside a div with an id of fb-root.

<div id="fb-root">
ALL OF YOUR CONTENT GOES HERE
</div>

Add the following javascript to the page:

<script>
window.fbAsyncInit = function() { FB.Canvas.setAutoResize(); };
  (function() {
    var e = document.createElement('script'); e.async = true;
    e.src = document.location.protocol + '//connect.facebook.net/en_US/all.js';
    document.getElementById('fb-root').appendChild(e);
  }()
);
</script>

The javascript uses the Facebook setAutoResize function to resize the Canvas page in the tab. This forces it to auto-detect the length of the page and resize it so you don’t end up with a second scroll bar inside the tab.

With that complete, upload the page to your server.

Step 3 – The Facebook Application

All tabs on Facebook uses applications to load their content. As mentioned earlier, you’ll need to be a registered Facebook Developer or be working with someone who is. Registering is easy and the approval process is fairly straightforward.

Once you’re registered as a Developer, go to http://developers.facebook.com/ to begin putting together the app for your tab. Click on My Apps in the top menu and then click on the Set Up New App button in the top-right.

Enter a name for your app. I’ve called mine “My Custom Tab” but the name only acts as a label so you can find your application later. You’ll also need to agree to Facebook’s terms before you continue. On the next screen you’ll be prompted with the usual captcha form to ensure this isn’t some spambot auto-creating an application.

Once your app is named you’ll be directed to a page with a number of tabs and settings. It can be somewhat overwhelming at first but for the purpose of creating a custom tab we’re only going to use a few options.

On the first screen you can give your application a description if you wish (but not required) as well as a custom icon. The icon image will be used in the tab. The user support address field can be an email address or a website url. This is entirely up to you. You will also need to enter a contact address. Usually this information is already filled in for you. I recommend linking to a privacy policy and terms pages as well if you’re going to be collecting user information.

With that information filled in, click the Facebook Integration tab on the left. Set Canvas URL to the base URL where your file is being pulled from. As an example, if you you uploaded the file to http://mysite.com/facebook/index.html then your Canvas URL will be http://mysite.com/facebook/. This acts as the base path to your application. Set the Tab URL to the URL of the page you uploaded to your server, for example: index.html. When the Facebook tab calls the URL up it will use the base path set in the Canvas URL and append the Tab URL to the end of it. Set Tab Name to the name you want the tab called on your Facebook page. Set iFrame Size to Auto-resize. We added the Canvas.autoResize javascript to the page so this will tell the application to resize itself based on the length of the page.

Once you have that information entered, click the Save Changes button at the bottom.

Step 4 – Add the application to you Facebook page

Once you save your application settings, you’ll be directed to the application overview screen. On this page you can view basic stats about visitors to your application. To add the application as a tab on your Facebook page, click the Application Profile Page link on the right. This will direct you to the application’s main page. It looks similar to a user profile page. On the left is a link to Add to My Page. Selecting that will open a small window that displays any of the Facebook pages you are an admin on. Select the page you want to add the tab to by clicking the Add to Page button to the right of it.

All Done!

Now, check out your new custom tab. Go to your Facebook page and you’ll see the new tab on the left. If you uploaded an icon it will show up to the left of the tab name.

Congratulations! You now have your own custom tab. You can edit the page on your server as much as you want and any new information you add will show up in the tab on Facebook.

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