Don't Sell the Farm to Buy the Website



Guess what? Building a website for your business doesn't have to cost a fortune.

I know I've said this before, but lately I've been hearing some horror stories that make me feel like it's worth mentioning again. There are companies out there, including right here in Pictou County, who want you to believe it costs several thousand dollars to have a site built, or that it's perfectly reasonable to pay hundreds of dollars a month to host the site once it's online.

It's certainly true that it CAN cost thousands of dollars to build a website, under certain circumstances. A huge corporate website with hundreds of pages and lots of customized features, coded from scratch, can easily take a web designer hundreds of hours to design, and cost thousands of dollars to build. But the fact of the matter is, most businesses don't need anything nearly that complicated (or expensive).

As someone with over 20 years of IT experience, I know that people tend to be nervous around computers if they're not very experienced with them, and as a result, they're inclined to defer to the voice of experience without asking as many questions as they normally would. It makes me really angry to see opportunistic companies take advantage of that fact, and use it to overcharge clients for tech services.

So here are some truths about website design that you should know about:

Most websites do not cost thousands of dollars to build. Hosting should not cost hundreds of dollars a month. There is no such thing as exclusive website code that no other company can use - the building blocks of the web are all open platforms. Even if a company develops a customized platform to automate tasks or assemble websites in a certain way, they are not the only company in the world that is capable of building a specific feature.

So definitely make sure your web developer is good enough to build the site you need for your business. But also make sure they're charging you a fair price for it. Don't be afraid to ask questions, or to get a second opinion.

Be careful out there! Nobody wants a bill as long as their arm.


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