Imagine you are a small business owner who wants to create an online presence for your brand. You have a great idea, a catchy name, and maybe a loyal customer base already. But how much will it cost you to build and maintain a website that showcases your products or services?

For us to answer the question of how much it costs to run a business website satisfactorily, we first need to consider whether a business website is worth the investment. It is a common saying that when the purpose of a thing is not known, abuse is inevitable,

If you don’t have an idea of what a real website can do for your business, you will likely make the cost of running a business website limit your business success.

How Much Does it Cost to Run a Business Website: Why is a Business Website Necessary?

1.) There are 5.3 billion+ internet users

The internet is a connection hub for more than half of the world’s population, creating a huge opportunity for businesses to expand their reach and impact. By having a business website, your company can showcase its products and services to a global audience, regardless of your business location.

2.) A Website is a business credibility and trust booster

75% of consumers admit to making judgments about brand credibility based on how their website is designed. A well-designed website enhances your business’s trust and credibility.

3.) Consumers pre-purchase behaviour stat

According to research by GE Capital, 81% of shoppers conduct product/service research online before buying. Having a solid website for your business allows your brand to influence potential customers during their decision-making process and make them buy from you rcompany.

4.) Boosting local patronage and store visits from Google

46% of Google searches are for local businesses. People are looking for businesses in their locale to patronize. In- fact, “near me” search terms like “Oil and gas company near” “solar company new me” among others have increased by more than 500%.

The implication of this is that a website with good local SEO optimization increases visibility for their businesses in local searches, thereby attracting nearby customers within their state and beyond.

5.) E-commerce growth expectation

According to Shopify, e-commerce sales are expected to reach $8 trillion by 2027. This means that a website with e-commerce capabilities positions companies to capitalize on the ever-growing trend of online shopping.

6) Customer expectations about having a website versus just social media pages

In the US, as is the same trend everywhere else, 84% of consumers believe that having a business website makes a company more credible than just a social media page.

This means that a website is a crucial part of meeting customer expectations of what a proper online presence should entails.

The stats above among many others attest to the fact that having a website can help your business grow.

Now that we have established the fact that a business website is important, we will now answer the main question “How much does it cost to run a business website”

What is The Cost of Running a Business Website

The answer is not so simple. There are many factors that can affect the cost of running a business website. This includes the type of platform you use, the features on the site, the kind of design, and whether or not you need SEO as part of the ongoing maintenance your business requires.

The cost of running a website is different from the cost of building or designing a website. If what you want to know is the cost of designing a business website, you can get that information here. Alternatively, you can get a free website design quote here.

What we are looking at is the cost of running (maintaining) a successful website. Any business can decide to own a website, but the majority of business websites has never brought in one lead for such businesses. Whereas other businesses get hundreds and even thousands of leads that convert to paying customers from their websites.

The Retail Doctor said it perfectly “It’s easy to have a website rather than have a great website,”. If your website is not great, up to date or promoted, the project will remain an online brochure at best and may never yield results to grow your business.

According to ESPRESSO.digital statistics

97% of all small business websites are ineffective
23% of small business websites get updated less than once a year
70% of small business websites have no call to action
82% of small business websites don’t have social media accounts linked.

Your focus should not be on just setting up a business website, but getting one that is truly effective and meets your business growth agender

The cost of running a website can be divided into full website annual renewal cost, website maintenance cost, and ongoing SEO marketing cost.

Website Full Annual Renewal Cost

Website renewal costs include hosting, domain name, and SSL certificate renewal. Depending on your website functionalities or features, it can also include annual renewal for premium plugins and other integrated third-party features.

Overall, a website full renewal can cost anything from $60 to $2,000 and more.

Website Maintenance Cost

Maintenance in this regard depends on what a business wants to achieve. We have seen businesses who just want our agency to update content on the website as the need arises. Like changing slides, updating service pages with new information, publishing the company’s events, updating the blog section and fixing errors when they occur. Maintenance service in some cases may also include email marketing integration.

In general website maintenance is the process of keeping your business website up-to-date and running smoothly as well as performing optimally. It also involves more general housekeeping tasks like backing up the website regularly and monitoring your site’s performance.

The cost for the basic maintenance task above can start from $50 to $5,000+ monthly depending on how big the website is.

Ongoing SEO Marketing Cost

Website SEO service is a type of search engine optimization service that helps websites rank higher in Google, Bing, and other search engine result pages. Website SEO services may include improving the website’s content, speed, usability, and authority to match the search intent and expectations of the users. The process involves researching and targeting relevant keywords that drive traffic and conversions to your business website from Google and another search engine.

Website SEO tasks include but are not limited to keyword research, on-page optimization, content creation and optimization, link building, technical SEO, Local SEO and monitoring and improvement.

Website monthly SEO costs can range from $100 to $10,000 monthly.

Website SEO is one sure way to make your website produce desirable results.

Whether or not SEO services are worth it for your business growth strategy would depend on a number of factors, including your business goals, budget, and the level of SEO solution you are looking at.

If your business goal is to increase your website traffic and generate more quality leads, then including SEO in your website’s running cost can be a very effective growth strategy. A study by renowned software company HubSpot found that businesses that invest in SEO can see an average ROI of 122%.

So How Much Does it Cost to Run a Business Website in a Nutshell?

It all depends on what you want to achieve as a business owner. If your idea of maintenance ends at the yearly renewal of the domain, hosting and SSL, then your running cost can be as small as $60 yearly, but if you want full maintenance, the cost can range from $100 to $15,000+ depending on the nature of your business website.

Many small businesses may not have the budget to invest in SEO, in such cases, focus on promoting your business with Facebook ads and boosting your Instagram post as your business growth strategies. This is because, social media ads are cheap and can be very effective.

You can also see our guide on the cost of running Facebook ads to help with your planing.

Do you have any questions, kindly leave them below and we will answer them.

Frequently Asked Questions on How Much it Cost to Run a Business Website