How Much Do Professional Websites Cost?

If you are like most professionals, you know that most businesses across the U.S. need to have an online presence in order to compete effectively in the modern marketplace. The creation of tools such as website cost calculators and massive website-building platforms such as WordPress is evidence that owning a website to market your company or practice is not merely an option but rather, a necessity. This shift in how you market your practice or business can largely be attributed to the demands of modern customers, and the amount of people evaluating professionals online is only expected to grow in the coming years. According to the Pew Research Center, about 50% of American adults were using the internet in 2000. Today, roughly 9 out 10 American adults use the internet currently. Moreover, the use of search engines has become increasingly common worldwide. In fact, Google is currently processing an estimated 2.3 million searches a minute, and one out of every six people worldwide uses Google.  

As a result, prospective clients and customers expect for professionals such as doctors, lawyers, and accountants to have a website that both acts as a source of information and gives website visitors the ability to contact the professional quickly and effectively, but despite the fact that website are becoming more common, there is still a great deal of confusion among professionals as to how much professional websites cost, which is why we have compiled a list of how much it costs to build the structure of a professional website, the costs of incorporating critical features into your website, and other services you should consider utilizing, in addition to building a website, to ensure that you can effectively market your business or practice online.

Professional Website Costs

Web designers use different strategies to build different types of websites based on the industry of the business that will ultimately own and operate the website. This aspect of web design is necessary, because website visitors set certain expectations for websites owned by professionals that are often considered to be a subject matter expert in their own field. As such, website’s owned by professionals not only market the services that the professional offers, they also give the website visitor in-depth information about the professional’s area of expertise.

As a result, a professional such as a lawyer or a doctor needs to have a website with a moderate to large amount of content in order to market their website effectively, and you should account for the cost of this professionally written content in the overall cost of your website. A list of upfront website costs associated with building general website for a professional are listed below:

• Hiring a web designer to build your website’s structure – $2,500
• 25 pages of professionally written content – $2,500
• 14 stock images
• Domain registration – $25 Annually
• Secure Website Certificate – $175 Annually

Professional Website Costs: Additional Content and Features

The website structure listed above should include one year of hosting, which will cost $19 per month after the first year, and a basic contact form. The reason why 25 pages of professionally written content are recommended is, professional websites rely heavily on performing well in search engine results to be effective. This is due to the fact that the average customer will use broad searches such as “Doctors near me” or “Car accident attorney” to find a professional whose services they need to employ. As such, unique engaging content is considered to be one of the most important ranking factors used by Google.

Moreover, clients or customers expect to be given a certain amount of information about their problem on a professional’s website before they ultimately contact your business. As a result, you should incorporate a healthy amount of content into your website as well as a healthy amount of photos to effectively communicate topic-specific information to potential clients.

Additionally, search engines like Google use the amount of time a user spends interacting with your website as a ranking factor when displaying search results. Due to this fact, investing in additional content in the beginning as well as features that facilitate website engagement can increase your website’s overall performance and your ROI for the website itself. Additional features and content include:

• 35-40 pages of content – $3,500-4,000
• Google Schema plugin to optimize your website for SEO – $150
• Social media feed – $250
• Live chat setup – $200
• Automatic translation plugin – $100

These features are meant to encourage your customers to engage with your website as well contact your business. As with any piece of equipment, any additional investments in features for your website can increase its overall performance and its ability to attract and convert website visitors into potential customers.

SEO for Professional Websites

If you are having a professional website built, you need to give serious consideration to employing a company that, in addition to offering web design services, offers a full suite of SEO services as well. While each website and piece of content that the web design specialists at On The Map Marketing create for you are already optimized for SEO, SEO factors extend far beyond a website’s structure, features, and content. As such, pairing an SEO package with your website order is an investment that will both pay off in the end by ensuring that your website attracts a healthy amount customers from search engines like Google and will set your website apart from your competition online.

Ready to Start Building your Professional Website?

So are we! The web design experts at On The Map Marketing are ready to start building your professional website today. Our team will collaborate with you to outline a plan the indicates the cost for each feature you want incorporated into your website, generate a “Mock up” webpage so you can see how your professional website will look once it is complete, and discuss which web design strategy is appropriate for your business. So call the professional website designers at On The Map Marketing today to find out we can help you build a website for your business.