HOW MUCH DOES A WEBSITE COST IN NIGERIA-ENTREPRENEURS ASK
I bet you are probably looking forward to having a figure to use for your next website 
My answer is “It depends”.
It is kind of like asking, “How much does a house cost?”.
The next question I would probably ask you is “What type of house would you like to have?”.
There are a series of questions that can help a real estate expert to give you an accurate answer.
Some of them could be:
“What is your budget”?
“Which location would you like to buy a house in”?
“How many rooms would you like to have”?
“What features should the house have e.g. generator house, security house, boys’ quarters, swimming pool…”?
I hope you now see why asking “How much does a website cost” is probably not the best question to ask .
You need to start with a definition of
* why you want a website
* who your target audience are
* what actions visitors should be able to carry out on your site
* what return on investment means to you
* your budget etc.
The answers you give will determine how much YOUR WEBSITE will cost.
The cost of building an ecommerce site that only accepts offline payments, will be different from that of building a site like Jumia.com or Amazon.comi.e. an ecommerce site with more advanced features.
Hence, a professional who designs websites or helps you grow your business via a website will not rush to give you a figure but will first enquire from you what your requirements are.
Whenever I want to build a website for a client, I always try to understand the client’s requirements and confirm that I have understood the requirements via a project brief.
For the times I did not follow through on my company’s process for helping clients to get their sites created, it usually led to expectations not being met, increased costs etc.
Hence, as much as you may know how to install WordPress and can play around with it, it is very important you set out time to define what you want from your website.
This is usually the first step I take before building any site.
Putting down thoughts on paper will really help you gain clarity on how your website should be built and ensure you get return on investment on your website design project.
There is the cost of:
* the domain name to buy (different extensions are available e.g. .net, .solutions, .blog, .blog)
* hosting to use (sharing hosting, VPS, dedicated server etc)
* theme to use (free or premium)
* plugins to use (free or premium)
* images to use (free or paid images)
* graphic design (to design the graphics yourself versus to outsource the design)
* installation and configuration of the theme and plugins (to outsource or not)
* creating content (to create your blog posts, write-ups etc or to outsource)
* promoting your website (search engine optimisation, ads…)
* cost of maintenance (to outsource or not)
etc.
Once you have clarified your requirements properly, choosing the right themes and plugins would be a breeze.
You will not need to waste time, money and other resources building a site only for you to start all over from the scratch because you built on a wrong foundation.
Hence, when next you are tempted to ask “How much does a website cost?” remember that the cost of buying a normal dress (not a designer dress) for a new born will be different from that of buying a Chanel dress (designer dress) for a female in her twenties.
I hope today’s post has been helpful.
If it has or you have questions about defining your requirements, kindly post in the comment section.
Gracias!
