The Costs

There are five types of costs associated with a web site.

• Domain Name
• Site Hosting
• Design and Development
• Maintenance
• Search Engine Submission

It is still possible to do a web site for no cost or you can spend thousands.

Domain Name: Just as every business needs an address where the post office can deliver mail, every web site must have a domain name. If your Internet Service Provider (ISP) gives you web site space as part of your contract, then you have a domain name for free. However, this will not be a WWW address. A true primary address will run between $20 to $30 a year.

Site Hosting: Your web site has to be on an special type of computer called a server. The server sends out your web page when a browser requests it. If your ISP gives you web space, then you could have no cost for site hosting. Generally, an ISP provides limited space and will issue you a secondary domain name off their domain name. If you have a WWW address, you can't use it for this space. There are a wide variety of hosting companies with monthly costs running from $6 on up.

Design and Development: The major expense of a web site is the cost of design and development. Costs can vary from $0 if you do it yourself to several thousand dollars. The actual cost depends on the features you want for your site. Features include but are not limited to:

• How many pages the site will be.
• What type of graphics and animations you want.
• What forms and other interactive features are planned.
• Is a template being used.
• How complex will the individual pages be.
• Who is providing the content copy.

Kanza Web Design works very hard to keep their development costs as low as possible. An original web site for three pages and minimum graphics can be as low as $400. Once we know what you want, we can give you a more definitive price.

Maintenance: Change happens and your web site can easily reflect these changes. If you are not planning on making changes or can do it yourself, then you have no additional cost. Maintenance costs reflect many of the same factors as the Design and Development costs. They can run from $50 on up.

Search Engine Submission: Until recently, no one had to pay to be considered by a search engine. Today, however, these costs must be considered. You still don't have to spend anything, but most search engines now have a fast track which requires payment. Depending on the type of web site and how quickly and where you want to appear in the results, you can spend $0 to $500.

Please talk to us before you rule out a web site as too expensive. You might discover that with Web Design you can join the World Wide Web.