Top 5 Ways to Cut Costs as a New Website Owner
46% of small businesses don’t have a website even though two out of every three retail sales occurs online, and prospective customers actively seek out a business’s website and online reviews about a business before making a purchase or visiting a business in person (Digital.com).
A few years ago building a website for your business or online venture could have cost a small fortune, but now it’s the norm to launch a website for under $100 (Big Commerce).
If you’re a new website owner, or are considering building a brand-new website, listed below are five ways you can cut costs.
1. Select a Reliable and All-Inclusive Website Hosting Service
To really cut costs as a website owner, you’ll want to rely on a website hosting service that includes things like:
- Domain name selection and registration
- Different types of web hosting options
- Unlimited bandwidth, disk space, and databases
- E-commerce and payment collection integrations
- Easy-to-use website builder and control panel
- Customer support
- Email capabilities
- Robust privacy, security, and network monitoring
- Marketing services and tools
You don’t want to have to pay for the options listed above separately, as that will really increase the overall costs for launching and maintaining your website. So, search for and rely on a website hosting service that includes most (if not all) of the options listed above in a single package with a low monthly or annual fee.
2. Automate and Test as Many Things as Possible on Your Website
When maintaining your website, you’ll want to automate as many things as possible so that you don’t have to spend money or time completing routine maintenance tasks. For instance, if your website has databases, you should automate data collection from forms and other queries submitted to your site, as well as scans that ensure all your databases are always secure and handling data appropriately.
You should also consider automating your website’s analytics and data analysis, so you can pull reports at any time you need to use them. And, most importantly, you’ll want to use automated tools that routinely scan your website for performance issues such as broken links, slow load times, outdated or corrupt code, etc. This is the best way to avoid costly issues like website downtimes and errors that could force you to lose potential online orders and interested prospects.
You can also automate your customer service support via chatbots and automated messaging apps to save money. And, you’ll want to consider testing your website copy, website navigation, and performance on a regular basis so that you can increase your revenue and cut costs (Big Commerce).
3. Do Your Research When Outsourcing Help and Hire the Right People
When building or launching a new website, it’s imperative to attain the right team for the right things for the right price if you want to keep costs low. Completing well-rounded and extensive research for this is critical to the success of your website.
First, you’ll want to consider what type of help you’ll need when developing and launching your website. Look at your successful competitors’ websites to see what type of website features and content they have, as this will be a good indication of what your target audience or customer base will expect from your website too. Then, you’ll be able to see if you need professional database builders, an experienced website designer, or some other type of expertise that you don’t own.
Next, you might want to consider hiring a reputable and highly recommended contractor or freelancer instead of hiring a firm or agency to keep your costs low. You’ll want to verify that their rates are within marketplace norms and will want to verify their previous work and references before agreeing to any sort of contract. And, if you know contractors or freelancers with the appropriate skillset, you can even consider trading services with them too, to keep your developmental or maintenance costs low. For instance, you could offer a database builder ten hours of your designing services for ten hours of their services.
4. Develop a Content Strategy and Consider Affordable SEO Options with Content
To really cut costs for promoting and marketing your new website, you’ll want to generate as many leads and conversions as possible for the least amount of money as possible. Creating a content strategy and using affordable SEO (Search Engine Optimization) options will allow you to do just that.
Before spending a cent on paid ads or time and money developing blog posts, email campaigns, social media posts, etc., take the time to develop a comprehensive content strategy and consider affordable SEO options. Consider the following statistics:
- Including paid ads and paid search, content marketing rakes in conversion rates six times higher.
- Content marketing costs 62% less than traditional marketing and generates about three times as many leads.
- Businesses publishing 16 or more blog posts a month get almost 3.5 times more traffic than businesses publishing zero to four articles.
- Small businesses with blogs get 126% more lead growth than small businesses that don’t have them.
- More than 615 Million devices now have ad-blocking software.
- Websites with blog content have 434% more search engine-indexed pages than those that don’t publish blog content.
- Optimizing your website with keywords and metadata for voice search, mobile search, and local search doesn’t cost anything additional and can significantly increase your website’s ranking in search engines and searches.
(Sources: Content Marketing Institute, Neil Patel, Search Engine Watch)
The right type of content in the right place at the right time not only resonates with your target audience but will significantly boost your website’s search results’ ranking and revenue streams. You don’t need to spend a lot of money on banner ads or other paid ads to really be successful online if you develop a smart and affordable content and SEO strategy.
5. Use the Right Integrations and Tools
As a new website owner, the best way to cut overhead and operational costs is to use the right integrations and tools for your business or online venture. You’ll want to ensure you have the right content management software (CMS) to implement your content strategy, the right customer relationship management (CRM) software to track and store your email contacts and customers, the appropriate e-commerce and POS (Point of Sale) integrations for your online store or brick and mortar store and product inventory, and the appropriate social media integrations. And so on.
You’ll also want to consider digital marketing tools and integrations, integrations that allow your website visitors to book a reservation or meeting, or integrations that allow you to collect membership fees and subscriptions. Some website hosting providers may provide a robust suite of integrations for your website while others may not. So, that’s another thing to consider as you’re trying to keep your website costs low. If you already have access to the appropriate integrations you need via your website hosting service, you won’t need to hire others to help you implement the third-party software you need for your website, and you won’t have to pay for access to third-party software either.
Keep the five tips above in mind if you want to cut costs as a new website owner.
Feature image: Fancycrave from Pexels
Sources Cited