It’s a very good question and one we get asked often. It really depends on what your requirements are as a business, (and how much you truly value your business), how complex the project is, and ultimately, how much time is required to complete the task and publish the site.

For example, a SIMPLE WordPress website is made up of several elements that are required in order to setup a solid foundation onto which you can develop and create the site – and these are requirements even before the development stage of the process can begin. First you require a domain name – the ‘www.domain-name.co.uk’ – and depending on your budget – We, Twistedgifted, always advise on “ring fencing” your BRAND. So purchase the ‘.co.uk’ and the ‘.com’ variants, if they are both available – costs for these can vary from as little as £1.99 up to several hundreds or even thousands of pounds – the more premium the name you wish to purchase, so sometimes a little ‘thinking outside the box’ is required to secure a relevant domain name for your business.

Following on from the domain name, you will need ‘Hosting’ onto which your website will be developed under your new domain-name. There are many ISP’s (internet service providers) with varying packages to choose from. Again, it very much depends on your requirements as a small business (or new business) where cashflow is key. The cost again can vary from as little as a few pounds per month and upwards for dedicated servers and anything in-between. The hosting package you choose with your ISP will also need to include an ‘SSL certificate’ to make sure the new website is secure and encrypts data and connection. This will show up as a ‘padlock’ next to your domain-name in search engines such a Google. It’s a way to show potential customers that you take yours and, importantly, their security seriously when they visit your website – be it a shop ‘Ecommerce’ or a ‘Brochure’ style informative website with a call to action… Many ISP’s now include a SSL with the hosting packages they provided but as an idea of cost for a basic SSL is about £40.00 to purchase.

If you’re a New Start-up Business you’ll also require an email mailbox setting up – again most ISP’s can add this as an addition to your hosting package for a fee. It’s a very good idea to set this up and keep your BRAND on point – if you’re going to invest in a website to promote your services and products, you don’t want to go off brand by using a ‘hotmail’  style free account and undoing all your BRAND equity and investment to date. The idea here is ‘good house keeping’: Your domain, hosting, SSL and email are all supplied by the same ISP – it is not written in law but it is best practice going forward.

Please remember we can help to guide you with all of the above and take the ‘headache’ away from you – to set up your account for you and manage the whole process for you.

Once your hosting is set up and propagation is completed (propagation is the time your website domain and SSL takes to show on the worldwide web – anything from a few hours up to 48 hours) you are then ready to install the WordPress CMS. The WordPress CMS is free and once installation is completed then we are ready to start developing your website. The essential legwork is done, now this is the fun part! No doubt you have the content, images logos, videos, testimonials, call to action, products, reviews etc ready to hand over to us designers and developers. But first we need to take into consideration a few extra options before we get in to this – more good house keeping, if you will.

WordPress adds functionality to its platform via ‘Plugins’. These plugins make your website more feature rich, faster, safer and better to use both in terms of security and user experience. Please note – nearly all these plugins are free, however, to unleash their full potential, these plugins do have a paid ‘premium’ option. Nearly all the WordPress websites we build have these premium plugin options installed and set up: from better SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) to upgraded Login Security and Offsite Daily Backup features and Cache enabled plugins. Only when we have these extra measures set in place do we start on your website development.

So how much does it really cost? Our basic website package including hosting starts @ £1500.00 for a ‘single’ page ‘Funnel’ style, responsive website, embedded with all the feature rich functionality as mentioned above. Of course, bigger budget = more pages, more functionality and on page SEO, Content Delivery Networks, Image Optimisation, Google Analytics integration, Page Speed Optimisation, Google Translate, Accessibility tools, GDPR, Social Media set up and connection. The possibilities really are endless.

If we can be of service or help in anyway either with your Branding, Logo, Imagery and Website, do please drop us an email to creative@twistedgifted.co.uk or visit our website at www.twistedgifted.co.uk