There are no hard and fast answers to the costs ahead of you as you build your new web site. Published prices for a variety of "web site packages" are out there, and you've probably seen them.

Get a complete web site package for $399.00! Or, small business web site design starting at $199.00!

Here are some simple facts:

Web page design, from scratch, not from templates and not generated by "site builder" programs, takes a little time. A single page, from scratch, could take from several hours to several days (depending on the complexity of the design of the site on the whole). Remember, most web site designers/developers are educated professionals who make a decent living.

Many hours at a decent wage does not equal an entire web site for $399.00.

Obviously, such a web site is a template waiting to be filled in - like a form letter. It comes with no more than a few very basic functions (if any) and fits the category of small business web sites that are useless to everyone concerned - from the owner who gets no return on investment, to the visitor who gets to read something akin to an online version of your latest newspaper ad and not a great deal more.

You'll be much better served paying for professional, custom web design.

You'll also need a web hosting package. The price for solid, professional grade hosting for your site will vary depending on the anticipated volume of traffic. For sites with less expected traffic, excellent packages exist from around $12.95 each month up to hundreds of dollars per month. Obviously, knowing how hard your site will work is a key to locating the right hosting package for your site.

Enterprise solutions, with dedicated servers - or even your own servers - will cost a great deal more. Again, knowing where you'll be with trafic volume is going to be important so that you do not leave your site under powered - but also so that you don't over spend.

Domain registrations cost around $20 each year. You can get them all over the place for free, if you agree to x number of years of hosting with this or that provider. That's not a bad way to go, if the host offers a quality development environment that suits your expected usage levels.

Designing pages, as was mentioned, takes some time. A brand new page, from scratch, with its own unique structure, may take from a few hours to a few days - depending on the complexity of the page and any functions to be integrated. Typically, your web pages will share many design elements and much of the underlying structure. That should reduce greatly the cost of additional pages.

For example, a relatively simple page, with a masthead, another two or three images, a few paragraphs of text and a navigation system might be built for $200.00. Additional pages that made use of the same page structure could not only be completed much more rapidly, they would also cost much less.

A savvy developer builds with reusable page elements by intent. A sneaky one does too, but doesn't bother to pass the savings on to the client.

Considering the likely goal of a unified theme throughout your web site, you should expect to be able to add pages to your web site over time, both quickly and at relatively low cost.

The cost of the functions and applications built into your web site will depend on the nature of the systems you require. Simple things, obviously, are low cost. Complex systems take longer to develop, and so cost more.

In any case, the meat and potatoes of your web site will be the functions built into it. This is where the small business owner usually looks to save money. This is also where small business owners typically drill holes in the hulls of their own ships.

Here's a simple illustration: A small email campaign system, fully automated, might cost $400 or $500. A large one, supporting multiple levels of marketing, might cost 3 or 4 times more and beyond. Both could generate new leads, new accounts and increased sales, presumably paying for themselves over time.

Frequently, small business owners say "no" to these programmed services, and seem to save real money. The result is a web site that does not support itself - a web site that is an expense. Is it a bargain to build a disabled web site that can not bring you a return on your investment? Of course not.

At eStar Professional our mission is to build successful small business web sites. We've done the research, gathered the information, trained for the skills and established specific educational requirements to create a company that does its job extremely well. We build Assets.

But, we also realize that the cost of the very applications that would make a significant difference to a small business web site must work within a small business budget. For that reason, we do everything we can to keep costs down, including specializing with Open Source technologies (which have no proprietary licensing fees and are often free).

We also offer development in "phases" over time, and creative payment plans. Both help to spread out the cost of your web site, to help you fit your project into your budget. Call today an let's talk about the web site you need and the budget you have in mind for it.

We Build Assets! Call e Star Professional today.