Want to build your own website? You can do it for about $111, here’s what you need. Numbers are approximate, and I’m assuming you want to go the “professional” route with your own domain name and hosting.
Domain Name Registration (Godaddy): $11/year
Web Site Hosting: $100/year
Site Builder (WordPress, Weebly, others): free
Blog (WordPress): free
Market Research (Google Adwords Keyword Tool): free
Traffic Stats (Google Analytics): free
Search Engine Optimization (WordPress All-in-One SEO plugin is one way): free
Email: free with hosting; Gmail is also free
Image Editing (Irfanview, Picnik, Microsoft Picture Manager): free
Newsletter Management (Mailchimp): free
How-To Instruction (Youtube, Google, forums): free
Total Cost: $111
What else will you need to spend?
A lot of time.
A lot of effort.
Suppose that’s acceptable to you. You don’t need your site done quickly and you have lots of time to figure out how to make it look and work correctly.
What else are we missing?
Oh yeah. Copywriting expertise. Online marketing expertise. SEO expertise.
Have you heard the story of the airplane mechanic?
A very expensive and rare old airplane developed a worrisome engine noise that had mechanics baffled. They spent days trying to figure out the source of the noise, to no avail.
Finally the aircraft owner tracked down a mechanic who specialized in restoring these old planes and offered him $5,000 to find the problem. The specialist agreed.
When this expert arrived, the aircraft owner and the previous mechanics watched eagerly while the specialist listened to the engine and walked around the plane. After about 5 minutes, he asked that the engines be turned off, requested a specific screwdriver, made an adjustment to the engine and told the pilot to turn the engine on again.
Wow! The noise was gone!
So the specialist wiped his hands on a rag and presented a bill for $5,000 to the owner.
The owner and his mechanics had a quick whispered conversation. Then the owner told the specialist, “You know, $5,000 seems like an awfully large payment for 5 minutes’ work tightening a screw, don’t you think? Would you reconsider that price?”
The specialist thought a moment, nodded, took the bill and wrote on it, and handed it back to the owner.
The newly revised bill said:
1) Tightening screw on engine – $5.00
2) Knowing which screw to tighten – $4,995.00