What a business buys when it buys a website
Commissioning a website buys a commercial asset with an annual running cost, not a finished file. What the build price covers, which costs continue after handover, and who should own the site.
Contents
A business buying a website is buying a commercial asset with a running cost, not a finished file. The build is one invoice. Hosting, domain renewal, security patches, content updates and measurement continue every year the site stays live, and someone has to own them by name.
Key takeaways
- The build price covers the build. Hosting, domain renewal, security updates and content changes are recurring costs that begin at launch.
- Site software patches on its own schedule. WordPress shipped 4.4.2 as a security release on 2 February 2016 and asked every earlier version to update immediately.
- Google has used mobile-friendliness as a ranking signal in mobile search since 21 April 2015, so a desktop-only site loses visibility, not just comfort.
- Visitors decide fast. Nielsen Norman Group's analysis of more than 205,000 pages found that the first 10 seconds of a visit decide whether it continues.
- Register the domain and hosting in the company's legal name. Recovering a domain from a former supplier costs more than the domain.
What the build price actually covers
A quote for a website prices a defined piece of work: research, structure, design, build, content load, launch. That work ends on a date. The obligations it creates do not.
From launch onward the site sits on infrastructure that changes without asking permission. The content management system ships fixes. The hosting stack updates. Browsers change what they accept. Someone has to apply those changes, and when the answer to "who" is nobody, the site degrades quietly for months before anyone notices.
WordPress released version 4.4.2 on 2 February 2016 as a security and maintenance update, fixing a server-side request forgery issue and an open redirect, and asked every site running an earlier version to update immediately (WordPress.org).
That was a normal month, not an emergency. Budget for several of them a year.
The costs that don't appear on the quote
Five items recur whether or not anyone plans for them: domain renewal, hosting, the TLS certificate, software updates, and content changes. The first three cost money. The last two cost attention, which is the harder one to buy back later.
Certificates did get cheaper. Let's Encrypt dropped the invitation requirement for free certificates on 3 December 2015, so encryption stopped being a line item for most small sites. It did not stop being a task, because certificates expire on a schedule and renewal has to be automated and then checked.
Content is the cost that surprises people. Prices move, staff change, opening hours change. A site nobody can edit becomes a site that misinforms customers about the business.
Give the site one commercial job
Before design starts, name what the site has to do in commercial terms: produce qualified inquiries, take reservations, publish a current price list, or reduce repetitive phone calls. One primary job, written down and agreed.
That single sentence decides structure, content and measurement. Without it, the review meeting turns into a discussion of taste, and taste has no acceptance criteria.
Nielsen Norman Group analyzed more than 205,000 web pages and over two billion dwell-time measurements and found that the first 10 seconds of a visit determine whether the user stays. Pages that hold attention past 30 seconds tend to keep it for several minutes (Jakob Nielsen, 11 September 2011).
Mobile is the default, not a version
Google announced in February 2015 that mobile-friendliness would become a ranking signal in mobile search, and rolled the change out on 21 April 2015. A site that only works on a desktop screen doesn't just feel awkward on a phone. It ranks lower for people searching on the device they carry.
Traffic follows the network. The ITU counted 3.2 billion internet users worldwide in 2015, with 43% of the global population online and mobile-broadband penetration at 47%. Across Honduras and Central America, most of that growth arrives over mobile networks rather than fixed lines.
Google made mobile-friendliness a ranking signal for mobile searches worldwide on 21 April 2015, after announcing the change in February 2015 (Google Webmaster Central Blog).
Who owns the site after launch
Register the domain in the company's legal name, with a company email address as the administrative contact. Do the same for hosting and the analytics account. This isn't distrust of the supplier. It's what makes changing supplier a decision rather than a negotiation.
Then name one person inside the business who is accountable for the site: renewals, updates, content, and the monthly look at what it produced. Ownership without a name isn't ownership.
FAQ
How much should a business budget for a website after launch?
Budget a recurring annual line, sized to what the site has to do. A page that publishes contact details needs hosting, a domain and occasional edits. A site that takes orders needs monitoring, backups and someone who can respond when it fails during a busy week.
Is a cheap website a false economy?
Not automatically. It becomes one when the price excludes the work that keeps the site useful: security updates, content changes and measurement. Compare two quotes on what happens in year two, not only on the launch figure, and ask each supplier what they will still be doing in month thirteen.
Who should own the domain name?
The business, registered in its legal name, with a company email as administrative contact. A supplier can manage a domain without holding it. A domain registered to a former supplier is the most common reason a company cannot move its own website.
What should be measured in the first six months?
Measure against the job named before the build: inquiries, reservations, or calls avoided. Record the number, where it came from and what happened next. A traffic chart with no outcome column can't tell you whether the site earns its running cost.
Where to start
Name the commercial job first, agree the annual running cost second, and discuss the build third. A quote that prices only the build isn't wrong, it's incomplete, and the gap becomes visible in month seven when nobody has updated anything. Six months after launch you will know something you can't know today: whether the site produces the outcome it was built for, or whether it produces traffic that goes nowhere.
