Let’s face it. Cost is a significant factor that affects the viability of any technical or marketing initiative; otherwise, there should not be much of a problem rolling out state-of-the-art projects using best-of-breed technology solutions. Typically, quality items are priced at a premium, where products and services come with all the bells and whistles if one subscribes to the top-of-the-line plan. In building a mobile website, it is the same thing. However, what if a company is a startup and forced to mobilize its site on a shoestring, or worse, zero budget? Is there a thing such as a free mobile website service? And given the argument that quality comes with a price, does it mean that a free mobile website service is nothing but a wasted utility?
How Much Does It Cost to Build a Mobile Website?
Regardless if you are a startup or a large enterprise, you will incur costs depending on what your starting point is and what you want to do with your site. This means that companies who already have a fully functional, updated, and intuitive full websites might need to spend less than those who do not have a website to begin with. This is because companies only need to contract web development services to simplify, condense, and optimize content for viewing on handheld devices.
Then again, costs vary from company to company.
The costs depend on complexity and functionality of a website. To provide information on how web developers appraise web design costs, we have identified the key considerations in building a website.
Functionality/Applications: This refers to any technical component required to incorporate to mobile websites. E-commerce applications, video clips, photo galleries, chat, commenting/message boards, and rating and review are just some of the functionalities that a company might want to explore for mobile sites. This means that sites requiring more functionality are priced higher than static sites since there are lots of development and customization involved.
Navigation and Usability: Here, developers focus on creating information architecture optimized for mobile devices, ensuring that the website provides easy navigation and speed regardless of browsers versions. Developers should also overcome device fragmentation issues and create mobile websites that can accommodate a wide array of browsers and their corresponding versions, display resolutions, and operating systems that are a common problem when accessing sites from a smart phone or tablet. Since this task requires tremendous user testing, this usually accounts for a big chunk of the development costs.
Design: This pertains to the interface design that allows proper viewing of content. Here, developers need to customize a site wherein the size, layout, website buttons, and applications will be rendered accordingly, regardless of device used. It covers requirements concerning user flows, mockups, and hierarchy. Switching from a desktop view to mobile browsing as an option should be seamless.
It also covers graphical rendition that web developers use to convey a company’s brand effectively. Custom designs are always more expensive because everything is tailored to fit the individual and unique needs of a business. It usually varies depending on the complexity of the designs, the number of designs, and the number of pages that need to be created.
The good news is there are providers that offer free mobile website templates, which companies can use to mobilize their sites. No technical knowledge is required, and best of all, they can be launched within minutes with just a few clicks, using any mobile device!
High Quality Content: Content is king. Although this is pretty much cliché sounding these days, it is an important part of a website. People want to find engaging and compelling content that they can relate to. If content resonates with a website visitor, he is likely to share the information to his peers or social media network. This publicity can go viral in minutes. Best of all, it is free!
Not every company has writers working for them, so they seek for web copywriting services offered by their web hosting/development provider. Again, prices may vary depending on number of pages, topic, and content structure. If companies require regular blogs written for them on a regular basis, providers may charge them based on different metrics incorporating traffic analysis post-development.
Cost-Cutting Dilemma Solved!
Because companies are always concerned about cutting their costs, allocating resources towards mobile web development initiatives have become a topic for debate. For some reasons, people desire great things but are too stringent on cash. This can be expected from small and medium enterprises where ‘thinking big’ and ‘acting small’ is an everyday mindset.
Luckily, some companies offer free mobile website services as part of their marketing campaign. Targeted for use by individuals or businesses for a year, these free mobile website service come as an answered prayer to companies who are unsure what steps to take or how much resources to allocate for such project. With a service as these, companies can build a professional-looking mobile counterpart of their full websites in minutes so they can focus on expanding their businesses instead of wasting precious time debating over cost issues.
