How Much Does It Cost To Own A Website?

This is a question i get all the time. I use to have to answer this question constanty when i did web-design for others. Now that my focus is internet marketing and helping others create their own passive income sites, I get the same question just as much.

I could give you a vague answer and say that there are many variables, but if you are like me, you probably just want a simple straight answer.

So what i am going to do in this post is describe how much it costs to start and own your own website, the way i recommend it to first time website owners.

The first thing i want to get out of the way, is free hosted and free site services. Yes there are many free services that will host your blog or website free, but they are always limited or come with strings attached, like forced advertising. you can check some of these sites that offer free versions:

www.WordPress.org

www.weebly.com

www.wix.com

Costs For A Real Website

Steps to own a website

The first cost is your domain name or URL. The name and adress of your website; for example mine is www.ZZZProfits.com .

There are many sites that provide domain registration, but just use Godaddy.com they are probably the biggest and most widely supported domain registrar and they make it easy and quick to transfer names to & from other accounts.

It’s a simple process. you just go to Godaddy.com search for an available domain then register it. Voila! you are now the proud owner of your very own web identity.

Cost is about $10-12 per year per name.

Seperate your domain name for security

The next thing that i highly recommend is that you use a seperate company like Godaddy for your domain name/s, and use another seperate company like Hostgator for you hosting. The reason is, that if you decide to hire a web-designer to build or work-on your website, you can give them full access to your hosting admin without giving them access to your domain name.

I have heard to many horror stories of bad web-designers either stealing domain-names or accidently letting them expire.

The one thing you will need to learn how to do is point your domain to your host. It is very simple and you can do it in a couple of minutes. No technical skills are required

Name servers: When you buy a domain name with Godaddy, default name-servers are set to the Godaddy name servers. All you have to do is go into your Godaddy admin settings to Set Nameservers

1. Log in to your Account Manager.
2. Next to Domains, click Launch.
3. Select the domain name(s) you want to modify.
4. From (Nameservers), select Set Nameservers.
5. Select : I have specific nameservers for my domains — This option indicates that you are hosting your domain name with another company (enter the two or more nameservers your hosting provider gave you)This can be found in your welcome email of your host as well as in your hosting control panel.

Setting up web hosting

Your second cost is web hosting. Web hosting is where your files are stored. the actual html files, graphics and content of your site. The reason why you need a webhost is to make sure your site is online 100% of the time and can handle traffic without slowing down page loading.

For 99% of new webiste owners you will use what is called “shared hosting”. For this we will use Hostgator.

There are tons of companies offering web hosting and the top 20 recommended web hosts pricing are for the most part similar. The most important factor in my mind is customer service & support by native english speakers. This is why we use Hostgator.

With web hosts there are usually a few shared hosting options. Regardless of which host you choose i recommend you make sure these 3 things are included in your hosting package:

1. UNLIMITED Domains

2. UNLIMITED Disk Space

3. UNLIMITED Bandwidth

This allows you to have multiple websites if you choose. If you want to create aditional websites you will only need to buy new domain names and ad them on to your existing hosting. You only need one shared hosting account to house mutliple websites. I have over 15 websites on my shared hosting account.

If you use Hostgator the “baby plan” would be suffice.

Once you sign up for your shared hosting and sign in to your control panel there are many usefull free tools available such as one click wordpress setup.

Cost is about $75-95 per year depending if you choose to pay monthly or annually

Summary, How Much Does a Website Cost

Domain name= $10-$12

Hosting= $75-95

Total annual cost= $85-$105

Thats all you really need to own your own website.

Web Design Options

The design is a different story. The cost for web design can be anyhwere from free to thousands of dollars. Here are some options you can investigate.

4. If you choose to follow our free ZZZProfit course you can setup websies yourself at not additional cost; other then your time.

5. Another option would be to purchase a premium WordPress theme then modify it yourself. Average premium themes range from $35-$75 one time cost. An example of top quality themes is Woothemes

6. You can outsource or hire a freelancer from a website resource like oDesk

7. You can hire a local web designer. This is good if you like to sit down with someone face to face to explain your concept. This is also usually the most expensive route.

That is a basic intro to the cost of owning a website. Feel free to drop by our passive income forum if you have any questions regarding simple website setup.