Contrary to popular belief, obtaining your own professionally designed web site needn't cost you an arm and a leg. In fact, compared to the cost of conventional methods of advertising, a web site for your business can be cost effectiveindeed.

A simple, small (5 page) brochure style web site showcasing your business and advertising your products and/or services should cost you anywhere in the region of £250.00 - £600.00. This price should include web site hosting, domain name registration, search engine optimisation and submittal and all work needed up until your web site goes 'live'.

A small size e-commerce web site should cost you anything from £700.00 upwards, depending on the quantity of products and/or services you are selling and the required overall functionality of the web site in question. E-commerce web sites cost a lot more than static brochure style web sites as there is a lot more work involved in creating them. The security of the web site will also need to be high in order to instill confidence in potential customers.

Once the initial lump sum payment has been made and you have a professional, stylish and user friendly web presence for your business, the only costs you need to worry about are for web hosting renewal, domain name registration renewal and the costs for any updates you require to your web site (if any.

Domain names can be renewed from as little as £4.99 for two years and the average price for a reliable and feature packed web hosting service for a small business is approximately £60.00 per year. This means that you can advertise your business to 1000's of potential customers every single day, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week; from as little as £5.50 per month (that is approximately 18p per day). How is that for cost effective advertising?

Can you really afford not to have a web site?