Websites have been around for a while and will be around as one of the top priorities of every company and professional. Websites allow content, images and functions that are of use to the viewers. They allow display, interactivity and multimedia.

Most websites these days are blog based and we prefer using WordPress as our primary CMS or content management system due to the ease with which content developers and users update the website as much as they possibly can. A few other platforms like drupal and joomla follow closely but if its a website that you want to have an impact in the search engines and good readership, wordpress is the way to go.

Websites can cost as low as $200 – $500 ( simple blog themes only ), they can also cost as much as $10,000+. Websites usually are priced by their functionality, time to code and marketing scope. They can be :

Blogs – Content driven with the capability to upload images, videos and content. Great for information dissemination.

Inventory Display – These websites focus more on the inventory, either products or services of the business. They usually need search and sort functions. These are great for e-commerce. Having a good payment checkout system complements fast sales in such websites. These websites also allow multimedia such as videos and animation to further enhance the showcase experience. More product categories and inventory variations usually costs more because the database design needs careful planning and integration.

Interactive sites – These websites allow the users to tweak the data to find results. They may also allow portals and login areas for users to experience  connectivity with the website admins and members. Social media and forum sites are great examples.

Marketing driven sites – These sites have all the functionality, Seo wire-frame and tools needed to reach to the maximum possible market available. On the other hand, these sites are dedicated to entice viewers to interact with the website, exchange information, encourage viewers to stay longer in the website and then to finally purchase from them.

The return on investment on websites eventually all depends on how far you want to take the marketing. For that, you need to ensure that your website is ready to guide the visitors to purchasing.  Usually a website can start selling in 1-2 months from launch and in that period of time website owners already gain back the cost of the website and already make headway on their internet marketing costs.