Building a Website on a Budget

Introduction

Everything mentioned below can be made more affordable or even obtained for free if you are willing to give up some control. However, we believe that your website will be your showcase in the digital world. If you’re looking to grow a business or pursue your passion and leverage all the digital tools available, it’s better to make a small investment that will ultimately yield better results. With a bit of initial planning, we can strategically choose the best option.

Designing and developing your website

The first step once you decide to have a website is design. It’s important to have a consistent visual identity across all platforms, and the website is no exception. Consider a logo, colors, fonts, and the layout of elements on the screen, keeping in mind that the website can be accessed from various screen sizes, from a desktop computer to a mobile phone.

This can be achieved with free tools if you have some design skills. Figma is the most widely used platform and offers a friendly free plan (Adobe and Sketch are also available). You can also combine it with Canva, which includes many templates for social media posts and document design.

If design is not your strength (as is my case 😅, which is why I focus on development), you may need to hire a web designer. At Itakhi, we offer customized designs reflecting your visual preferences and values.

But design is just a poster if we don’t translate it into the language of browsers. This process is called web development, involving giving semantic meaning to each part of the design (telling the browser: this is a button, this is a paragraph, etc.) and providing instructions for how the browser should react to user interaction (e.g., when clicking this button, open a window to communicate with the business).

Again, there are tools with free plans that allow you to do this visually and intuitively. WordPress is the most used and easy to learn. Of course, if you need to do visually more complex things, you may need to turn to paid plugins like Elementor (which we use at Itakhi to build your website).

There’s also the option of writing the base code directly if you have knowledge of HTML, CSS, and JavaScript, but we won’t go into much detail on this point.

In summary, design and development are two sides of the same coin. A coin that can have a value of $0 if you have basic knowledge and can restrict yourself to using only the tools offered for free on the internet. However, it can also be considered an investment for the business, and you can hire a company like Itakhi to handle all this tailored to your needs (specially considering SEO optimizations for better search rankings and increased business visibility).

Domain – your website’s name

Another investment for your website is the domain. Everything hosted on the web needs a “domain” or name to identify it (e.g., itkahidigital.com). This domain is purchased from a domain provider for a duration of one year (some offer options for 2 or even 10 years). Prices vary, especially depending on whether you want .com, .com.ar, .musica.ar, or others.

There are local domain providers depending on the region of the world and there are also special domain extensions for specific use cases (like .gov, .org, etc) which require you to comply with certain things before you can purchase them.

For common international domains, like those ending in .com, you need to turn to providers like GoDaddy, and prices vary between $12 and $50 per year (although some domains can cost as little as 1 dollar per year or really expensive depending on the name and popularity).

These platforms always have a search function to check if the domain you want is available.

There are also free domains available, but they may limit your ability to choose the name you want. WordPress itself offers the option to use its subdomain with your website.

Hosting the site on a server

Finally, another necessary investment is the server. A server is basically a computer where your website’s information is stored, always powered on and accessible on the internet. This machine is responsible for responding with your website every time a user types your domain into their browser (e.g., when you type itkahidigital.com, the internet looks for where our server is and requests the necessary files to show you our website). This is also called “hosting” or “web hosting.” We rent hosting annually to store our clients’ websites. The cost of hosting varies depending on the provider, and there are free hostings like Netlify or the basic hosting offered by WordPress.

Among the advantages of having a paid server are having backups of your site, security certificates (essential for any site, especially if there are payments involved), CDNs that significantly speed up your website’s download time, etc.

It’s important to consider that servers contribute to the carbon footprint we leave on this earth. That’s why at Itakhi, we are committed to use only “green” servers with a neutral or even positive footprint. Recently, we chose Green Geeks to host all the sites we build and we are already migrating from our current hosting.

In summary

Having a website is essential for managing your business’s presence in the digital world. For this, four investments are necessary:

• Design
• Development
• Domain
• Web Hosting

At Itakhi, we are ready to offer you the best tailored service in all these areas. We also regularly post information on our blog about how to take advantage of the free tools available to everyone on the internet.