Recurring Costs of an Interior Design and Architecture Website.

A client once told me, "Don't tell me the one-time cost of the website, tell me the recurring costs. That's what I truly want to measure."

I told him there were none save a yearly maintenance round, and we immediately made a sale. We have been in the business of website design and marketing for interior designers for years now, and this principle of his has stayed with me and provided us clarity during many of our business purchases.

He was right; it’s a rather simple business doctrine. A high one-time cost with a low need for maintenance is much better than a high spend on recurring.

A lot of the unnecessary expenditures are hidden as recurring costs because all businesses love a subscription service.

Is it possible to have almost no recurring costs for a website? If not, what are the various recurring spends that you should look out for?

Following up with our last article about website costs, this one is about the recurring costs associated with the same.

A Website Buying Guide for Interior Designers and Architects

Let's bring some transparency to the recurring costs.

We've broken it down into three major categories.

Much of the maintenance cost comes from the use of technology, although not limited to that. But why does a piece of software floating into the digital ether need maintenance at all? Let’s find out!

1. Updates

You've faced the incessant chants of notifications asking you to update your apps on your phone. This is the same for everything related to the web.

Your website, if well-made, is designed to work with the current versions of browsers. However, browsers are regularly updated, and while the goal is to ensure that everything continues to function as it did before, that's not always possible.

Although it may be a little annoying to keep getting those notifications, they pop up for a reason.

As the platforms and technologies your site relies on evolve, the site must be updated accordingly to maintain compatibility.

2. Security

This is a big one. People must trust your site at all times. It is intrinsically linked with brand reputation.

If your website is hacked by a random hacker from another country, your firm can quickly lose its reputation. It's code red in the cyber world; this is why there are so many updates in the first place.

Here, technologies used on the backend start shining. If you are using a JAMStack solution from a good vendor, the chances of a cyber-attack being able to compromise your site go significantly down.

On the other hand, using systems like WordPress can leave your site vulnerable to cyber-attacks and they need monthly security rounds. This is why sometimes WordPress sites can end up costing a whole lot more than actual code-heavy solutions with a higher one-time fee.

3. Bug Fixes

Bugs can inadvertently creep into a site because they live in a more volatile environment than most people like to think.

Again, frequent software updates on browsers and website technologies can lead to this. We never know when a minor bug can potentially break a site.

4. Quality Testing

The quality testing standards change every day. We humans hold ourselves to a higher standard than we did yesterday, as we should. This is also reflected on the web.

Staying up to date with the latest quality testing standards is essential to ensure we aren’t running behind our competition.

5. Back-ups

Maintenance rounds can sometimes also include a website backup. This is just a copy of the site in that state at the time.

It is like a saved state to go back to if anything breaks in the site in the future. All Interior Designers or Architects should take a website backup at least once every six months.

A site doesn't automatically get traffic by merely existing. Your business has to make its presence known in the sea of competition through active efforts.

If you want your site to rank well on Google, this monthly service is a mandate. Ranking well on Google means more prospects will see you organically, without ads.

What's more, SEO for interior designers and architects is a long-lasting solution. While it is a bit more expensive than ads, the returns you get can justify the investment.

SEO is an ongoing process of optimizing your website to rank higher in search engine results pages (SERPs), primarily Google.

Here are some recurring SEO costs to consider:

Keyword Research: In order to identify relevant keywords that your target audience is looking for requires help from tools like Ahrefs, SEMrush, and Moz. The more advanced the features, the better the results - and the higher the charges. 

On-page Optimization: Optimizing website content, titles, meta descriptions, and image alt tags to target keywords. This can be done in-house or outsourced to SEO specialists for interior design and architecture niches. 

Content Creation: Regularly creating high-quality content like blog posts, articles, and infographics can attract visitors and build backlinks. This too can be done in-house by a content writer or outsourced to expert freelance writers. 

Technical SEO: Ensuring your website is technically sound for search engines to crawl and index effectively. This may involve fixing broken links and improving site speed, and mobile-friendliness. Technical SEO audits can be done by SEO specialists with recurring fees. 

Link Building: Acquiring backlinks (links from other websites to yours) is a crucial SEO factor. Backlink-building strategies like guest blogging, directory submissions, and outreach campaigns can be time-consuming and may require paid tools or services. 

If you are already getting traffic on the site this monthly service can help you understand if the people that land on your site can know exactly what they need to about your business.

This is done through rigorous user experience testing and many iterations to reach a better version of your current site. Conversion testing is, again, an expensive but useful and reliable website service for mid to large interior design and architecture firms with decent website traffic.

Let’s take a look at some other recurring expenses a website may incur:

1. Content Management System

Want to edit certain things on the site without your developer's help? Content Management System is the way to go.

These are third-party services which are mostly paid. With services like WordPress, these are usually a monthly subscription even if your use-case and content are very small.

On the other hand, if you are a small interior design business without a lot of website data to juggle, JAMStack offers a lot of free solutions that don't cost you a monthly fee beyond the initial set-up

2. Hosting

Your website sits on a computer, also called a server, that works 24/7. Just like a CMS, servers are hard to set up on your own, and this is where competent third-party services come in.

The cost is usually nominal, and if you are a small interior design or architecture business with low website traffic, free hosting solutions are also available for you.

3. Domain

You have to pay a yearly fee to get a domain, or a URL, for your website. A URL is a website address (like www.google.com) that helps people find it on Google.

A domain, again, is a third-party service with a nominal yearly nominal fee. These can get expensive if you are bidding for a name that is highly sought after, but most firms can get away with getting a URL that costs less than 50 dollars a year.

Investing in a well-structured, future-proof website can significantly reduce long-term costs. It is possible to get a website for your interior design or architecture firm with very low recurring costs (as low as 20 dollars a year) if you are willing to invest more in better and long-lasting technologies.

Having low maintenance rounds per year means you are saving both money and time. Even for advanced tech like JAMStack which is rather future-proof, it is still recommended that you run a bi-annual maintenance round.

While SEO and conversion testing are ongoing investments, their benefits are invaluable for business growth. SEO helps attract organic traffic and improve online visibility, while conversion testing ensures your website effectively converts visitors into customers.

By strategically allocating resources to these essential services, you can maximize your interior design or architecture website's return on investment without incurring the hidden costs that may arise due to the use of outdated technology to ignore maintenance cycles.