Budget seven lines: domain, hosting, certificate, updates and backups, content, advertising, and help when something breaks. Protect the updates and backups line, because it is the first one cut and the one missed most when something fails.

One line on last year's spreadsheet

In the first days of January, many owners open last year's figures and find the website as a single line: hosting, perhaps, and whatever was paid when something went wrong.

Now is when the year's costs get decided. A budget set in January is a plan. The same costs discovered in October are surprises, paid in a hurry.

The useful question is not what the site cost last year, but what it has to keep doing this year, and what each job costs.

Seven lines, not one

Most small business websites need the same seven lines. Some are bills that arrive on a date; others are hours somebody has to spend.

The first three arrive whether anyone thinks about them or not. The next two happen only if someone is paid, or given the time, to do them.

Fixed costs come with dates

Domains, hosting and certificates each renew on a date, and each fails in its own way when that date passes unnoticed.

A lapsed domain takes the website and the email down together. An expired certificate puts a browser warning in front of the form a customer was about to fill in.

Write each renewal into the budget beside its amount and the card it charges. A card that expired in the autumn is a common reason a renewal quietly fails.

Why maintenance is cut first

When the total looks too large, the owner looks for a line that can go without anyone noticing. Updates and backups are the obvious candidates.

They are invisible when they work. The site looks the same with or without them, and the invoice describes work nobody can see.

Advertising produces visible activity, and content changes show on the page. So the maintenance line goes, and for months the site carries on as before.

What happens when it goes

For a while, nothing. Then the software falls a version or two behind, and the site runs code with flaws that have been published and fixed elsewhere.

WordPress and Joomla sites are commonly broken into through old plugins and themes, by automated scripts that try every site they can reach. Being small is no protection.

The result may be spam pages, visitors sent elsewhere, or a warning beside the site in Google's results. Without a recent backup, the clean-up starts from whatever copy survives.

Forms fail more quietly. A server change can stop a contact form sending mail, and nobody notices until a customer phones to ask why nobody replied.

Content is a cost too

Somebody has to change the prices, the dates and the photographs. If that is the owner, the cost is the owner's hours, and they belong in the budget.

Name the pages that change on a schedule, such as hours, prices or intake dates, and put their updates on the calendar beside the dates they depend on.

A page still showing last year's dates tells visitors nobody is paying attention, which is the impression a website exists to prevent.

A worked example

A private welding school in a Prince George industrial park runs three full-time intakes a year, evening courses for working welders and weld testing for tradespeople.

Its WordPress site lists programs, tuition and intake dates, and takes applications through a form. Last January the owner kept the hosting and the domain, and cut everything else.

In October an applicant phoned to say the form kept showing an error. It had stopped sending mail after a server change in the summer, and the newest backup was eighteen months old.

WordPress and four plugins were several versions behind, one with a published flaw. The intake page still showed dates from a year earlier.

This year the budget has all seven lines. Updates are done monthly, with a backup taken before each one and a copy stored away from the server.

The application form is tested monthly, and the intake page changes the week each intake is set. Faults go to a named person, with hours already arranged.

None of it shows on screen. It means a broken form is found within a month rather than a season, and a bad update can be undone the same day.

Advertising on its own line

Keep advertising apart from maintenance. Advertising can be paused in a slow month and restarted; skipped updates leave the site exposed the whole time.

Set a monthly figure and a date to review it. Every click sent to a page with a broken form is paid for and wasted, so advertising depends on the other lines.

Help when something breaks

Something will break during the year: an email setting, a form, a page after an update. The question is whether help is arranged in advance or found in a hurry.

Agree beforehand who to call, how quickly they respond and what an hour costs. Keep the logins for the domain, hosting and site where that person can reach them.

Help arranged ahead starts sooner, because that person already knows how the site is built.

The counter-case

A site of plain pages, with no content system, no plugins and no forms, has far less to update. Its maintenance line can be modest: renewals, a backup copy and a yearly check.

But even the simplest site has a domain, hosting and email that someone must renew, and someone must fix when they fail. The lines get shorter; they do not disappear.

Building this year's figure

  1. List every renewal with its date, amount and card.
  2. Price updates and backups by the month, not the incident.
  3. Name the pages that change on a schedule.
  4. Count the hours for content, including your own.
  5. Set advertising as its own line, with a review date.
  6. Arrange help before anything breaks.
  7. Test every form once a month.

Step two is the line most worth defending. It looks optional in January, and its absence is felt most when the site is broken into or a form fails unseen for a season.

A budget built this way says in advance what the site needs to keep working until next January, and who answers for each part of it.

Frequently asked questions

What belongs in a yearly website budget?

Seven lines: the domain, hosting, the certificate for secure pages, updates and backups, content, advertising, and hours set aside for help when something breaks during the year.

Why do updates and backups get cut first?

They are invisible when they work. The site looks the same with or without them, so the invoice seems to pay for nothing until something goes wrong.

What happens when a site is not updated?

Its software falls behind and keeps flaws that have been published and fixed. Automated scripts find such sites, and without a recent backup the clean-up is slow.

How often should a site be backed up?

At least before every update, with a copy kept somewhere other than the server. A site that changes often, or takes orders, needs backups more frequently.

Should the owner's own time be in the budget?

Yes. If the owner updates prices, dates and photographs, those hours are a real cost, and counting them shows whether the work is better handed to someone else.

Is a small, simple site different?

A site of plain pages with no forms or plugins has less to maintain. It still needs renewals, a backup copy and someone to call when it fails.

West Coast Media Solutions Inc. provides web design, web development, hosting, digital marketing, and business consulting to organisations across Canada, drawing on more than twenty-five years in the field.

Website costs still a single line?

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