September is here.
Kids are back in school. Football season is underway. The leaves are just starting to change. And inside many companies, it’s budget season.
Marketing teams are looking at 2027 and figuring out where the money needs to go. Campaigns, media, technology, content, AI, and, for many, a new website.
Maybe you've been kicking the project down the road for a couple of years. But now you’ve reached that point. The old site has got to go.
So, the question that comes up is: How much should you budget?
It's an important question. But before you come up with a number, there’s a little homework to do. Because you're not budgeting for the same website you built five or six years ago.
AI is changing how people find and evaluate companies. Search is changing. Accessibility expectations have increased. Your website connects to more of your technology. And the website itself has become a much more important part of the customer journey.
All of that affects what you're building and what it's going to cost.
We've built a lot of websites at Ascedia. And what we’ve seen are the companies that do their homework before they start talking to agencies tend to have better conversations, get more realistic proposals, and ultimately better sites.
So, with that in mind, here are 7 things worth considering before you reach out to Ascedia or any agency.
1. Start With Why
Many times, it begins with an old website. But just being old isn’t necessarily the problem.
Maybe customers can't find what they're looking for. Maybe leads have dried up. Maybe the site doesn't reflect your brand anymore. Or maybe making a simple content change requires three emails, a developer, and three weeks of time!
So as you begin thinking about the site, a good starting point is this. Finish this sentence:
Our new website needs to help us ____________.
If you’re like most, you’ll have several answers. That's fine. The important thing is to start with the business problem(s), not the website.
Once you understand the problem, you can start figuring out what you actually need to build. That's when you can begin talking intelligently about budget.
2. Figure Out How You'll Know It Worked
If you're going to spend $50,000, $100,000, $200,000 or more on a website, what should the company get in return?
Maybe you want a 20% increase in qualified leads. Maybe you need better ecommerce conversion. Maybe organic traffic has been declining. Or maybe your marketing team needs the ability to launch a landing page in an afternoon instead of submitting a development ticket and waiting two weeks.
Whatever it is, decide how you're going to keep score before the project starts.
Otherwise, six months after launch, someone will ask whether the new website is working and the answer will be, "Well, everybody seems to like it."
That's not a KPI.
3. Get the Right People Involved Early
Website projects have a wonderful way of attracting people as they go along.
Marketing starts the project. Then sales wants a say. IT gets involved. HR has some needs. Legal weighs in. And three months into the project, somebody forwards the homepage to an executive who hasn't attended a single meeting and suddenly has a lot of opinions.
That's challenging for everyone involved. Plus it adds time – and time = more money. And that’s something we want to avoid.
So, figure out your team early. Here are some good reminders:
- Who needs to provide input?
- Who owns the project?
- Who needs to approve certain decisions?
- And finally, and maybe most importantly, who gets to make the final call?
4. Know What You're Working With
Before you start figuring out what the new website needs, take inventory of what you already have.
Today's websites rarely operate alone. Yours may connect with a CRM, marketing automation platform, ecommerce system, ERP, DAM, analytics platform, customer portal, or product database.
Some organizations have relatively simple setups. Others have spent the last decade connecting things to the site that many might not know even exist.
Then there's the content itself. How much are you moving? What needs to be rewritten? What can disappear? Which pages have SEO value that needs to be protected? Are you moving to a new CMS? Are there custom tools or applications buried somewhere in the current site?
You don't need to answer every technical question before you talk to an agency. That's part of what we're here for.
But the complexity of your digital ecosystem will have a direct impact on the complexity and cost of the project. Knowing what you're dealing with gives everyone a much better starting point.
5. You're Not Building a 2020 Website
This is a big one, and we're going to dedicate an upcoming newsletter to it.
The website you're budgeting for is different from the one you might have budgeted for six years ago. AI is one of the biggest reasons.
People are increasingly using ChatGPT, Gemini, Google AI Overviews, and other AI tools to research companies, compare products, and answer questions that previously would have started with a Google search.
Google has reported that AI Overviews now have more than 2.5 billion monthly active users. Its advice to website owners navigating this shift is pretty straightforward: "Focus on making unique, non-commodity content."
Your next website needs to make it very clear what your company does, what you know, who you help, and why anyone should trust you.
The content and technical structure also need to make that information understandable to the search engines and AI systems increasingly sitting between you and your customer.
AI isn't the only consideration. Accessibility, privacy, first-party data, personalization, performance, security, and your marketing technology stack all need to be part of the conversation.
We'll get deeper into those changes in the next edition. For now, understand that these aren't just technology trends. They can affect the scope of your project and, therefore, your budget.
6. Don't Treat Accessibility as a Line Item at the End
Accessibility needs to be considered throughout planning, UX, design, content, and development.
The World Wide Web Consortium recommends WCAG 2.2 when organizations develop or update accessibility policies. But I'd argue there's a simpler reason to care about it: your website should work for as many of your customers as possible.
That affects decisions around navigation, forms, contrast, content structure, and interactive elements. And because those decisions affect design, development, and testing, accessibility needs to be part of your planning and budget from the beginning.
7. Figure Out What Happens After Launch
Launch day isn't the finish line.
Before you start the project, figure out who will own the website once it's live. Who watches performance? Who creates new content? Who keeps an eye on SEO and analytics? Who identifies opportunities to improve conversion? And who has the authority and budget to actually make improvements?
That last part is important.
When you're putting together your website budget, don't spend every dollar getting to launch. Your site will need ongoing attention, whether that's content, SEO, maintenance, accessibility, analytics, conversion optimization, or future development.
Your website should be treated as an evolving business asset, not something you rebuild every five years because everyone suddenly realizes nobody has touched it since launch.
Now You Can Start Talking to Agencies
Do you need perfect answers to everything I've covered before you reach out to an agency?
Of course not.
A good agency will help you work through many of these questions. But there's a big difference between not knowing all the answers and never having asked the questions.
Know why you're rebuilding. Know what success should look like. Understand who's going to be involved. Get a handle on your technology and content. Think about the internal resources you'll need. And don't stop your budgeting exercise at launch day.
Do that homework, and you'll have better conversations with agencies, get better proposals, and have a much better idea of what this project is really going to cost.
More importantly, you'll have a better chance of building the website your business actually needs.
Thinking about a new website in the next 12 to 18 months? Before you write the RFP, let's talk.
Ascedia can help you figure out what you actually need, what you should be thinking about, and what you should realistically budget for.
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