The Website Owner’s (Missing) Manual

Your website. When’s the last time you really looked at it? It gets updated when something breaks, redesigned when a competitor’s looks better, and handed off to whoever seems to know what they’re doing at the time.

Recently, I’ve conducted a few website audits and spoken with business owners about their newly launched websites. The issues I’ve encountered range from black-hat SEO techniques to poor relationships with existing developers and 100% of the time – accessibility issues that can only be chalked up to “did not care”. Your website is an important piece of your business. It helps you to establish your brand, build authority, and market your services. And, it makes you money.

A new website is often a large investment for a small business, somewhere between roof repairs and a new car. But, when you do it “right” your website will pay for itself. Just like researching cars and roofers, it pays to look closely at what people are promising and getting a feel for what a working relationship looks like. A good developer asks you the questions you don’t know to ask. If someone is overselling, not hearing your concerns, or never turning the questions back on you — you might get a deal, but I can almost guarantee you’ll be going through this whole process again sooner than you’d like.

I wanted to create a missing manual to help you know what questions to ask, get a rough sense of what things might cost, and to better understand what parts of the project you should own.

You should own your website

This sounds obvious. Unfortunately, it isn’t.

Some web platforms (and some developers) build your site in a way that makes it difficult or impossible to leave. If you ever want to change developers or hosting, you could lose your content, your design, and years of SEO progress.

Before you sign anything, ask:

• Who owns the domain? Your domain (yourcompany.com) should be registered in your name, in an account you control, not your developer’s account.
• Who controls the hosting? You should be able to move your site to a different host if you need to.
• Can I export my content? Some website builders have no export function (Wix and SquareSpace for example). A migration to a more robust platform later could mean rebuilding every page.
• Is this an open platform? WordPress is open-source. Your files, your database, your content – it’s all portable. Proprietary builders are usually not. They take care of the hosting and application updates for a fee but there is no easy way to migrate away from them if you need to at a later date. If the proprietary service stops working or shuts down, there goes your website.

A developer who says “don’t worry, I’ll handle all of that” without giving you access or ownership documentation should be a hard pass. It’s your website and you should always have login credentials to your own domain, hosting account, and website backend.

Sprinkling keywords like garlic salt over your generic content is not SEO

Search engine optimization is structural, it’s built into how a site is planned and coded.

Every well-built website should have a solid SEO foundation baked in from the start. That includes:

• SEO strategy that is informed by content strategy and research (i.e., a plan for how content is structured and connected)
• Unique page titles and meta descriptions for every page
• Proper heading and page structure
• Clean, human-readable URLs
• Schema markup – structured data that helps search engines understand your business, location, and services
• Optimized site performance (media, scripts, caching)
• Don’t forget to allow search engines to crawl your site (if WordPress) and submit your sitemap to Google

SEO: one-time setup vs. ongoing work

Ongoing SEO is a different conversation from the one-time foundational work I outlined above. Keyword tracking, competitor research, content strategy, blog writing, technical audits, local citation management – this can be time-intensive work whose value compounds over time when done consistently. It can also be oversold and if Search Engine Optimization isn’t what you do every day, it can be hard to identify when a specific result is being over-promised.

A lot of businesses get locked into monthly SEO retainers without a clear picture of what’s actually being done or what results to expect. “We submit to directories and monitor your rankings” for $300 a month is often very little work. Before signing anything, ask for a specific list of monthly deliverables and how results will be measured. If the answer is vague, well, it’s probably not worth it.

Retainers for ongoing SEO work typically run $500–$1,500 per month for most businesses, depending on how competitive your market is. That’s a big investment, it should come with accountability.

Worth asking: Are my business name, address, and phone number consistent everywhere, on my website, my Google Business Profile, and online directories? Inconsistent information is one of the most common local SEO problems, and one of the most fixable.

Accessibility is a project requirement

And I will use metaphor, because we all love those, and talk about making muffins for your niece’s birthday party. And on your way there, your mom said, these were supposed to be blueberry muffins. And you forgot that, and you start to force blueberries into the muffins and they are gross.

They are not really the same as blueberry muffins; they are not melted and delicious. It’s not a good experience. By definition yes, it’s a blueberry muffin, and yes, you may have an accessible system, but it is not a good system.

Cordelia McGee-Tubb, April 2016, “Baking Accessibility In“

Considering accessibility in your website project is simply the right thing to do. It’s mostly only hard and expensive when it’s an afterthought. Consider a public building:

According to the ADA standards for Accessible Design, “Architectural barriers are physical elements of a building that prevent movement or access for people with disabilities. For example, if the only way to get to the entrance of a business is by using stairs, those stairs are a barrier for wheelchair users.”

So, what does accessibility look like for websites and virtual spaces? People with disabilities must be able to perceive, operate, understand, and enjoy a robust experience of your content.

Making your website accessible to people with disabilities has the supplemental benefit of improving the online experience for all people – perhaps experiencing situational disabilities like bright sunlight on a screen, a broken arm, or needing glasses to read. Making your website accessible is also good for SEO. And if none of that moves you, accessibility is a legal consideration, and lawsuits targeting small business websites have been on the rise.

Signs of a site with accessibility problems:

• Low color contrast between text and background
• Images with no descriptive text
• Links that say “click here” or “read more” with no surrounding context
• No way to skip repetitive navigation when using a keyboard
• Image alt text or link labels stuffed with keywords instead of actual descriptions
• Navigation that relies on JavaScript
• Has an accessibility overlay. These are third-party widgets that claim to “fix” accessibility automatically. They don’t. Overlays patch surface-level issues while leaving the underlying problems in place, and they can actually interfere with the assistive technology people are already using. They exist to sell a product, not to make your site accessible. Relying on one can make your website a larger target for legal action, not a smaller one. Don’t use an accessibility overlay.

Ironically, the web is actually accessible by default and Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) were first compiled in January 1995. Each year, WebAIM (Web Accessibility In Mind) publishes a report on the accessibility of the top 1 million home pages. In 2026, 95.9% of home pages had detected WCAG 2 failures.

Ask your developer:

• What is your approach to web accessibility?
• What level of WCAG conformance do you follow?
• How do you test for accessibility?

A developer who dismisses accessibility as unnecessary is another hard pass.

Content is strategy, not filler

A lot of websites have content created for SEO “reasons” – pages packed with marketing phrases no one reads, that don’t answer real questions, and won’t help anyone make a decision.

Good website content:

• Speaks directly to the person reading it
• Answers the questions your customers have
• Is organized around what users need, not your internal org chart
• Uses plain language
• Links naturally between related pages
• Has an underlying content strategy

If a site is full of keyword phrases that don’t read naturally or that no one is actually searching for, or a blog with generic posts disconnected from your core services, that’s what I like to gently refer to as a “missed opportunity”. There’s no sustainable benefit to this short-sighted approach, and over time it costs you credibility.

Search engines have always been able to glean context. They are not only looking for keyword matches, but checking whether the surrounding content actually supports them. They’re getting better at understanding entities and at identifying low-quality content. When an AI Overview answers a question at the top of the results page, thin content gets passed over twice: once by the algorithm deciding what to cite, and once by the user who already got their answer.

Google has even patented the ability to generate a page on the fly when it can’t find a good enough result to send someone to. Whether or not that feature ever ships widely, the intent is clear: if your content isn’t genuinely useful, the search engine would rather write the answer itself than point people to you.

Red flag: A developer who never asks what questions your customers are trying to answer? Nope. If content isn’t part of the early development conversation, your site won’t be built to support it.

Two websites is one too many

If you have ever moved, rebranded, or switched developers, there is a chance more than one version of your site is still live. Maybe an old domain still resolves. Maybe a contractor set up a second site and never took it down.

Having two active domains splits your SEO authority. You could be competing against yourself without knowing it.

Ask your developer: Do I have more than one active domain? If so, is the old one properly redirecting to the new one?

So, how much is this going to cost?

It can still feel like the Wild West out there. You might see $500 or $15,000 for what sounds like the same thing. The price difference isn’t about the deliverable. Pricing is about whether the person building your site knows what questions to ask before they start, what to test before they launch, how to measure whether it’s working, and the level of ongoing support they offer.

Anyone can build a website. Not everyone will build one that is designed around what you need it to do, who it’s for, and what should happen when someone lands on it. Without that strategic planning, you’ve got a pretty presence, not a website that works for your business.

With that in mind, here’s a realistic (although still guess-timated) range for what different levels of development complexity might cost:

• Simple brochure site — $2,500 – $5,000
  Static pages, standard contact form, no dynamic content. A home page, an about page, a services overview, and a contact page. The content does not update often and nothing connects to anything else. May or may not have a blog – but it should be easy to scale up when needed.
• Site with some custom functionality — $4,000 – $7,000
  Adds a content management system so you can publish posts, case studies, or updates without touching code. Maybe some custom development work is included.
• Fully custom professional site — $7,000 and up
  Some businesses have content that needs to work together, not just sit on separate pages. Designing this kind of site means figuring out the relationships between content before anything gets built. What connects to what? What information repeats across every service? What 3rd party services need to integrate? That design and planning work is what separates a site that scales well from one that becomes difficult to manage six months after launch.
• National / international business website or e-commerce — $10,000 and up
  Booking systems, client portals, payment processing, membership functionality, online stores, anything that connects your site to an external system adds complexity in setup, testing, and ongoing maintenance. Every integration is a dependency that needs attention over time.

Keep in mind, a website is also a deductible business expense. A useful question before you get a quote isn’t just “how much will this cost?” It’s “what will this do for my business, and how will we know if it’s working?”

Pricing is hard

Pricing is always a learning process for business owners and web developers are not an exception. There’s no standard process or rate. Some developers charge by the hour, others quote a flat fee for the full project, and many use value-based pricing. All are legitimate pricing methods.

Flat project fees are easier to budget for. You know what you are paying upfront. The tradeoff is that scope needs to be clearly defined (and it often is not). If and when the project scale changes, the price usually does too. The challenge here is that the flat project fee is always going to be a guess. An informed guess based on past experience and initial conversations but still a guess. There are a lot of unknown unknowns that surface once you get to work and that can lead quickly to scope creep.

One way to handle this is to ask for a discovery phase: a low-commitment starting point where the developer gets a fuller picture of what the project actually involves before a full scope is written. A good discovery engagement ends with a clear option to continue or walk away. Either way, you come out of it with documented findings you can hand to the next developer if the relationship isn’t the right fit.

Hourly billing is more flexible, especially for ongoing work, smaller tasks, or projects where the full scope isn’t clear yet. It also tends to surface problems earlier, because you’re reviewing work in smaller increments rather than waiting for a fixed deliverable.

Rates vary by experience, specialty, and region. As a general reference point, experienced independent web professionals typically charge $85–$150 per hour. Agencies often charge more, with some of that covering account management and overhead.

Some developers (like me) offer a prepaid hour block or time bank. This is a set number of hours purchased at a slight discount, drawn down as needed. For ongoing support or small updates that don’t justify a full project quote, this can be a practical middle ground. It also gives you a low-stakes way to start a relationship before committing to a larger project.

Post-launch website costs

Just like any major purchase, a website comes with ongoing costs. Hosting, maintenance, and domain renewal are the three most common ones people forget to budget for.

Maintaining your new website

You’ve made it through your website project and have successfully launched your brand new website. Congrats!

Now that your site is live, it still needs ongoing attention. I like to compare your living website to a garden. It needs maintenance, pruning back old content, planting new content where it makes sense. And, technical site maintenance is what keeps your site secure, up to date, and recoverable if something goes wrong. Proprietary platforms like Squarespace and Wix handle much of the technical maintenance for you, which can be a selling point. The trade-off is flexibility and ownership, which is worth understanding before you choose a platform. In this case, we’ll talk about maintenance for a WordPress powered website:

What is typically included:

• Platform and plugin updates. WordPress and its plugins release updates regularly. Skipping them creates security vulnerabilities. Someone needs to apply those updates, check that nothing broke, and keep backups current.
• Backups. A good maintenance plan includes regular automated backups stored offsite. If something goes wrong like a bad update, a hack, an accidental deletion you can restore quickly.
• Security monitoring. Websites are targeted by automated bots constantly. Monitoring catches problems before they become serious.
• Uptime monitoring. If your site goes down, you want to know before a customer calls to tell you.
• Basic support. Content updates or changes, quick questions answered. Ongoing technical help when you need it. Training if requested.

What maintenance does not usually include:

• New pages or major design changes
• SEO work or content strategy
• Writing new posts or copy
• Rebuilding something that breaks due to a major platform or plugin change

A basic WordPress maintenance plan from a reputable provider typically runs $40 – $100 per month. This can also vary by site complexity too. If you run an eCommerce website with hundreds of products, that’s more to maintain and troubleshoot. If you need more hands-on or custom support, budget more.

Website Hosting

Your website files live on a server. That server costs money. Hosting is billed separately from your developer’s fees and is usually paid annually.

• Shared hosting (sites share server resources): $100 – $300/year. Adequate for most sites.
• Managed WordPress hosting (faster, more secure, less to manage on your end): $200 – $600/year.

Not all hosts are equal. Cheap hosting is cheap for a reason: oversold servers, slower load times, minimal support, and security that gets less attention than it should. Page speed affects both user experience and search rankings, and a slow host is one of the hardest problems to diagnose after the fact because everything else looks fine. Paying a little more for a reputable host is, as the saying goes, a no-brainer¹.

Your developer might host your site as part of their service, which can be convenient. Make sure you understand the terms. Can you take your site elsewhere if you part ways? Is the account in your name? Ask before you commit.

Renew your domain name with your registrar

Your domain name, yourcompany.com, is something you rent, not own. It needs to be renewed annually, usually for $15–$20+ a year. Miss the renewal window and your site goes down. Most domains have a grace period of around 30 days after expiration where you can renew at the normal price. After that, recovery gets expensive. Registrars typically charge a redemption fee that can run $50–$200 or more. Wait long enough and the domain goes to auction, where you may be bidding against someone who noticed it lapsed and wants it. Be sure to check your registrar’s specific terms. Your domain name registrar may also be your website host, but not always.

One of the most common panicked calls a web developer gets: “My website is gone, something is broken.” In many cases, the site is fine, the domain just lapsed because the renewal notice went to an old email address, or the credit card on file expired, or the client forgot which registrar they used when they first set everything up years ago.

Before your website project wraps, confirm: where is your domain registered, what email address is on the account, and is auto-renew turned on? Write it down somewhere safe – and test your login.

Service agreements: what is reasonable?

Most web professionals will ask you to sign an agreement before starting work. That is normal and protects both sides.

Reasonable:

• A project agreement that outlines scope, timeline, payment schedule, and what happens if the scope changes
• A maintenance agreement that is month-to-month or annual, with clear cancellation terms
• Language that confirms your ownership of the domain and content regardless of what happens

Watch for:

• Long-term contracts with no exit clause. A developer confident in their work does not need to lock you in for two or three years.
• Automatic renewals with no advance notice. You should be notified before any contract renews, especially if pricing is changing.
• Contracts that give the developer rights to your domain or content. Your domain and your content are yours, always.
• Vague deliverables. If the agreement says “website design and development” with no further detail, you have no recourse if what is delivered is not what you expected. Scope should be specific.

A simple question to ask before signing: If I decide to leave, what happens? Can I take my website with me? If the answer is unclear, it is worth requiring that be defined in the terms before you commit.

What a good, ongoing client-developer relationship can look like

The best client-developer relationships don’t feel like a transaction every time you need something. At their best, they should feel like having someone who knows your site as well as you do and who will tell you when something needs attention before it becomes a problem.

That might mean:

• A quarterly check-in to review traffic, rankings, and any issues
• Proactive suggestions when something on the site needs attention
• Help thinking through a new service page or seasonal content
• Someone available when something breaks, without emergency rates

A good maintenance plan plus a few hours of support each month can go a long way.

Not sure where your site stands?

A website audit is a good place to start. I look at your site’s structure, SEO, accessibility, and content — and come back with a specific list of what’s working, what isn’t, and what to fix first.

1. ‘No-brainer’ is American in origin and was first used there in the 1950s. – https://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/no-brainer.html ↩︎