“How much do you charge for a website?”
After more than 20 years in this game, I’ve heard that question thousands of times. It’s a fair question, but it’s the wrong one. Asking for a “website” in 2025 is like walking into a high-end car dealership and asking for “a car.” What kind of car? A ute for the farm? A track car for Hampton Downs? An EV for the city commute?
The question itself reveals a mindset that is holding countless businesses back. It treats a website as a line-item expense or a box to be ticked: a digital brochure to be designed, delivered, and then forgotten.
Let’s be clear: If your website isn’t your hardest-working salesperson, your most efficient operations manager, and your most insightful market analyst, then it’s not a business asset. It’s a digital business card, and business cards don’t build empires.
The Shift: From Digital Brochure to Integrated System
A modern digital presence that actually drives growth isn’t a single thing called a “website.” It’s a highly integrated system – a success engine. It’s a machine where every part is designed to work together to attract, engage, and convert customers.
What are the core components of this engine?
- Strategic User Experience (UX): It’s not just about looking pretty. It’s about designing a clear, intuitive path that guides a visitor from curiosity to action. Every button, every form, every sentence is engineered to reduce friction and increase conversion.
- Technical Excellence: This is the non-negotiable foundation of speed, security, and mobile-first performance that Google and your customers demand. A slow or insecure site is like a salesperson who turns up late and looks dodgy.
- Compelling Content & SEO: Your site is useless if no one can find it. A strategic content plan, built on solid SEO principles, is what brings qualified traffic to your digital doorstep – people who are actively searching for what you sell – and can pay for it.
- Marketing & Sales Integration: Your success engine needs to be connected to the rest of your business. This means linking it seamlessly to your email marketing, your Google Ads campaigns, your social media, and crucially, your CRM and sales process. It should automate leads, track interactions, and make your sales team’s job easier.
- Actionable Analytics: This is your dashboard. How fast are you going? Is the engine overheating? Your success engine should provide clear, simple data that tells you what’s working, what’s not, and where the next opportunity lies.
Start Asking Better Questions (And Demand Better Answers)
A great mentor of ours – let’s call him Bruce – has a simple but extremely powerful mantra: “Ask yourself: What is the better question?”
The quality of your digital presence will be a direct reflection of the quality of the questions you ask at the start. So, put away “How much do you charge for a website?” and don’t ever ask it again. Replace it with questions that lead to actual business results.
Here’s your new list. Start asking your current or potential digital partner these questions:
- “How will this platform help me acquire new customers?” (This shifts the focus from features to outcomes)
- “How will we measure the success of this project in 6 or 12 months?” (This forces a conversation about metrics and ROI)
- “How does this integrate with my existing sales and marketing process?” (This treats the website as part of a system, not an island)
- “What is the strategic plan for driving qualified traffic to the site after it launches?” (This acknowledges that “build it and they will come” is a myth)
- “How will this platform make my business more efficient?” (This opens the door to automation and streamlining operations)
When you start asking better questions – about growth, efficiency, and measurement – you stop buying a simple commodity and start investing in a strategic asset.
Whether you’re selling wine from here in Havelock North or SaaS to the entire world, the principle is the same. Don’t settle for a static, brochure-style website that ticks a box. Demand a dynamic, integrated success engine that works tirelessly for your business, 24/7.
That’s a conversation we’re always ready to have.