Blog - CB Web Solutions

Investment or just another expense?

Being specialists in the design of quality websites for small businesses on the Costa Blanca, you can probably imagine that we talk to plenty of companies during the course of our work. During these contacts a recurring theme comes up when we talk about websites and the benefits of a CB Web Solutions website for their business. The theme is that of seeing a website as a cost or an investment in their business. Whilst I would make it clear that given the level of some of the work we have seen from a few of our competitors in recent times, it can’t be seen as anything other than a cost but with CB Web Solutions they are always investments. Let me repeat that, they are always investments. So why are they investments and not a cost?

To be regarded as an investment a website must be capable of generating a return on the sum originally invested. That may be a return which is a one off such as creating a website for a business that is to be sold off and the site adds to the asset value of the business – we did just that for a company who then made a 400% return on that investment . Alternatively, it may be a return in increments such as a flow of new business over the life of the website.

So what are the principle factors affecting the potential for a return on the investment on a website? Whilst there are a number of factors, quality of design, amount of financial investment and the website’s integration into the marketing plan of the company (we will deal with this at a later date) are arguably most important. We are able to show from our portfolio, client testimonials and also from conversations with our clients about the positive effect our websites have had on their businesses, that CB Web Solutions equals Quality of design in every sense of the phrase.

Level of investment is of course important, especially in these days of the Zapatero Recession here in Spain but put simply with CB Web Solutions web designs, the more you invest the greater your potential for higher returns. Using an analogy, the Formula one racing teams who tend to win the championship year on year are the teams that invest more. The same can be said for most other sports and in business as well. So if you invest 300Euros in a 3 page website designed by one another company you are highly unlikely to see the same returns as you would with a higher investment made in a CB Web Solutions site. To date, I do not know of one project that we have lost that when we have seen the work of others we have not been able to say that the work is substandard and will prove largely ineffective and I assure you that this is not a case of sour grapes. Cheap and cheerful is rarely the case on line and less so when it comes to investments.

So how do you calculate the returns on an investment (ROI) and whether it is likely to be a viable investment? There are a number of ways to do so. All have strengths and weaknesses and in truth, but it is prudent to consider a number of methods when doing so. Whilst I do not have space to do this in this blog, I can direct you the reader to reading items such as IRR, Annual Rate of Return and MRR to give you an idea. I can also give you a very simplistic example like the case of a restaurant pondering over whether to have a website or not.

E.g.
Initial cost of website: 1000 Euros
Minimum Expected Life of site: 2 years (104 weeks)
Required return before break-even: 9.60 Euros per week.

This highly simplistic example (e.g. Tax and depreciation not included) shows that if the restaurant can increase sales by 9.60 Euros per week due to the website it is viable. Now if our restaurant had an average price per dish of 10 Euros for a main course we are talking about selling one extra dish per week i.e. In six or seven working days. It is clear that the restaurant should take up the offer and invest in a site with us.

So, in concluding our blog a CB Web Solutions site is a high quality investment with a high propensity for returns on that invested sum. Going elsewhere for a ‘cheap and cheerful site’ is a gamble that usually will not achieve the returns you expected, after all the site is cheap for a reason – let’s not kid ourselves! Worse still is regarding a CB Web Solutions site as a cost and one a small business does not wish to pay when we have consistently demonstrated it to be anything other than that.