Dennis Yu

$25,000 to Build a Website for My Home Services Business? A Breakdown of What the Website Cost Really Should Be

As someone who has built websites for over 30 years, here’s a secret about website costs.

Just because you pay $25,000 instead of $1,500 doesn’t mean you’re getting something that’s better or higher quality in any way.

Ensure you know how to go beyond the aesthetics of how it will look.

The paint job is nice, but we care more about the engine and transmission.

In other words, consider where the content is coming from—location service pages, blogs, profiles of team members, your reviews, etc.

What good is a nice-looking purse that is empty?

Let’s take BrandtHavac, for example. Their site design seems to be okay, but they’re using stock images instead of their own.

BrandtHavac site with stock images

The inputs to the website must come from you, not magic AI tools– though AI tools can help edit this like a smart VA.

For example, BrandtHavac does not use its own content in some parts of the website. As explained above, they’re using Stock images, which can negatively affect their SEO.

You must be able to measure how many phone calls you’re getting and where they come from, meaning digital plumbing has to be in place.

A simple one-pager checklist for that, too.

If you’re a local service business, usually $850 is enough website cost to build your site and meet all the criteria I mentioned above.

You can also hire a VA on UpWork to clone another site you like, put it on WordPress, and host it on WP Engine with our standard set of plug-ins.

If you want someone in the US to do it, multiply the $850 price by 10X.

In fact, hiring from the US doesn’t matter; what really matters is hitting the site’s goals following EEAT (Expertise—Experience—Authority—Trust).

In other words, does your site demonstrate that you have expertise, experience, authority, and trust in your services?

Let’s use Bee Friendly Pest Control’s site as an example to demonstrate EEAT. If you look at their site, you will notice that they use real images to showcase their products and services.

Real Image of Bee Friendly Pest Control

Using real images shows that they have expertise, experience, authority, and trust in what they do.

If you want coaching, consulting, or agency-like services, multiply the price by 30X to accommodate a standard 3X agency markup on labour.

There is nothing wrong with paying $25K for a website, but be sure you’re itemizing what you’re getting because most US-based “designers” hire someone else anyway and pocket the difference.

$850 for the actual build-out (likely the agency is subbing out to someone, who then subs it out to someone else)– then the overhead of salespeople (they need to be paid), marketing, overhead, and a profit for the owner.

Take, for example, my friend Curtis Fenn who paid more than $10k for a website for his real estate company RedX, only to end up having something that performed poorly.

RedX paid more than $10k to get a website with poor performance

So what matters is not how beautiful your website is or how costly it is but if it has the necessary ingredients that lead to more traffic and conversions.

Hope this gives you insight into what websites actually cost.

Looking to unlock your website’s potential? Head over to AreYouGoogleable.com now for a comprehensive website audit. Quick, effective, and absolutely essential—let’s go!


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Dennis Yu

Dennis Yu is co-author of the #1 best selling book on Amazon in social media, The Definitive Guide to TikTok Ads. He has spent a billion dollars on Facebook ads across his agencies and agencies he advises. Mr. Yu is the "million jobs" guy-- on a mission to create one million jobs via hands-on social media training, partnering with universities and professional organizations. You can find him quoted in major publications and on television such as CNN, the Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, NPR, and LA Times. Clients have included Nike, Red Bull, the Golden State Warriors, Ashley Furniture, Quiznos-- down to local service businesses like real estate agents and dentists. He's spoken at over 750 conferences in 20 countries, having flown over 6 million miles in the last 30 years to train up young adults and business owners. He speaks for free as long as the organization believes in the job-creation mission and covers business class travel. You can find him hiking tall mountains, eating chicken wings, and taking Kaqun oxygen baths-- likely in a city near you.
I'm a member of Blitzmetrics Academy and a friend of Dennis to boot. Not only is Dennis highly intelligent and full of great and creative ideas, he's also incredibly generous with both his knowledge and his time. Success couldn't come to a better guy. Thank you for all that you do for the world, Dennis! 🙏

Michael Pacheco

Marketer

Thanks 🙏 for being shining light in this industry. Love what your building for works overseas too network for jobs so innovative. Dennis helped me navigate having bad experiences with marketing agencies and doing dollar a day marketing which has helped my personal brand tremendously. Highly recommend.

Eric Skeldon

Founder at Kingdom Broker

Working with Dennis has been a delightful experience. After meeting him in 2015 I got to collaborate with him on countless occasions. His understanding for state-of-the-art marketing, his implementation, and his leadership put him into the top 0.01% of marketers and mentors.

Jan Koch

Ihr kompetenter Partner für innovative KI-Strategien.

I had the pleasure of interviewing Dennis for my podcast in 2021 and since then we have maintained a friendship that grows with each interaction. I have seen Dennis' devotion to his friends and clients firsthand, and our conversations often result in us talking about how we can provide more value to the people around us. He is someone whom I can ask questions on a technical level, and look to on a personal level. If you have any hesitancy about hiring him, get over yourself and do it!

Isaac Mashman

Help scaling personal brands.

Geez, where do I start recommending Dennis? First, he is an absolutely brilliant marketer who understands where marketing is today and where it's going tomorrow. He also has an incredible passion for the International Worker community. The lessons he has taught me from his almost 20 years of experience hiring International Workers have been immense. Most importantly though. Dennis Yu is someone who wants the absolute best for you and is willing to tell you the truth. Dennis sat with me at a point in my business where I was floundering but did not want to admit it. He asked some very straight forward questions to get me to admit my issues, highlighted the issues, and then helped me create a roadmap to success.

Atiba de Souza

International Keynote Speaker | Video Content Superman | Superconnector |

Dennis, which I had the pleasure of working with is one of the most giving, honest and tell you as it is person I ever know. The knowledge this man has is remarkable and he just gives it out freely. He is not pretentious and always entertain anyone big or small in the industry always willing to help. If you ever get a golden opportunity to work with him or mentored by him say YES!. You will notr regret Dennis, which I had the pleasure of working with is one of the most giving, honest and tell you as it is person I ever know. The knowledge this man has is remarkable and he just gives it out freely. He is not pretentious and always entertain anyone big or small in the industry always willing to help. If you ever get a golden opportunity to work with him or mentored by him say YES!. You will not regret

Nixon Lee

The PR Whisperer

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