To give some idea, a very small and very simple site of just a couple of pages, which can be rustled up in a few hours, would cost no more than around $200, although these days this may be considered a rather basic and unprofessional site.

Anything larger and/or more complex would have to be charged on a time basis, and I charge an hourly rate of $30/hour (Canadian or US). On that basis, a large and complex site requiring lots of personal input, such as the OTSA site for example, could cost well over $2,000 and take a few weeks to develop.

Something in between would cost ... well, something in between. A site of the size and complexity of this one, for example, could be yours for around $600, and take just a few days.

A lot of money, agreed, but still peanuts compared to how much a commercial company would charge.

Hosting of even large sites (100's of pages) can be done free of charge courtesy of various online communities and ISPs. If you do not require your own domain name (e.g. www.yourname.com), you could settle for one of these. See the section on Hosting Options for more discussion on this.

If you do want your own virtual domain, the hosting cost varies with the size of the site and the facilities required, but you could expect from $10 - $20/month and upward for a reliable host server (some charge up to $400 for very little extra!). In addition to this, the domain name registration fee, which has come down in price significantly in recent years, can usually be found for around $20 per year for a .com, .net or .org name, or $50/year for a .ca name. A domain name does give out the message that you are serious in your efforts, and it can increase your chances of being listed with some search engines.

Another option which can reduce your effective costs is to agree to host an advert for another web-site on your site, with either a friendly organization or with a commercial company or agency which specializes in such things. It is upto you to arrange such deals - I just insert the ad in the code! Alternatively, an advert or banner swap with a like-minded organization may increase your traffic flow for no additional cost to either of you.

Speaking of promoting your site and attracting traffic to it, in addition to your local non-Web-based efforts, the single most effective thing you can do is to submit your web-site address to the main search engines (used by over 85% of Web users to find what they are looking for). There are two main options:

• You can pay an agency to do it for you - but beware, you will probably receive a large amount of spam mail from some of the less reputable ones on their lists;
• or I can do it for you for a very reasonable price - it only takes an hour or so to manually submit a site to the major Canadian and worldwide search engines and directories - or at least those of them that are still free - see my list of Major Search Engines.

Fill in the contact form, or just e-mail me or phone me (416 699 8585) with more information about your requirements, and I will be able to give you a much better idea of how much we are talking about. Or, if you prefer and you live in the Toronto area, we could meet and discuss things in person.