How Much Do Website Development and Promotion Cost: Your First-Year Budget

A website without promotion is like a shop on an empty street: it's open, but hardly anyone knows about it. That's why the question “how much does a website cost” almost always turns into a different one: how much do website development and promotion cost together, and what budget should you set aside for the first year?

In this article, we at Studio Nomad, a web studio in Almaty, break down a first-year budget line by line: development, SEO, advertising, support, and related costs. We share our own prices and market benchmarks for Kazakhstan, along with three sample budgets for different goals.

What a first-year budget is made of

It helps to split first-year website costs into two parts: one-time and recurring.

• Development: a one-time payment covering analysis, design, programming, content, and launch.
• SEO: ongoing monthly work that brings free organic traffic from Google and Yandex.
• PPC advertising: paid clicks in search results. It consists of the ad budget you pay to the ad platform and the specialist's fee for setting up and managing campaigns.
• Support and infrastructure: domain, hosting, updates, backups, minor edits.
• Content: articles, photos, new service pages. Sometimes it's included in SEO, sometimes it's billed separately.

The biggest mistake is spending the entire budget on development and leaving nothing for promotion. The site launches, but no leads come in, and six months later the owner concludes that “websites don't work.” It's better to plan for both from the start.

How much website development costs

The cost of development depends on the type of website and its features. Studio Nomad's starting prices:

Website type	Development price
Landing page	from 200,000 ₸
Brochure website	from 200,000 ₸
Corporate website	from 500,000 ₸
Portal, marketplace, web service	from 800,000 ₸
Online store	from 900,000 ₸

Our development work includes basic on-page SEO: URL structure, meta tags, a sitemap, and speed and responsiveness tuning. For more on what's included, see our website development page.

Why SEO should be planned at the development stage

Many businesses put SEO off “for later” and end up having to rebuild their site. Some things are much cheaper to do right from the start than to fix after launch:

• A structure built around search queries. A separate page for each service and each important query, rather than a single “Services” page with a list.
• Loading speed. A slow site loses both visitors and rankings, and optimizing existing code is harder.
• Language versions. In Kazakhstan, Russian and Kazakh versions with proper markup matter, so that search engines show the right language.
• Human-readable URLs and redirects. Changing URLs after launch without 301 redirects wipes out the rankings you've built up.
• Structured data and meta tags. They help search engines understand page content and display your site attractively in search results.

When SEO is built into development, promotion starts with growth rather than with fixing mistakes.

How much SEO costs

SEO isn't a one-time setup but ongoing work. Search engines change their algorithms, competitors update their sites, and new queries appear. That's why promotion is billed monthly.

What SEO work includes

• a site audit and a plan of fixes;
• keyword research: compiling the list of queries your customers use to find you;
• technical optimization: indexing, speed, errors, duplicate pages;
• optimizing existing pages and creating new ones for important queries;
• content: articles and service page copy;
• off-page factors: mentions and links, map listings;
• analytics and regular reporting.

SEO pricing

At Studio Nomad, SEO costs from 100,000 ₸ per month, and a one-time SEO audit costs from 50,000 ₸. In the Kazakhstan market, monthly SEO typically costs anywhere from one hundred thousand to several hundred thousand tenge, depending on competition in the niche and the number of pages and regions. Promoting an online store across all of Kazakhstan costs more than promoting a local company's website in a single city.

If you're not sure where to start, order an SEO audit: it will identify technical issues and give you a work plan you can take to any contractor.

What affects the cost of SEO

• Competition in the niche. Promoting a dental clinic or real estate in Almaty is harder than promoting a specialized B2B service: there are more strong websites in the search results and more content work to do.
• Geography. A single city means a limited set of queries. Promotion across all of Kazakhstan or in several major cities requires separate pages and more time.
• Languages. Russian and Kazakh versions are two different sets of queries and copy. Kazakh-language search results are still less competitive, and that's an opportunity for businesses.
• Website size. A ten-page site and a store with thousands of products require different amounts of technical work.
• Starting condition. If the site is slow, poorly indexed, or built on an inconvenient platform, the first months will go into fixes.

When to expect results

The first changes in search are usually visible a few months after work begins, while a steady flow of leads takes longer to build. Timelines depend on the site's age, competition, and starting condition. Let's be frank: no one can guarantee specific rankings in Google or Yandex, so be cautious about such promises.

PPC advertising: when you need it and what it costs

Search advertising is the fastest way to get leads from a new website: ads start showing as soon as the campaign launches. While SEO is gaining momentum, advertising fills the gap.

An advertising budget has two parts. The first is the money you pay the ad platform for clicks; you set the amount yourself, and the cost per click depends on competition in your niche. The second is the specialist's fee for setting up and managing campaigns. To start, it makes sense to set aside a test budget for one or two months, see what a lead costs, and then scale what works.

Advertising is only effective with a good landing page: if the site is slow or confusing, clicks will cost money but won't bring in leads.

How different types of websites are promoted

Landing page

A single page is hard to rank for many queries: it lacks the volume and structure. For a landing page, the main channel is advertising, and SEO is limited to basic optimization for the main query.

Corporate website

This is where SEO works best: separate pages for each service and city, case studies, and articles that answer customer questions. Company listings in 2GIS, Google Business Profile, and Yandex Business also matter: for queries that include a city name, search engines often show maps above the regular results.

Online store

Most traffic goes to category pages and product pages. You need a well-planned catalog structure, filters that generate useful landing pages, unique product descriptions, and fast loading. The scope of work is larger, so the SEO budget for a store is usually higher too.

Support, domain, and hosting

• The domain is renewed once a year at the registrar's rate.
• Hosting is paid monthly or annually; stores and portals need a more powerful server.
• Technical support is free for 24 months for websites we built. For websites built by other developers, it costs from 50,000 ₸ per month.

Three sample first-year budgets

Below are approximate estimates based on our starting prices. The ad budget is listed separately because the client decides how much it will be.

Scenario	Development	Promotion	Total for the year
Landing page + ads: test demand for a service	from 200,000 ₸	ads at a budget you choose	from 200,000 ₸ + ad budget
Corporate website + SEO: a steady flow of leads	from 500,000 ₸	SEO for 10 months after launch at 100,000 ₸/month: from 1,000,000 ₸	from 1,500,000 ₸
Online store + SEO + ads: sales across Kazakhstan	from 900,000 ₸	SEO for 10 months at 100,000 ₸/month: from 1,000,000 ₸, plus ads at a budget you choose	from 1,900,000 ₸ + ad budget

In all scenarios, website support is free for our clients for the first 24 months. Domain and hosting are added at the providers' rates.

How to allocate a limited budget

1. Start with the essentials. A small but fast and clear website with promotion is better than a large website with no traffic.
2. Launch ads from the start. They'll bring in your first leads and show which services and queries attract customers.
3. Add SEO by priority. Start with your key services and city, then expand your reach.
4. Spread out the development payment. We offer an installment plan of up to 12 months with no banks involved and no extra cost, so you can put part of your budget toward promotion right away.
5. Write content yourself. You know your product better than anyone: expert articles and answers to customer questions perform well in search.

How to tell whether promotion is paying off

Rankings and traffic are intermediate metrics. What matters for a business is leads, calls, and sales. Before promotion begins, agree on the metrics with your contractor:

• goals are set up in analytics: inquiries, calls, clicks to messaging apps;
• it's clear how many leads came from search and how many from ads;
• the cost per lead is calculated for each channel;
• reports show not just a list of completed tasks but results in numbers.

If leads from search haven't increased after six months, that's a reason to look into the causes together with your contractor, not just renew the contract.

Frequently asked questions

Can I build the website first and add promotion later?

Yes, but it's better to build in basic SEO from the start. That way, once promotion begins, you won't have to spend the first months fixing the structure and technical errors.

Which is more cost-effective: SEO or ads?

They aren't competitors but tools for different jobs. Ads bring in leads quickly but stop working as soon as the budget runs out. SEO ramps up more slowly, but search traffic doesn't require paying for every click. The best approach is usually a combination: ads at launch, SEO for the long term.

Why have a website and promotion if you have Instagram?

Social media works well for brand awareness and engaging with your audience, but in search, people are looking for a solution to a specific problem: “air conditioner repair Almaty,” “buy office furniture.” A promoted website captures that demand; a social media account usually doesn't. Plus, the website belongs to you, while platform rules can change at any moment.

Do I need to promote the Kazakh version separately?

Yes, if you want to get customers from Kazakh-language search. The Kazakh version has its own queries, its own copy, and its own meta tags. The good news is that competition there is still lower than in Russian-language search results.

Can you promote a website built by another studio?

Yes. We start with an audit: we check the technical condition, structure, and content, and then propose a work plan.

Ready to estimate a budget for your project? Tell us about your goals on our SEO services page, and we'll assess development and promotion together and propose a plan for the first year. Studio Nomad is an in-house design, development, and SEO team in Almaty, working under contract, with a 24-month warranty and installment plans of up to 12 months without banks.