Should I Design a Website Myself or Hire a Professional?

Having a website is the foundation to building a strong online presence. Whether you are an individual trying to establish a personal brand, or a company wanting to reach more potential customers, a good website is where it all starts. One of the main questions when it comes to building a website is whether you should do it yourself or hire a professional. Designing it yourself can be difficult if you do not have the needed experience and do not know how to, whereas hiring a professional can be quite expensive, so here’s our take on what you should with your site.    

Websites for Personal Use

When building a site for yourself, you don’t really need a team of professional web designers. CMS platforms such as WordPress and Joomla now make creating your own personal site that much easier to do. You can also use Tumblr and Blogger, combined with a personalized domain name, to get started.

There are plenty of themes and pre-made designs to choose from. It may take a while to get used to the CMS platform or the basic mechanics behind the theme you want to use, but the learning curve should be steep and you will be able to master the basics in just a few hours.

Once the basics are mastered, you can start customizing your site and begin adding new elements. More importantly, you should also add quality content to your personal site, whether it is a blog post, photos or other updates.

Last but not least, make sure you create a consistent navigation for the site. A good navigational menu will allow your visitors to find the content they are looking for without a problem. By keeping the layout and navigation consistent, you are also creating a pleasant user experience.

Websites for Businesses and Corporations

Websites for businesses and corporations are slightly different. The site needs to be absolutely perfect in terms of design and functionalities; it influences how your visitors view your site – and your brand – from the very start. A site that is not well designed and functional will only make your brand appear less credible.

In this case, it is always best to have professional web designers assisting you every step of the way. The web designers can really help you plan, design, develop and test your website before it is released. They can also help you create a more advanced website, such as an online store or a page that can help your customers get quotes online.

Paired with the fact that today’s best web design services are very affordable, there is no reason why your business shouldn’t hire a team to do your site for you.

By keeping everything that has been outlined so far, it is also worth stating that your final decision depends on the trust that you decide to put in the project, on your experiences and the total budget that you are willing to allocate for the website. To put things into a better perspective, in the case that you have a Pizza restaurant, then having a great looking site with all of the offers is a must. However, if you have a business about cleaning services for example, then the effort is not really justified as customers just have to know your services and offers. Anyway, the website has and will always be the mirror of an actual business, so investing in one also depends on how well you’d like to be seen by your potential clients.

Based on everything mentioned, the decision is yours, but make sure to remember that professionally designed websites often score much better and that your chances of success with the business or project can greatly increase once a professional is hired.