Why You Should Use a Professional Website Designer

There are many ways to create your own website with little technical knowledge and many of these are good. A large proportion of web host providers now offer a simple content management system and a set of website templates for no extra cost once you have purchased their hosting. There are a number of services which will allow you to create a simple website (usually a blog) for free. With options such as these, why would you pay for the services of a professional website designer?

The first point to make is that maybe you shouldn't. Depending on your requirements, a DIY solution might be perfectly adequate. If you are on a very tight budget and you have plenty of time to spend building a website yourself, then I would be the first to suggest you have a go.

Having said that, just because you can do something yourself, it doesn't mean you necessarily should. I do most of my own plumbing, but I wouldn't recommend it for everyone. Having a website is an excellent way to connect with your customers, but a bad web design can be worse than having no website at all. At the very least, it may not engage; at worst it could actively put people off. Knowing the difference between good and bad design takes knowledge and experience, and whilst anyone can potentially gain this, it may not be a good use of your time.

Some of the important factors that should make you consider finding an experienced professional:

1. If you use template designs, you are unlikely to have a site that precisely suits your needs. More importantly, out there in the world wide web will be clones of your design. The only way around this is to get a designer who knows what he is doing to produce an original design for you.

2. Your website needs to be developed to function correctly on many different browsers and operating systems (Internet Explorer, Windows; Safari, MacOS; Firefox, Linux; etc). Whilst there are standards to ensure that all websites should look the same no matter how they are viewed, in practice unanimity across all platforms has yet to be achieved. A professional knows how to deal with this.

3. This brings me to web standards and validation. Many templates and DIY solutions do not adhere to these, which can have negative consequences both for search engine ranking and future compatibility.

4. Understanding image formatting and compression is essential for better load times. Getting this wrong can lead to a very slow and annoying website. You need to know all about images or find someone who does.

5. An experienced website designer should understand what can and can't be done safely. A typical example of this is the vexed issue of fonts. You can't just use whatever font you like; there are issues regarding which fonts are likely to be installed on the workstation where the page is viewed. There are sometimes ways to get around this, but it is not a trivial issue.

6. The business of search engine ranking is becoming increasingly important. There is a lot of information regarding this to be found on the web, a great deal of it erroneous. A website designer should be up-to-date with some of the latest developments in this field and know how to apply them effectively.

7. If you have a good eye for design, you may not need professional help. In my experience, many DIY-ers do think they can design and consequently want to include every feature they can think of in their website. The result is often rather chaotic. Imagine someone who wallpapers a room with every design of wallpaper they like. "Pot-pourri" is the polite term.

8. Once a website is successfully up and running, problems can still occur. Technologies are constantly changing and security threats emerge. Knowing someone with the requisite problem solving and maintenance abilities will save you a lot of time and money in the long run.

One last point: I have had a number of enquiries from people who have attempted to build their own website and have not been happy with the result. They generally want me just to "finish off" what they have done. The reality is not only that the initial attempt is often not salvageable, but when it is, the amount of work required to fix it may be more than that required to start again from scratch. Unfortunately, having done so much work themselves, they rarely feel inclined to spend much money. I only take on such jobs under exceptional circumstances.