Leave the designing to the professionals
Leave the designing to the professionals
It’s a tough question and decision if you’re a person looking for a website to be designed. You could be a person that has just started a business and after reading past TCQC blogs (wishful thinking, I know) you’ve thought ‘I absolutely need a website’ and it’s high on your start-up list of things to do. Or you’re a company looking to redesign a current website – whoever the person you are, as mentioned at the start it can be stressful to decide or even know which is the best option when it comes to designing a website in the long-run. Do you go the ‘I’ll design one myself’ route, or the ‘do I find a web designer or agency’ route (remember my Freelancer vs. Agency blog post? Read it and I’m sure you’d then choose a freelancer like me!).
There are many factors for whichever you decide, and it’s up to you to get the best outcome as well as it being rewarding for your business / organisation.
Going the 'I'll design and host / maintain myself' route...
Let’s put it in perspective (because I feel people understand it better this way), you’ve decided to create a website yourself, you don’t like the idea of someone else doing it, because you’re capable, and how hard can it be. You’ve also had a long hard 1 minute think and thought ‘I won’t use Squarespace or Wix because I heard from a web designer (cough) that they’re very limited when it comes to customisation’ (this is one hell of a specific perspective, I know). So you’re dead-set on using WordPress, which already is where you feel lost, and quoting the above image ‘I have no idea what I’m doing’… and this is just the start!
At this point, you’ll have already needed around 95% of WordPress knowledge before you even login just to have an idea of where things are, how it works, being used to the interface, understanding the library of 60,000+ plugins out there and much much more. This isn’t even the first 5% of building a website, as the hosting side (with maintaining included) is the next step to make the site live to the www. Yeah, remember that?
I’m not going to dwell into it that much and make it sound like the biggest stress ever imagined (to be fair it would be in this scenario), it’s just worth taking into consideration that knowledge and understanding is fundamental and having a skill in a certain sector reaps rewards if it’s your own business or if you’re an employee in the chosen field; you wouldn’t go into theatre (not that kind) and think ‘I’ll give brain surgery a crack today I think’… alright, bad example comparing web design to brain surgery.
It’s not the end of the world to research and ‘hunt’ for a web designer to do the work for you, yes it costs money but you get what you pay for: quality, efficiency, and zero stress (ok 2% stress depending on your work timeline / situation), and a top notch website that’s hosted and maintained not taking any of your time or effort up. You’d do the same when looking for a builder to build you a porch for instance: get it done right and by the right people. Anyway, back to web design, this is where yours truly comes in to build, run and maintain a site for you…
Going the 'I'll find a web designer' route...
The main thing I can say, and I would say this if I wasn’t in the industry (no bias here): you’ve absolutely made the right decision.
You want your website built properly, you don’t want to add any stress, you want it running as it should, you want it to look and feel professional and best suited for your business, and lastly, you want it to be bringing in important custom. I have an immensely unique selling point as a freelance web designer, and that is my attitude and way of understanding and delivering what is expected for your website as well as myself. My portfolio speaks for itself, every single project is unique and fits the specification 100% for each client. The design is yours and built from scratch, even if you ask me to ‘come up with something’, at the end of the day the approval ends with you, and any tweaks or adjustments are made, again it’s your site!
This is the same when it comes to the site being live and out in the world, you don’t want to have to maintain 24/7 and make sure it’s up to date and running smoothly and most importantly: preventing any seconds of downtime. This is my job. I monitor and update your site 24/7, there’s not enough hours in the day to run your business and upkeep your website everyday. I’ve got the tools in place, techniques, knowledge and motivation to do the tedious bits from my end (it’s not tedious in my eyes!).
To sum up
Choose a web designer over ‘doing it yourself’. Simple as.
When you hire a web designer, it’s not just a ‘build me a site and run it please’ and then that’s it. You’ve actually got someone at the end of the phone, WhatsApp or email for any questions whether it’s relating to your website, any general technological queries, tips and tricks for your social campaigns, suggestions and recommendations (usually business related but I am human so anything non-business related, I’m here for ya!) and any business advice (I have got a business and computing degree remember). Basically, as my nanny and grandad always used to tell me “it’s always handy having someone who knows computers”, bless em.
I said it before in this blog post and it’ll never get old: you get what you pay for … and I’m not even expensive compared to other web designers around!