It is not cheap nor easy to hire a professional website designer. And that is why it baffles many people why anybody could opt to employ the services of a professional website designer when they can cheaply and readily use free website builders such as Wix, Weebly, Squarespace and etc. It turns out that there are advantages and drawbacks for each, and each of them is considered incisively below.
For starters, a good website designer can turn your vision to reality. They can easily take the concept stuck in your head and turn it into a live design that you can see. Further, they can develop an interesting design that will set you apart from your competitors.
However, not everyone should use the services of a professional website designer, especially if your business lies under any of the following categories, i.e. hobby, blogger, new business, solopreneur,
unproven concept, small nonprofit, and etc. The deciding factor is often
summarized in the very sagacious words of DJ Quick that If it doesn’t make money, it does not make sense.’ That means that the website should return value for money. If hiring a professional web designer will cause you to lose money, and the venture won’t give you any returns, then stick with website builders such as weebly and wix.
The next most important question is who’d be better off hiring the services of a professional website designer? Somebody might be wondering why they’d need to contract the services of a designer when website builders are so affordable and available. To answer the question, you need to ponder on how much it would cost your business if you don’t get a professionally done website. According to Warren Buffet, the most important consideration in investments is opportunity cost.
Opportunity cost is mostly a comparison of the several options available to you and the determination of the overall best course of action. Therefore, the following persons or entities are better off procuring
the services of a professional website designer: A business that rakes in over $250,000 annually in revenue, a local business that is in a competitive industry, a solopreneur who generates more than $150,000 annually in revenue, a high transaction value business, etc.
As already mentioned, a website is an investment, especially if it can help you generate money. That means the professionally built website should rake in more income that you would otherwise get if you didn’t try the service or chose to try a website builder instead.
Benefits and Drawbacks of Website Designer vs Website Builder
The benefits of a website builder over a website designer include:
Affordability- It costs very little or nothing
Ready- It is only a matter of minutes and you have your website up. A design firm will take weeks.
Decent Design
A website builder has its share of drawbacks, and they include:
It is generic- Most website builder templates look the same. Nothing distinguishes between sites.
Not professionally built – You won’t have someone who understands visitor conversions to optimize the conversion design of your website.
Poor SEO – website builders don’t provide tools to optimize your website
And what about the benefits of professionally designed websites? The benefits include:
Professional design- Professional designers understand website design best practices, colors, fonts, and themes. They understand information architecture, user interface, as well as how design affects visitor flow. Therefore, they’ll do something that is close to perfect when designing your website.
Unique design- Hiring a web designer permits you to have an original and unique design
Optimized for conversion- A professional website designer will structure the design so as to optimize conversions.
And what about the drawbacks? They include A higher upfront cost
Longer time to launch- Quality varies
As is evident, each option has its share of advantages and disadvantages. Therefore, it is upon you to decide what you really need and go for it. Use the criteria outlined above to determine the option that best suits your situation.