The design of your website is one of the most important elements of any business. It’s your online home where people come to find out more about your brand, buy your products, or book your services. It needs to share the right message with your target audience about what your brand is, what it stands for, and what you speak to.
The best way to do all of this is to hire a web designer—a professional who knows how to create a user-friendly website that says what you need it to say. Sure, there are site builders online that you can use for free or for a small fee. They make it easy to build a website on your own without the help of an expert. But easy isn’t always the best option. That’s why there are many benefits to hiring a professional web designer rather than DIY.
Here’s why going the professional route is the better option:
1. Saves You Time And Money
Site builders might have plug-and-play options that make it simple to build a basic website. However, you still have to sit down and actually do that building. You also have to do all the planning beforehand, the tweaking of details to get them just right, and all the ongoing maintenance that comes with a website.
It might feel like hiring a web designer is paying someone to do something that you could do yourself. However, they’ll be able to do it a lot faster than you could and do a lot more than you could on your own. Hiring a professional will also free up your time to focus on other areas of your business.
2. Ensures The Best User Experience
A poor user experience (UX) is one of the quickest ways to upset online customers. The design of your website is the cover of your book, and people will judge you for it instantly. There is so much competition online that if the layout of your website is unattractive or hard to use, people will just click away. Plus, they certainly won’t recommend your business to other people, even if they end up buying something from your website.
A good web designer should know what’s current and trendy in terms of layout, colors, functionality, and UX. They can guide you toward getting the website that your target audience will appreciate, and they can make that design a reality.
3. Your Site Will Be Properly Optimized
Optimization is a buzzword in web design and for good reason. It relates to both the user experience and search engine optimization (SEO). Both of which are becoming more and more closely aligned. Optimization is all about ensuring that your website performs competitively, which is very hard to do if you are new to building websites.
A web designer will be able to ensure that the images and media on the website don’t slow down the load speed for each page. They can also build reliable, secure, and stable websites that load properly each time. They know where the balance is between incorporating the right features and functionality without slowing a site down.
4. You’ll Get The Design You Really Want
There are plenty of great website builders for creatives, businesses, e-commerce, and every other sector that offer you flexibility and adaptability in your web design. The issue is, you need to know how to use that flexibility and adaptability to create a professional-looking website. A professional web designer will customize your website to meet your needs, whether they’re using a site builder or coding it from the ground up.
Having this level of flexibility means that you can build a website that does exactly what your business requires. You’ll have the chance to truly customize the user experience and offer your customers exciting features that can put you ahead of the competition.
5. An Expert Will Know How To Use The Latest Technology
Web design is all about the technology you use, and technology is advancing rapidly. If you’re not up to speed on these things—and no one expects someone who isn’t a web specialist to be—how can you ensure that your website follows current trends and style guides? This is why you hire a web design expert.
A major technological concern these days is that your website is properly mobile responsive. It’s vital that the layout and functionality adapt to the screen size and carefully consider how the user experience is different on a small touch screen versus a large computer monitor. Other considerations are the use of artificial intelligence and machine learning, as well as virtual and augmented reality. These are all becoming a major part of the way the world works and your website needs to reflect this.
6. You’ll Get Technical Support And Maintenance
No website should ever be designed and then left alone. Regular website audits are important as they check that the site remains uncluttered, that all links are working, plugins or functions are operating properly, the content is still up to date, and the site is secure. This maintenance should be done regularly and can be quite time-consuming, depending on how complex your website is. Most web designers will offer you ongoing maintenance and support packages to assist you.
Having an expert on standby can also be incredibly useful if something goes wrong. It can be easy to make a small change that impacts the rest of the site and seems impossible to rectify. It could be as simple as a plugin becoming outdated and your website stops working altogether. Having an expert on call ensures that there’s someone who can fix the issue quickly, with minimal downtime.
The Bottom Line
Now you know why you need a web designer, it’s easy to see why using a professional is the obvious choice.
Hiring a web designer is an investment in your business. If you want to establish your business online you need a website that ticks all the right boxes. Leaving this up to the professionals will work in your favor, and you’ll find that your website pays off far more than you paid for it.