When to DIY Web Design, and When to Hire Professionals

Web design is an incredible series of skills.

If you have a business that works partially online, or if you are creating any sort of e-commerce situation, you’ll need web design to achieve it. Depending on what you hope to accomplish, you may be able to do this yourself regardless of previous skills, or you may need to hire professional web designers. For the best web design Belfast has to offer, click on through. For a better understanding of web design in general, read on.

Web designers are professionals who know how to create images and functionality that are the basis of a good website.

Some web designers work completely in imaging programs like Photoshop. They might design the complete look and feel of the website, including the location of specific navigational elements. In this way, the designer creates a lot of functionality of a website. Some web designers are also developers. Developers are the coders that create the website from the ground up. If the web designer does not have this skill set, the images will be passed onto another individual developer who works to make the designer’s vision a reality.

When to DIY Web Design, and When to Hire Professionals

That’s the professional route, but there are also DIY options for people who want to save a little money. Many DIY web entrepreneurs decide to create their websites with ready made templates. These templates often look good, but don’t offer the flexibility of a professionally made site. What you see is what you get, and there is no changing it. Other templates offer the user a little (or a lot) more flexibility, putting the site owner in the designer’s driver seat. These complex template models can get as complex as you want.

It’s important to understand when it is best to take one path or the other. For people who need a professional end result, professional is the way to go. One of the benefits of this method is ongoing support. If your site goes down, you know who to call. If you want to make a fundamental change to the sites functionality or your brand identity, six months down the road, you know who to call. Of course, DIY can offer you this, but you have to be willing to function as your own web designer and site manager. It’s a lot of work for certain kinds of businesses.

The DIYer has to be savvy and vigilant.

If something goes wrong with the site, there is no one to look to but yourself. For some web entrepreneurs with fairly simple website needs, this will be no problem. For people who require more complexity and ongoing flexibility, the DIY route can be a recipe for disaster. DIY template methods also tend to make a site dated, or too closely resemble other low-budget sites. They can be done well, but they require a skill set remarkably similar to that of a professional web designer, which begs the question, “Why not just go with the professional web designer in the first place?”

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