Creating a website yourself brings the feeling of satisfaction and joy that you put your name on something that lives in the interwebs of the world! This project will showcase what you love and cherish aka your business. This is going to be seen by everyone, but maybe you don’t have the time to create it?

Or maybe you aren’t the most creative person when it comes to the design aesthetic. This is when the question arises of do you want to build your website yourself or outsource/hire someone to do it for you. This question can be an easy one to answer or a little more complicated but either way, let’s get your website up and running! 

Choosing Your Platform

I’m not sure about you but whenever I hear the words,  “choose your” I instantly think of that video game deep voice stating, “choose your player!” 

Anyway, before you can even start the design process you need to choose where you want your website to live. There is a way for a website to be completely ‘created’ with no host, but that goes into a huge tech side and if you are reading this, that most likely is not you, because realistically that isn’t me either! There are plenty of platforms out there, but to name a few there are Squarespace(this is the platform I use), Showit, Wix, WordPress, and Shopify. There are probably some other ones, but these are the ones that are top of mind to me. They all have their pros and cons and some may be easier for you to use than others. You really need to play around with the backends of the platforms if possible. Another tip would be to watch YouTube videos and ask around to other people in your industry what they think. An example is my mom, she is an author, who started her site on WordPress because of the number of authors and writers that use this platform. Down the road, we found it difficult to manage when we wanted to do a lot of the edits ourselves, instead of hiring someone every time we wanted to change something. This was when we switched her platform to Squarespace and well the rest of the story leads you to here and now.

So don’t hesitate to shop around! Now that you know where you want your website to live, you can start thinking about how you want things to be designed. Do you want to do the design yourself or hand it off to someone? Are you a tech-savvy person that loves to do the behind the scenes tasks? Then I would encourage you to try! Below is a list of benefits to hiring a web designer with some problems that may arise too. Take a look at let me know what you think.

Pro/Con list:

• Pro: The designer knows the platform better

Whether it’s Squarespace or another platform the designers that work with them more often will most likely know some different tips and tricks. They also have their finger on the pulse of that platform. If there is a new change with the features they probably know about it first. Being a designer for Squarespace they offer ‘Squarespace Circle’ which is a private community for designers to gather. They offer beta testing for their members and the member’s clients. Another perk is that being a circle member you can offer a discount the first year while using the website's platform. I’m sure there are other incentives that different platforms offer as well, so it is great to be aware of them. Ultimately a question comes about when you start to design a website, can you be a web designer without coding? The answer is YES! When you go to design a website yourself and you don’t want to use coding techniques then you need to learn a workaround with the site. This can take some extra time on your part, but if you are working with a designer they may already know those different workarounds or features you are thinking of. The flip side is that you can learn to code if you want! 

• Pro: A designer can help relieve some design stress

Whether you are creative or not, designing can take a lot of time out of your day. You need to figure out color schemes, pictures, and fonts. Then when you get all those things planned out you need to put them on a page in a pretty and incisive way. You also need to make things customer friendly and easy to access or an easy flow if you will. Hiring the designer helps take that stress away and rather than you stressing about the font being above the button or to the side or below it, designers can just have you look at the finished piece and get your critique. 

They are also here to keep things organized for you. Did you just take new branding photos? Great! The designer can take these photos and choose which ones work well with the different pages of the site and rename them for SEO optimization. They will keep the backend organized while you can keep your eye on your business. 

• Pro/Con: You may not feel that you have total creative control

One of my original clients had emailed me when she was deciding if she wanted to work with me and said:

“ I just want to make sure that I have complete design control”, my response was, “well of course!”

A designer is here to give you the bones of the site. There may be some things that you two have to strategize over if a design isn’t customer-friendly, but either way, the designer wants YOU to be happy with YOUR website. Your benefit of hiring a web designer is that you do have design control over your website.

However, there can be a con to this as well. Let’s say your designer thinks that the button needs to be on the side of the text because it is easier for the customer to see, but you may like it below the text. This is where the designer needs to bend or things may have to be restructured and your creative control isn’t 100%. Like I said earlier, this is your site and the designer wants you to be happy, but we also have to think of the customer. You are hiring a website designer for a reason, so sometimes you may need to trust their vision or opinion. 

Bonus points: One thing that I may suggest is doing a poll over on your social media. Ask your customers what they might think about the design! This helps build interest from your clients and gain engagement on social media, it's a win-win!

• Con: Designers can cost extra money

I mean let’s be real, designers don’t always come free or cheap (we all have to eat, you know?). This can be a big con if you are just starting out and don’t have it in your budget to pay someone to create a site and host the platform, etc. I wrote a whole post on the 4 Hidden Fees You Come Across When Building A Website because there are other fees associated with your website other than just paying your designer. There are plenty of free options to host just one page for your customers. For example, you can create ‘landing pages’ on Canva, so let’s say your customer clicks on a button and it takes them to another screen, that is your landing page. A whole site may not be needed right away, but eventually, a website becomes beneficial. Another tip I would offer is the do a trade if you can! Maybe you are a clothing brand and don’t have the financial backing right away to hire a web designer so you offer them some free clothes and a feature on your social media. A huge benefit for web designers is getting a shout-out from their past customers, this is usually how their clientele can build so it never hurts to negotiate! 

Optimizing Your Site For SEO- The potential for your future customers to find you

Finally, a big benefit of hiring a web designer as mentioned before is letting them handle the back, back end of the website process like keyword research or SEO (search engine optimization). When running a small business we become all of these roles like designers, marketers, and accountants. The truth is that you might not know everything there is to know about optimizing your website for success, so leave that task to someone else. Your designer may do it themselves or connect you with a copywriter who can offer their services for a great copy on your site. 

At the end of the day, it is your choice if you want to hire a designer or not. There are plenty of pros to designing your website yourself. If you are going to design a website yourself I suggest reading this blog post on 4 Hidden Fees You Come Across When Building A Website and 3 Squarespace Hacks You Need To Know If You DIY Your Website don’t forget to follow me over on Instagram where I share tips and tricks on building a successful website. 

Do you agree with these different points? Think I left something out? Let me know in the comments below!