July 28, 2017

Simple logic has even the simplest of people turn to a professional for things they themselves cannot do. Website designing eminently qualifies to be a sub-niche and it is best left to a professional web designer.

Online Representative

A website is not exactly an advertisement. It tells the visitor who you are, what you are and what he can expect from you. It is your business card, your brochure and may be your online shop, all rolled into one. Your ware may be top drawer but if you do not own a website to match your product, you may as well not have it at all.

Professionalism

There can be designers who can rival an Andy Warhol but may woefully lack in the knowledge department. Unless they intrinsically know the ins and outs of the product or the marketing strategy that is being employed, all their commendable efforts will go waste. Professionalism is the key here. Easy navigation, compatibility with all possible browsers, easy loading are the watchwords. A professional web designer must know HTML, SEO, Java, Photo Optimization, languages like PHP besides marketing and communication like the back of his hand.  Because these are all very unique specialties, often a professional cohort or a firm will form in order to make sure that the webdesign company can do all of these things well.

Saving Time

Your enthusiasm for web designing though you are not knowledgeable, or your penchant for saving money leading you to hire an amateur, may turn out to be costly in the end. You will save your energy, your time and spare yourself some frustration if you hire a professional web designer or web development team. Web development is not confined to HTML as many think.  It is a vast collection of artstic skill, marketing knowledge, content generation, programming of various languages and familiarity with many third party platforms.  Having a full web development team is like having a complete medical staff.  You wouldn’t have a podiatrist work on your heart any more than you would have a professional programmer design your logo and site template.

Competition

It is safe to say that Internet space is more congested than the real world. The exponential growth of the medium has ensured it. Take any field, there are thousands of web sites espousing their own merits and it is the best looking site that has quality content that will stand out.  The done-to-death maxim “First impression is the best impression” is most apt for a website. Repeat visits are the guarantee that your business will see better growth than your competition.

Uniqueness

Out of the estimated 862 million websites, unless you are selling Harry Potter magic, yours is likely to have 1000s of competitors. And, unless your website stands out, a visitor is likely to wander off looking for better prospects. The uniqueness of your website should ooze out of it. Contact forms, interactive forums and galleries should all cry out to the visitor that they have arrived at their final destination.

Message

A good web design team should also have a wordsmith, able to convey the message as it is without beating around the bush. However, words are not enough. Colors, layouts, fonts and the like should be in the right proportion to make the site attractive.

SEO

SEO has transformed itself as the most important aspect of a webpage visibility. Search engines have become diligent operators and unless you are compliant and conforming to their rules, they may shun you, no matter how brilliant your content is. A good web design team has a great SEO manipulator as well to consult on all aspects of content generation and descriptive and meta tags in the site coding.

In conclusion, a quality website is not something to be taken lightly.  You will get what you pay for.  Additionally, it’s also important to realize that competent website development is a comprehensive process requiring a diverse set of skills that is not likely to be found in one person.  If you hire an individual, be clear on what their strengths are.  Have a plan for filling in the gaps in their knowledge if they do not have a cohort to address this.  Consider hiring a firm if you do not have the desire or time to project manage these sorts of issues. Basic competence of these issues will ensure that you will get a much higher quality and long lasting website product for your investment.