To Hire or not to Hire a Website Designer

In the early years of the internet the actual design of a
website was either very basic or had to be done using a software
package that needed a specialist to use it. Not surprisingly,
website designers were in short supply and could command huge
fees for their services. All that has changed dramatically and
website design is not such a complicated procedure as you might
think.   The actual look and feel of a website is more down to
personal preferences than current design trends. Internet users
want websites that are nice to look at, sure, but they are much
more concerned with the ease of use of a website. If a visitor
to your professionally designed website cannot find the
information that they are looking for quickly and easily they
will go elsewhere.   Website designers are similar to fashion
designers. Quite often the designs that they come up with are
totally impractical or outrageously expensive. Unless you have
absolutely no idea of what theme you want applied to your
website such as colours and styles you do not need to hire the
services of a website designer but can produce the basic outline
yourself. Obviously the technical aspects of your website
requires an expert but it is becoming more common for website
builders to be concerned more with how the site works rather
than the aesthetic side of it.   There are a number of free
website building sites around these days and these can be a
great way for you to play with your design ideas without the
expense of hiring a professional. You can also buy relatively
cheap software that can produce fairly complex website designs
quickly and simply. Drag and drop website design software has
become extremely popular. There are also many programs that you
can produce your website design with and have it converted to
html for uploading to your website.   Personally I have had
experience of both sides of the coin. The worst experience was
when I was working as a website copywriter for a guy, who shall
remain nameless! I first became involved in his website project
after he had paid a large sum to a website design team. To be
honest, I hated the design that they had produced for the
website and it seemed to have taken them an extortionate length
of time to produce static pages. The design of a website is very
much a personal preference but I was not the only one that hated
this particular design. So, the guy decided to hire another
person, just for the design while the technical side of his
website was being sorted out. He thought it would be easy to
apply a different style to the website but he was wrong! The
second design seemed to cause problems for the tech guy and
eventually had to be dropped. Now on his THIRD website design
the website owner decided to find a company who could perform
both the design and build aspects of his website. Finally he
found a website professional who could deal with both.
Unfortunately he had invested so much money in the failed
designs that he ended up being unable to fund the final website
and the whole project was shelved.   The best advice I can give
is that you should be extremely careful if you are hiring two
different companies to produce the design and the technical
aspects of your site. The two must be able to interact with each
other and use the file formats that each other produce. Don’t be
deceived into thinking that you have to employ a design
professional when you may well be able to do it yourself,
cheaper and to your complete satisfaction.