Web Design: Don’t Be Penny Wise Pound Foolish

A company website is one of the most important promotional tools that any business has in its marketing arsenal.  In order to be successful in today’s business world, a website is a necessity.  People search for just about everything online.  If a company does not have a web presence, they are missing out on a giant opportunity.  It’s expected that any respectable business should have a website.  Some potential clients and customers won’t even think about using a product or a service that comes from a company without a website.  A company website should provide a wealth of information for users such as company background, products and services offered, hours of operation, store locations, and contact information.  An e-commerce site that sells products directly should maintain an updated list of available inventory and provide a secure check out process.  It’s extremely important for any business website to be consistently updated and maintained.  In addition, it needs to be user friendly.  It’s important for web visitors to be able to quickly find the information that they are looking for.  Most companies have lots of competitors, and it’s important not to lose customers to a competitor that simply provides a better website experience.  For these reasons, it’s imperative to hire a web designer.

In an effort to cut costs some companies decide to give the responsibility of website design and maintenance to a current in house staffer.  Unless that person is a professional web designer, that’s a very bad idea.  In many cases this work is handed off to a marketing person or an office assistant.  

Here are three reasons to hire a professional web designer:

There are certain things that an amateur can’t do
Sure, it’s possible to teach an employee the basics of web design and development, but if that isn’t their full time job that will be reflected in the quality of the site.  Typically, when web design is considered to be a “side project” of an individual that has lots of other duties the website doesn’t get the attention that it needs and deserves.  

A lack of knowledge can hurt you
There is a lot to understand about web design.  An individual that doesn’t have thorough knowledge can risk costing the company visitors.  The person or team responsible for the website needs to understand the analytics side as well, such as which pages are ranking well and where the visitors are coming from.  There’s a lot more to it than just “what looks good”.  One crucial mistake can make a huge difference.  

You get what you pay for
Passing web design work off to someone in house might save some money initially, but the result is often a poor quality site.  If even a small mistake is made it’s very possible that a company that uses this strategy will end up spending more in the long term to fix everything.  

About the Author:

Brick Marketing is a Boston, MA based full service SEO and search engine marketing company that offers web marketing consulting services.  For more information please call 781-999-1222.