Should I Hire a Web Developer or Build It Myself?
In today's digital age, the majority of people use the internet. It has become a part of their lifestyle and a huge platform to further education, business, work, and entertainment. But where do these people head to? To different kinds of websites. All digital platforms begin on a single website. So if you're planning to extend your business or professional brand on the internet, building your own website is the way to go.
But despite the massive benefits a website can provide, many business owners are still holding themselves back from building their own. A huge fraction of these business owners are torn between spending thousands of bucks on building their website or just creating their own from scratch. Well, if you're one of those business owners, variables such as budget, time allocation, level of website-building experience, and the complexity of the website that you want to achieve are the things that you should consider.
If you are a startup business and are yet to have your own website, it is recommended to learn it through website builders. There are several website-building platforms available where you create a simple website even without having coding knowledge. Meanwhile, if your business is already established and has enough funds to elevate or create a better quality website, you can invest in employing a professional web developer for your company. Read further to this article to learn of its benefits.
Do I Need to Hire a Web Developer?
You should consider hiring a web developer if:
1. You want to save time
Developing a website is a challenging task. It takes a lot of time to build. So if you think of building it by yourself with not enough experience, you are likely to have a hard time accomplishing it. That is why if you decide to make it yourself, you need to invest some time into learning it first.
However, you can just take the easier road and hire a web developer. Professional web developers build your website for you that is suited to your taste. The time you have saved from hiring a web developer can be used for you to focus on your zone of genius.
2. You want your website to be custom designed to your liking.
As much as your business is unique, so should your website be.
By hiring a web developer, you can ask them to include some features that you want for your website to set it apart from your competitors. They can also make changes to your current website and elevate its design and functionalities.
3. You want it to be professionally appealing.
If you only sell online, your website is the first thing that will impress your customers.
With this in mind, first impressions are indeed important. That is why your website should be professional-looking and highly functional. Through the help of a web developer, you can have a seamless and highly professional website.
4. You want to have the latest trends in technology applied on your website.
If you want your website to be as modern as possible, a web developer can help you keep up with the latest trends in your niche.
For example, since people have consistently increased their phone hours, having a website that is mobile-friendly and highly responsive is very critical. The role of a web developer would design your website accordingly.
Moreover, a professional web developer will understand which tools to use best for your website according to its technological advantages and features.
5. You want an optimized website for search engines.
If you want people to find your store online when they search for products relating to your business, it is important to appear first on search engines. Having your website optimized is the way to do that. By hiring a web developer, they can incorporate SEO into the architecture of your website. A strong search-engine-optimized website will be the core of your SEO strategy, and build your keyword strategies around it.
6. You want constant website support.
Just because your website goes live, then a web developer's job is done. Answer: No.
When you hire a web developer, they can ensure that you will have someone to turn to for help whenever a problem occurs in your website, or if you require some modifications in the future. This continued support is a major benefit, especially if you're unfamiliar with web technology.
Pros of Hiring a Web Developer
1. Increased web performance
A skilled web developer ensures that your website constantly increases or maintains its speed and efficiency. Their experience and dedication to the project empower them to code a W3C-compliant and highly responsive website.
2. Reduces cost and saves time.
Among the significant advantages of hiring web developers is that it reduces cost and saves time, especially if you outsource them. Freelance web developers are already skilled enough that there is little to no need to provide training. More so, as they work remotely, you wouldn't have to provide for working resources. This allows you to save on operational costs and more importantly, hiring a web developer gives you more time dedicated to managing your team better and growing your business.
3. Wider Reach
Since more people go digital, having a well-built and efficient website allows you to reach a broader audience and draw new and repeat buyers. A website is also an excellent platform for engaging with customers and enhancing their experiences through online services. To help you develop and maintain your web presence, a web developer can build and design websites that are modern and optimized for performance and speed. Hiring a web developer can assist you in translating and implementing appealing websites that are designed for an interactive customer journey.
4. Solidify your brand and consistency in design
Experienced web developers understand how to create a website that accurately represents your company and helps it stand out from competitors. By incorporating your unique branding, a web developer can help improve your company's credibility by adding consistency to your brand.
Cons of Hiring a Web Developer
1. Quite expensive
If you want your website to be unique and differentiated from the rest, a highly competent web developer who also is skilled in web design is what you need. However, hiring one is a costly undertaking. Additional fees can also add up if your web developer is also proficient in SEO and digital marketing, as it is an additional skill set. Nonetheless, hiring other people for those tasks will just cost you as much. So, if you're tight financially, a premium website builder can be a wiser choice.
2. Takes a lot of time
Creating a website from scratch requires a significant amount of time and effort. And this is not simply from the standpoint of web development and design. Even though you hire a web developer with years of experience and ls amazing web design skills, you will still be required to express your thoughts and have them translated into your website. In line with this, since you're starting from scratch, you'll have to be keener on finding out errors and manually correcting them. The longer it takes to build your website, the bigger the funds you'll have to dispense.
3. Lack of control
Assume you hired a web developer to build an amazing website for you, and it is now complete. However, you currently have some concerns or modifications that you would like to make. If you don't have any web development or design experience, it would be hard for you to make those changes to your website. Thus, you will be compelled to contact your web developer (if you didn't hire them long term) or hire a new one instead (which will be quite a challenge as they are not the ones who originally built that website).
Conclusion
With all of the reasons, benefits, and drawbacks of hiring a web developer, are you now convinced to hire one, or are you going to build your own website? Indeed, hiring a professional web developer reduces the number of errors that will be made throughout the project, which can save you valuable time and money. However, if you are still tight on your budget and can still work out your business without a website, then you can decide not to, or better yet, just learn and build your own.
But if you're on track to building your own website, why not employ the assistance of SMART VA's team of experienced web developers? They can assist you in creating the website that you've always imagined! Book a discovery call now!