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Millions of people now use the Internet to find the things they need. A well-laid-out website can provide all sorts of useful information to those who might need what you have to offer, such as hours of operation, telephone numbers, email address and information as to why they should select your company over others. It is very important to know that having web presents does not ensure you will get traffic to your site. More on that in our Search Engine Optimization(SEO) and Social Media Optimization(SMO) sections.
When planning or designing a business website, you generally have two options: build the website yourself or contract the work out to a professional Web designer or programmer. The first and foremost consideration is how much time do you want to spend on the website as opposed to promoting your business, delivering or designing products and servicing customers. Remember, there is a cost associated with your time. Before you rush into a lengthy do-it-yourself project or shell out a lot of money to a professional, consider the pros and cons of both approaches to building your company website.
Needed Design Abilities
Many desktop and online applications that you can create are rudimentary. While it’s true you can put up a websites in a matter of a few minutes it may not really represent your business. Desktop programs like as Dreamweaver, Net Objects Fusion and others ship with templates you can use to create a website with a minimal amount of HTML or Web programming experience. You will need at least basic computer skills to use them however. Usually, they will produce simple template solutions that are more suitable for personal websites rather than sites for businesses. If you plan to offer products for sale on the Web with functional consumer-oriented tools, you must possess at least some experience in coding and programming to add advanced features. These features include customer management solutions, a working shopping cart application or login or membership management. If you need these types of features, and you don’t feel comfortable in implementing them yourself, it might serve you well to hire a professional Web developer.
Time to Set Up and Implement the Site
If you feel your business needs only a minimal Web presence and site that consists of just a few pages, you can probably use available Web design tools to create your business website in a few hours. However, if you sell products online or implement a customer management system, designing and implementing a site can be a time-consuming affair, so again, remember, your time has a value associated with it. If selling products online, you will want to ensure that every product has an enticing description and you include every pertinent information. This means you must design a new page or database entry for every product your plan to sell. Likewise, if you plan to offer helpful content on your site – and you should to attract more visitors – writing and uploading articles for your site takes a substantial amount of time. If you have ample time for these tasks, there is no reason you cannot do the work yourself. However, if creating product pages or content for your website distracts you from running and growing your business, you should seriously consider outsourcing your website project.
Site Repairs and Maintenance
A successful website requires more than just a good design and catchy name. Once your website is live, it will require continuous maintenance and updating to ensure potential customers keep coming back. Although it is relatively easy to create a website with modern development software tools, these applications are not very useful if your site starts having problems. HTML or other code errors, broken links, corrupted database files are always a concern for busy websites. Therefore, unless you or someone at your business has the ability to quickly troubleshoot and resolve issues that might arise with your website, using a professional to designer, and manager to monitor and maintain your business website can save you and your site’s visitors a lot of grief in the long run. Keep this in mind as well, if you are not an Information Technologies expert, you may not know how to keep your site properly backed up and locked down against hackers. You may find restoring your site daunting should you be hacked.
About the Money
In the end, money is the major consideration in your decision to “build or buy” your business website. Professional website developers usually don’t work cheap, nor should they. A good web designer will work with you to create a website which will exceed your needs.