Many people think about handling the web design process on their own and feel that it might be a piece of cake. However, this is far from true in today’s world, where creating a website requires expertise in different realms. Given that a website is the face of the business it represents, its visual appeal and functionality determine just how well it does. If you think you might be able to design a website on your own, looking at the benefits of hiring a professional web design company will enable you to make a well-informed decision.
For starters, you need to understand that websites have evolved significantly over the years. Now, businesses use them to make things easy for their customers and they serve as effective round-the-clock marketing tools. Several business websites have transformed into online marketplaces where users can buy items without visiting physical stores. Even if you don’t plan to sell online, you still need a website that represents your brand in the best light, and this is where professional web design companies enter the picture.
So, if you’re wondering “Why hire a professional web designer?” here are 10 good reasons.
Table Of Contents
1. A Great First Impression
When you meet people, the first impression you have usually ends up affecting how you perceive them. Similarly, when people visit a website, they form an opinion based on how it looks and functions. Even if what you are selling is the best in class, it’s your website that needs to generate sales. What would you want your website to say when a visitor first lands on any of its pages?
The first impression is the most important, which is why you need to go the extra mile to ensure you get it right. A professional web design company takes time to research your target audience and competitors to determine the face your website needs to present to create a great first impression. This automatically increases the possibility of its visitors performing desired actions.
2. Mobile Compatibility
Unless you are a web designer, you might not know what it takes to create a mobile-friendly website. If you end up with a website that does not work well on mobile devices, you may face problems that cost you traffic and sales. Mobile traffic is growing every day and has already surpassed desktop use. If your website is not compatible with mobile devices, chances are that your direct competitors will take away almost all of your business.
If your website is not responsive, chances are you will need to pay someone to make it mobile-friendly. This can be extremely costly for your business. Turning to a professional web design company allows you to enjoy the benefits of responsive web design and you get a website that delivers a good user experience regardless of the devices its visitors use. A professional will also have knowledge of new technologies that can impact your website as far as mobile users are concerned.
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3. Attractive and Optimized Images
Most modern-day screens support high-resolution images. These images are much more detailed than the ones you saw around a decade ago. Given that the human eye is capable of seeing high levels of detail, using sub-par images tends to have an adverse effect on user experience. Besides, there’s more to using images in a website than just going the trial and error way. This is because when used in the right way, images add character to a brand and help build consistency. They improve your website’s overall appeal as well.
Part of optimizing images for web content includes reducing their size without hampering their quality, selecting suitable dimensions, creating suitable file names, using alt tags, and coming up with short yet descriptive captions.
If you don’t use WordPress, the process of adding and placing images becomes more complicated, especially if you do not have the necessary plugins. If you work with a professional web design company, you can rest assured knowing that the images on your website are razor sharp regardless of the device one might use. In addition, the web development stage takes due care of their placement and optimization.
4. You Get a Reliable Website
Consider this – after designing your website, you want to change something. Unfortunately, all you get is an error message that you can’t move past. These things tend to happen if a professional does not design a website. This is the case even if you use reliable content management systems like WordPress, Joomla, or Drupal. Then, you’ll probably spend considerable time going through Google to find a solution so you may fix the problem.
When things go wrong, most people end up calling a professional, something they should have done in the first place. Even if you end up fixing your website for the time being, you will still have an unreliable website that can go down at any moment. Working with a professional web design company reduces the possibility of your website suffering from downtime greatly. If and when something does go wrong, the company you partner with can address the problem quickly and efficiently.
5. You Get a Fast Website
It is not surprising that many sites fail to perform optimally. When you or an amateur web designer creates a website, chances are it will be slower than it should be and this can cost you a great deal. Speed is essential because even a slight delay will cause a user to move on to the next website, which, in all likelihood, belongs to your direct competitor.
Page loading speed also plays an important role in conversion. According to data collated by HubSpot, eCommerce websites that load in less than one second have 2.5 times better conversion rates than ones that load in five seconds.
One of the other benefits of hiring a professional web design company comes in the form of hosting. This is because the company you select can guide you in the right direction when it comes to choosing a host for your website. Bear in mind that hosting services play an important role in the performance of your website, and making the wrong selection can have an adverse effect on its page loading speed. As a result, it’s crucial for you to partner with a reliable web host to ensure that your website performs at optimum levels and does not disappoint your target audience.
If you have an existing website and want to know where it stands when it comes to page loading speed, you may consider using different online tools that can give you this information in an easy manner. Some of the top website speed test tools include PageSpeed Insights, GTmetrix, and Pingdom.
6. Better Web Design
Using online website builders limits your options to pre-designed templates. These templates have two major problems. They are basic and almost anyone can and will use them. The resulting website is uninteresting, to say the least, and looks like thousands of others.
If you want to impress your target audience, hiring a professional web design company that has the skills and creativity to build a site that is interesting and attractive is the obvious way forward. If you think that aesthetics don’t matter as long as performance is good, look at the websites of companies such as Apple, BMW, Nike, and Marriott International. They make sure the visual appeal of their websites remains a big deal, right at par with their performance.
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7. A Better Chance of Showing Up on Google
When making a website on your own, you may overlook search engine optimization (SEO) completely because it’s not on your list of concerns. As a result, your site will probably never see the light of day on Google. While designing a website is one thing, SEO is a different ball game altogether. One of the benefits of web design services offered by a professional agency is that your website benefits from proficient web designers and SEO experts who work on your project in a collaborative manner.
A professional web design company will ensure that your website has all the things that crawl bots look for as part of the ranking process. The aim is to appear on the top spots of Google search results related to the products or services you offer. This will only happen if you let people who understand the intricacies of SEO handle the process.
While SEO plays a crucial role in attracting organic traffic from sources like Google, Bing, Yahoo, and DuckDuckGo, it comes with other benefits too. For example, improving user experience is an important aspect of SEO, which has a positive effect on conversions. This is also the case when ensuring that your website’s visitors find the information they’re looking for in a seamless manner.
8. Time Saving
Creating a website is much more than just coming up with a good design. Websites have features that can help save a great deal of time while increasing your revenue. If you own a car repair shop or a salon, investing in a professionally developed website can open the doors to time-saving features such as online booking. This will save you the hassles associated with manual bookings and overlapping appointments. You can also have an automated follow-up email feature to thank your customers.
Depending on the type of business you run, your website can help you save time in different ways. For example, it can speed up the proposal process, simplify appointment scheduling, provide answers to commonly asked questions, and explain the benefits of your products or services in detail. There are multiple possibilities you can take advantage of through a modern-day website, and this can happen if you seek assistance from professional web designers.
9. Increased Revenue
Apart from the fact that a professionally designed website can help you save time and money, it can assist you in increasing your revenue without too much effort. For example, if your website ranks well on search engines, you may expect a steady flow of web traffic. If it delivers a good user experience, you may expect its visitors to perform desired actions. This, in turn, leads to an increase in revenue.
Continuing with the car repair shop example, you may add a number of extra services such as oil change, car wash, wiper replacement, air filter replacement, and battery replacement to your website, so customers can avail of them along with their scheduled maintenance visits. All your website’s visitors need to do is check a few boxes for the services they want, and every additional service they add increases your revenue. This is something you cannot accomplish if you design your website using run-of-the-mill templates.
10. Affordability
If you look at your website as an expense, there’s a good chance you’ll always keep worrying about the money you need to spend to keep it running. However, when done right, a website can become a worthwhile investment that is capable of increasing your revenue by leaps and bounds.
An important aspect of keeping your web design costs in check is ensuring you get it right the first time. This is because you don’t want to create a poor first impression. Besides, it also does away with the costs associated with fixes and major improvements. While hiring the best professional web design company you can find might seem expensive compared to DIY or amateur designers, your decision is bound to work in your favor if you look at the bigger long-term picture.
Conclusion
Websites play an important role in most modern-day marketing strategies because they give businesses easy means to reach out to and connect with their audiences. However, designing a website is no walk in the park, and much like you would get a professional accountant to handle your company’s finances, it’s best to leave web design to the professionals too.
While you might find ways to make a simple website by using different online tools, know that it will come with various shortcomings and fall well short of what a professional web design company can do for you. Simply put, if you wish to make the most of what the online world has to offer, partnering with a specialist is the way forward.
