When deciding how to build your first website, small businesses may prefer a website builder - they are inexpensive (or free), easy to use, and can be done fairly quickly if you can take the time to do so. On the other hand, midsize and large companies may not find that website builders offer enough functionality or support for their needs. They are usually willing to spend money to get a reliable, well designed and custom website that will not only be a static brochure about their goods or services, but a fully functioning marketing mechanism to actively reach existing and potential customers.
Before choosing between creating your website with a website builder, making a deposit with a freelancer, or signing up for a contract with a digital agency, the first thing you need to do with your business is to set your company's design goals.
To some people, a website might just appear like an online brochure containing information about products or services, as well as contact details. In its most basic form, this is true. In fact, if you run a small family car repair business, mom and pop shop, sell organic products on your farm, or run other activities of this kind where most customers meet face to face anyway, the website would probably just be a brochure to inform customers about new offers or to let new potential customers know that your business is operating in their area. The site directs traffic to your physical store or location. But what will attract potential customers to your website to get started? Most people search using search engines like Google or Bing. This is where Search Engine Optimization (SEO) comes in - and you want to make sure that at least your website is optimized to be properly indexed by search engines and if possible, depending on competition, displayed on the first page, if not the top in search results.
Some companies do their business both online and offline - offering products for sale on their website as well as in their store. Perhaps they can take cake orders on their website, along with payment, with the cake to be picked up when it's ready. Having a website that accepts payments immediately makes it easier for a customer to make a purchase as they can do so from anywhere, even if they don't have time to visit your store. It helps with cash flow as you can get money before spending on ingredients. Some websites that try to manage cash flow accept pre-orders so they can have money before purchasing products they ship or ordering products that can only be manufactured by a factory.
And why stop there? With increasingly sophisticated websites, you can supercharge your e-commerce site for cross-selling or add-on products, offer special promo codes and discounts, free shipping above a certain amount, remind customers of items left in their cart or re-target them with product ads they can be interested based on their purchasing patterns. You can search for new customers by creating landing pages, giving away free e-books, and collecting email addresses to sell more of your products to these target customers in the future. The marketing possibilities are almost endless with a fully functional website.
Now that you have a good idea of the capabilities of your website, we can take a look at your options for building a new online business presence.
With the wide variety of easy-to-use website building options available to us today, and the relatively inexpensive cost of entry-level websites, there's really no excuse for not having a website. There are several website builders that bundle domain names into their hosting services and offer a host of other benefits such as SSL encryption and customer support. However, if you prefer more control over your website development, you can choose a more modular approach to building your website with WordPress by taking advantage of their downloadable software and installing it on the back-end of your hosting. Note that this is not an option for everyone.
Now that you have a basic understanding of the various website development options, you can weigh your priorities. You may feel that your website needs to be more robust and flexible to adapt to changing business needs. However, you just don't have the time or the patience (or the technical knowledge required) to learn how to build a site on your own. You can consider outsourcing a digital agency or, if you have a smaller budget, a freelancer.
Freelance web designers are self employed and do not own any business, therefore they are more affordable than digital agencies. This is because they don't have any overheads to pay what digital agencies do (such as office space, electricity bills, and other business costs). Other benefits of working with a freelancer are having only one point of contact with which you need to communicate your needs, working directly with the site builder instead of having to go through multiple levels communication across teams, as well as the speed and commitment of the freelancer to get the job done, the sooner the work is done (no compromise on quality), the faster they'll get paid.
On the other hand, working with a freelancer can be risky. There are a lot of horror stories about web design freelancers taking money and just disappearing. Also, there is no quality guarantee because if something breaks or there are errors in the back-end, you may have to pay a freelancer more money to fix these issues. In addition, freelancers may just disappear, because they don't want to do the work anymore or are hired by an agency.
Do a lot of research, ask for references (and contact them) and make sure you have a clear contract in place.
When you work with a digital agency, you work with a registered company. Businesses require credibility, and you can be pretty sure they won't do the feat of disappearing from you halfway through your web development project as they have a lot more to lose. These companies often work as teams to achieve their clients' goals. Unlike freelancers who handle the entire project, each staff member works on a specific part of the project.
The good thing about hiring a digital agency is that you can be sure of the quality of their work. They usually have a solid team and a proven work process, which makes them very reliable. With many team members who specialize in certain aspects of website development, you can get the best possible results for your online presence. What's more, your website can do a lot of different jobs - not only does it look good and communicates well, but it can be highly optimized for marketing and business lead conversion, thanks to a variety of experts working on your project.
The main reason businesses might think twice about digital agencies is price - to get the best results, you need to be prepared to pay a higher price than the other options previously mentioned. On the other hand, having a website that works hard to attract traffic to your business and ultimately brings you more business can likely cost you less in a long run, as it will bring more customers. Other downsides to a digital agency are that it can take much longer to work with them due to the different teams at work. Finally, some digital agencies charge monthly and don't give you the actual ownership of the site, so you're bound to them. When hiring an agency, make sure that you own the website and its content and that you can transfer it to different hosting and work with a different agency in the future.
As you can see, there are many options for creating a website. The choice between them depends on your budget, schedule, work style and preferences. Startups may want to build their own website using a website builder to keep costs low in the early stages. Freelancers can be great if they have proven experience and you can trust them. Digital agencies can provide you with the best product and quality for a higher upfront cost. Choose wisely based on your business situation and needs.