It all comes down to putting your time into what will generate the greatest return. The short answer; if you want your customers to take you seriously, or actually get enquiries or sales from your web design, you need to enlist the services of a professional. Here's why...
The Website's Design
Let's assume you already have a logo created. If you were to design the website yourself, do you have experience in design? Can you make the website look credible and better than your competitors? Probably not.
A well thought out design needs not only have conversion elements in place, but needs to be well balanced, be consistent with your brand and be current. Design trends change so quickly in this industry, so your Y2K html table design is not going to cut it.
If it looks cheap, your potential customers will associate the same with your product or service.
"But I can just get a template and change it to suit me right?". Yes, you can. But it's pretty obvious when a template is used these days because 9 times out of 10, it looks like your logo was just slapped on next to the same stock photos everyone else uses.
Professional web design is;
- Unique (Search engines do factor in your website's layout to SERPS)
- Responsive (It automatically adapts to suit different screen sizes/devices)
- Relevant (Proper research in the design stage results in a more relevant design)
- Converts Better (More people contact you because an actual sales funnel was built in)
Managing a custom responsive design required creative direction, a professional experienced designer, a programmer that is up to date with the latest web design code and an online marketer who can ensure your programmer stays within best practices for conversions and search engines. Can you really become all of these over night?
Search Engines & Marketing
Website's don't just appear on search engine's over night. There are many different ways to send targeted traffic to your landing pages, but just as many ways to waste a whole lot of time and money.
Building a website is not enough to get customers. You need a plan in place to first track and test which keywords result in leads/sales, then rank your website organically and optimise your landing pages for maximum conversions so you get the most out of your marketing spend.
Sounds simple right? Good luck with that :)
Search engine algorithms change regularly, so unless you A; have the resources and B; are prepared to quit your day job and solely focus on your website's online marketing - unless you enlist the services of a local professional you are likely to see no return.
Cost of opportunity
Creating a website with all of the tools available today might sound easy, but how long do you really think it's going to take? And after you finally get it live only to realise search engine's don't even index your website, what are you going to do next?
The thing is, customers are doing Google searches for your products/services on a daily basis. Let's say you're a plumber in Sydney. As at today's date, Google's search data shows 4910 people per month searched for your services. That's around 158 people per day actually looking for what you offer now. Every day. View the google data for this example here or click the attachments below.
Think about that for a minute. It would most likely take you a couple of months to get the website up, then you spend the next 6 months trying to promote it usually only to have minimal or no success. In that time, you would have lost exposure to 29,460 customers looking for what you offer.
Even if you only had 10% of that number visit your website and only 10% of those turned into customers, that's still 294 customers you may have missed out on.
In my experience...
Customers who invest in a professional website and online marketing get results. Those who had their cousin's uncle's sisters brother-in-law's friend who studied design at tafe build their website usually always end up coming back to us 12 months later asking for help... and we help them.
