Pros and Cons of Hiring Web Design Agency vs DIY Website
When deciding between hiring a web design agency or going with do-it-yourself (DIY), several factors like time, budget, skills, and goals play a role in your decision.
In this article, I’ll breakdown the pros and cons of each option and provide some guidance on how to make the best decision for your business and situation.
Hiring a Web Design Company
Pros
Expertise
Launching a website that gets more leads for your business is one of those things that is harder than it looks.
It involves the right combination of strategy, development, website design and persuasive content that gets visitors from search engines and persuades them to buy from you at the same time.
Hiring a professional website design agency gives you access to experts who bring specialized skills in web design, development, and marketing.
These professionals ensure your website is built with best practices, delivering a polished and user-friendly design that reflects your brand.
They also handle technical challenges such as performance optimization, mobile responsiveness, and other functionalities, saving you time and stress.
Also, their expertise in SEO and UX/UI should ensure that it ranks well on search engines while offering a smooth, engaging experience for visitors at the same time.
More Leads and Sales for Your Business
There are three parts to every website:
- Design
- Development
- Content
In order to get more leads and sales, a website needs all three parts working together to get your business the results it needs.
If you hire a web design agency, they should be experts in all three areas which means getting a return on your investment that moves your business forward.
Increasing your revenue should be the most important factor when launching, because that’s ultimately why websites exist and it’s how your business will grow.
Allowing experts to help your revenue increase can be a game change.
Save Your Time
Typically a firm has an experienced pro team (a designer, developer and writer) that will work on each of three areas along with a project manager making sure every part of the project is moving along on schedule.
This frees you up to focus on other more important parts of your business, while the firm gets your website created and launched.
Access to a Professional Web Designer
An agency will have a professional web designer that can create a custom layout that differentiates your business from your competition.
Having access to a web designer also means that there no limits to the graphic design ideas you might have for your website.
While sticking to best practices is important, you’ll be able to have a website that properly reflects your brand’s style with being limited by themes or templates.
The hidden skill of a professional designer is their ability to make your vision a reality.
It’s harder to do that with DIY especially if your experience is limited.
Oftentimes, our clients have become clients after struggling with trying to design what they have in mind.
In short, this piece is harder than it looks and when done wrong, can undermine your business.
Ongoing Support
Agencies often provide on-going web design and website maintenance, updates, and other support options like creating email accounts when needed.
Most importantly, if something breaks, they will have the experience needed for troubleshooting and resolving issues much faster then someone less experienced.
Something that might take an inexperienced person hours or days to solve, an expert could resolve within minutes or hours, getting you back online faster.
Allowing the web design experts to solve any issues also frees up your time to do more important things in your business.
Credibility and Competitive Edge
A professionally designed website improves brand perception and builds customer trust. All of this gives you a better chance at standing out in a competitive market and growing your sales and revenue.
If you’re trying to build your business into a brand, then a professionally designed and written website will help contribute to building your brand.
Cons
Cost
Since there’s a group of experts to pay for their time and experience, web design agencies cost more upfront than the do-it-yourself option.
While you may see the value and benefit of working with a firm, you might not have the upfront budget.
Time to Start
If you need a super simple website to launch very quickly, it can actually take longer with web design agencies instead of a do-it-yourself site.
With initial consultations, planning, designing, creating content and revisions factored in, it can take 30-60 days or longer to launch.
Also, agencies will have a pipeline of other projects that they’re working on which can further delay your launch.
Control
If you really want to be hands-on with your web design project, you may have less direct involvement since their team will know how best to build a winning website.
This could be a roadblock if you have a unique, one-of-a-kind vision.
Or this could end up being a good thing. If you’ve hired experts, they will know exactly how to help you increase your leads and sales through your site.
DIY Website Design
While getting the best results typically comes with hiring a website design company, that may not always be an option.
Depending on your web design budget and other factors, doing a DIY website may be the right decision based on your situation.
The good news is that you can always get a professional website down the road.
Sometimes it makes more sense to launch with what you can afford, with DIY, to get sales going and then re-visit launching a better site.
Pros of DIY
Cost-Effective Platforms and Templates
Do-it-yourself website builders definitely cost less upfront than working with a professional firm.
While a custom website isn’t an option, there are several DIY web design platforms on the market (e.g. WordPress, Wix, Squarespace, Shopify, etc.) you can launch a simple website with very little upfront design costs.
Full Control
With DIY, you control every aspect of the website design and can make changes whenever needed. Turnaround times to complete updates can be done as quick as you can get to them and there’s no need to wait for someone else to do it.
Learning Opportunity
You can use DIY as an opportunity to learn new things and build your skills in content creation, design, coding or SEO that can be useful long-term.
Faster Start
If you need a super simple website, you can begin immediately by using the pre-designed layouts available in the DIY website platforms mentioned above.
Cons of DIY
Time-Intensive
Things tend to look easy when we don’t have to do it, but like any other skill, learning and implementing web site design takes significant time and effort with DIY.
For some people, picking up creative projects like this comes naturally to them while for other people, this could be very difficult.
Non-intuitive tools or lack of knowledge in these areas can lead to delays in launching.
The time and leaning curve difficulty comes down the individual. Every one is different.
If you’re naturally creative, this may not be an issue.
If you’re not, your DIY site may never launch until you hire a firm to do it for you.
Limited Expertise
Without design or technical skills, your DIY site may look unprofessional or lack functionality.
Mistakes in things like SEO, layouts and content can actually hurt your business in the long run.
DIY Can Cause Fewer Leads and Sales
There is a psychology, art and skill that goes into launching a website that generates traffic, leads and sales for your business.
A DIY website could lead to fewer visitors and a lower percentage of those visitors that turn into leads. It can cause sales and revenue to not grow or even shrink depending on what kind of site you had before launching.
Negative Impact of DIY
Compared web design, pre-built DIY templates and limited web development options might not fully align with your brand or goals.
You may end up with an unprofessional or difficult to use website that does a poor job of persuading visitors to do business with you.
All of these things can undermine your brand and the long-term goals you may have for your business.
Key Factors to Consider for Your Business
Goals: Set some goals. What are the 1 or 2 things you want your site to do for your business?
Budget: Set a budget for your website project.
Timeline: Are you in a hurry to launch a simple website or do you have 30-60 days for a traffic and lead generating site?
Skill Level: Are you confident in learning and have a basic design knowledge or is something that is way outside your expertise?
Conclusion: Choosing a Pro Vs. Do-It-Yourself
Hire a professional firm if…you want a high-quality, lead-generating website and you have the upfront budget.
Go DIY if… you’re budget-conscious, need something right now for free and have the time and skill to invest in building and managing it yourself.