Your First Website- Get Max Out of it: Handbook for Small Business Owners and Solopreneurs by 2015

Author:2015
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2015-03-10T22:00:00+00:00

Should You Hire a Web Designer or a Programmer?

To make this decision, you need to understand what it takes to build a site. Site-building requires three skills: graphic design, web design, and web development.

In the early days of web design, when sites were HTML-based, a single person—a web designer—would have been your one-stop solution to get your site up and running. However, as of today there are at least 2-3 skill profiles needed to build a website because most people want a unique look for their site, and more importantly, because of the advent and integration of CMS technologies, which for sure you will want.

A Graphic Designer is a Photoshop expert with sense of designing user interfaces, icons, buttons etc. This person creates layout of your website homepage and other pages.

A Web Designer is essentially a front-end (what you see on a website) developer. This person needs to be proficient in HTML and CSS to code the website in a way that Internet browsers can read it. It’s not hard to find a web designer who is skilled in Photoshop as well as HTML/CSS.

A Web Developer is a developer who codes what is at the back end, i.e. creation of databases, CMS integration, etc. This person needs to know PHP, MySQL, CMS technologies, etc. His proficiency in JavaScript, J Query, Ajax, and so forth can help you achieve a higher level of dynamism and database management in case your needs are a little complex.

It can be difficult to find all 3 skill sets in one person. You might have to cobble together a group of freelancers, and different skills, to get the results you want.

On top of these 3 design- and program-related skills sets, there are 2 more that are indispensible: Marketing Communication and Project Management.

In the virtual marketplace, you may come across attractive prices for individuals or small groups of freelancers who have combined their forces. However, it’s pretty certain they will not know anything about marketing communication. As explained in Chapter 2, your website could amount to sheer expense with no return unless it is crafted as a tool for business communication. It must meet your objectives for how you want visitors or customers to receive and respond to you. For these to be met, you really have to work with a marketing consultant.

Then, many site-development projects get stuck or even fail because of poor management. Strategizing, on-time management, in-budget resource management, clear communications, meetings, documentation—all of these are what a strong Project Manager tracks and makes happen. If you use a freelancer(s), you will have to oversee many details so as to keep things on track, avoid errors, and manage the back and forth of revisions, and so on. One way you can avoid an overabundance of details is by hiring a project coordinator or manager.

Should You Hire a Professional Agency?

While perceived as an expensive proposition, a professional branding and design firm may be a cost-effective solution for you. In the fiercely competitive marketplace of web design, professional design firms now offer comparable prices to those of freelancers.

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