Why should I hire a web designer with so many tools available (including AI)?
Photo by Diva Plavalaguna: https://www.pexels.com/photo/man-creating-a-mindmap-on-a-whiteboard-6937932/
You’ve probably gotten an advertisement from Wix, Framer, or another website company that focuses on how their platform makes creating a functional, beautiful website easy for even the most digitally-challenged business owner.
To a certain extent, their argument holds strong. Especially as a small business with limited funds, not hiring out work can be important and appealing. But, there’s one big caveat to doing it yourself, one that could cost you a lot later. This has to do with time, which is so precious to small business owners.
Hiring a website designer saves you valuable time as a business owner, freeing you up to focus on other necessary parts of your work. Every tool has a learning curve, no matter how easy it’s created to be. Learning how to use an unfamiliar platform always takes time, often more than you’d think.
Hiring out means you don’t have to spend time designing and building it all yourself. A lot of people don’t realize everything that goes into creating and maintaining a website.
On the front end, you’ve got:
The layout (it has to work for desktop and mobile devices)
Wireframing to make sure all of the links will work.
Learning the platform to build the website
Creating a domain
Making sure the website portrays your brand
Once you’ve got it all built, maintenance can include:
Updating blog posts
Replacing images
Updating products
Handling bugs and glitches
And much more…
You’ve already demonstrated that you’re very capable (you wouldn’t be running a business otherwise) but where should your time be going? Hiring a web designer frees up your mental hard drive space for taking care of your own clients.
When those system glitches and bugs happen (and trust me, they happen…) having a web designer in your pocket gives you a go-to point of contact for your problems, one that isn’t a tech support office. Having that extra layer of personal contact makes taking care of issues a lot smoother, again freeing up some of your time for things like:
Managing clients
Filling orders
Creating inventory
Handling finances
Marketing
Customer service
Writing blogs
These website tools are designed to be intuitive, and yes, you can do it all. But do you have the time? Every tool has a learning curve, no matter how easy it’s created to be.