Should You Trust a Freelancer or Hire an Agency to Design Your Website? Our Answer May Surprise You!

We live in a digital age in which customers visit brick-and-mortar locations less often to shop and find information. People now go to the web to find everything they need – including what your business has to offer. If you don’t have a web presence with a website built to perfection, your business will struggle to thrive.

One of the many things to consider when getting started with building a website is whether you should do it yourself (DIY), find a freelancer, or hire a website design and development agency. Many people turn to freelance web developers and designers as the cheaper option for getting their idea off the ground. However, your business may require more out of your website than most freelancers can provide.

High Level Marketing looks at your best options for web design and development.

Website Design

Web design and development breaks down into three areas, known as the hierarchy of development:

• Front-end development involves the process of converting data to a graphical interface through the use of HTML, CSS, and JavaScript so that users can view and interact with that data.
• Back-end development deals with the server side of an application and everything that communicates between the database and the browser. Back-end development is how the website functions.
• Database technology in web development involves gathering information and storing, organizing, and processing it in a way that enables users to go back and find what they are looking for easily.

The complexity of each of these areas of development depends on what your website goals are. The desired functionality and maintenance requirements will also be a major deciding factor when you hire someone to develop your website.

Does Building Your Own Website Save You Money?

Investing in web design and development is a big decision. Many owners decide to try and create their websites themselves because they are budget-conscious and want to save money wherever they can. They might use a DIY website building service like Square Space, Wix, or Weebly to create their website. However, many people struggle because they don’t have the skills required to create their ideal website.

Often, people come to High Level Marketing or other local web design and development companies after beginning a DIY website design because they get stuck or don’t like what they’ve created. High Level Marketing leverages in-house website design and development experts to get them exactly what they need.

The Pros and Cons of Hiring a Freelancer

Why do so many owners turn to freelancers for web design? Because they want to save some money. There are many skilled freelancers out there competing on price alone. However, you need to know where to look or who to ask to find talented and reliable people. Think about it like this: You can search for local web design companies and find a lot of results and reviews for reliable services, including High Level Marketing.

Finding a freelance web designer is not that easy. Most of the time, you find them through word of mouth or some other means, but it’s a lot more difficult to understand their track record, years of experience, or level of skill. Are they the right fit for your business needs?

Limited Design and SEO Options

One of the biggest problems we see with small businesses using freelancers is reliability. Many owners come to High Level Marketing with incomplete projects, websites and pages that don't perform, and analytics that are impossible to understand (if you get any at all).

Truth is, it's hard for freelancers to be an all-in-one digital marketing agency. Many are just starting their careers in graphic design, using DIY tools like Square Space to create websites. Likely, they have a very limited toolset and won't be able to provide the full digital marketing services you need to compete in today's local online market.

The most important thing to consider when looking at freelance designers and developers is that, more often than not, they don’t have very much search engine optimization experience, which will be detrimental to your digital strategy. If the freelancer doesn’t set up the back end of your website correctly, or worse, if the platform they use isn't built for SEO, you’ve just wasted your money. Your website is never going to show up when potential customers are looking for the products or services you offer. Working with High Level Marketing for website design and development saves you time, stress, and money.

Is it worth it in the end?

If you’re a small business with a limited budget finding a freelancer that can do it all, may result in some cost savings. But you still run the risk of spending thousands of dollars and ending up with a deficient website, or, worse, an incomplete website if the freelancer becomes unresponsive. Choose High Level Marketing, a web design and development agency with a long history and track record of developing websites, and have the assurance that you’re going to have a fantastic website design and user experience at the end of the day.

A Website Design Development Agency, Like High Level Marketing, Will Get You Better Results

There are many benefits of working with a web design and development agency. With a digital marketing agency like ours, you will find experienced and reliable professionals who will put much care into developing the perfect website for your needs.

We provide a multitude of options and features for your website:

Website Design and Development: Whether it’s designing your company’s first website or giving your existing site a face-lift, High-Level Marketing's custom website designs will be visually engaging and, most importantly, user-friendly.

SEO: As a web design and digital marketing agency specializing in local SEO, our team executes every project with search engine optimization in mind. We build our custom websites to be easily discovered, crawled, and accurately indexed by search engines. Your site deserves to be seen by as many potential customers as possible.

Responsive Website Design: Your website needs to be compatible with devices of all shapes and sizes. All of our websites are responsive, meaning your website will look great on desktops, mobile phones, and tablets.

Our web design and development process

We make the entire process of building your website a conversation, ensuring you get the website design you want and need so your business can thrive. Sometimes customers come to us and know exactly what they want, and sometimes they don’t even know where to start, and we help them with concepts and design elements. We can walk you through the entire process and help you understand what it is you need and create a foundation to help build your website.

Here is the High Level Marketing website design and development process:

• First, High Level Marketing’s website design and development process begins with a thorough Discovery meeting where our team takes the time to understand your specific project and objectives.
• Then, we prepare and deliver a Scope of Work and Proposal that includes the project details and price. Should the customer decide to move forward, they are assigned a Website Project Manager who is responsible for collecting the assets needed to develop the website and guiding the customer through the design and development stages.
• After the website is complete, High Level Marketing completes a quality assurance check and SEO kickstart, then schedules a training with the customer to teach them how to manage and update the website.
• Finally, with the customer’s approval, we launch your website. Following the launch, we offer a 30-day warranty, which covers any issues that may arise, free of charge. High Level Marketing also staffs a Support Desk that is available to answer questions and assist with updates should the need arise.

In the end, you will have a website you can be proud of in addition to a greater understanding of search engine optimization, marketing strategies, and more. If you still aren’t sure who you should hire to build your website, feel free to contact us and ask questions. High Level Marketing's team of website experts and digital consultants is here to guide you toward success in the digital world.