Future Wave Web Technology Blog

Do It Yourself Websites or

Choosing to hire a web designer/web developer?

These days there are many options for cre­at­ing and pub­lish­ing web­sites.  Web host­ing providers and other com­pa­nies will offer tem­plate based sites that any­one can cre­ate with­out writ­ing any code at all.  I almost would wish that cre­at­ing web­sites was that sim­ple.  I would not have to spend so many hours ongo­ing to learn the many, many skills required.  Of course, that would be bor­ing.  In addi­tion, to get out a decent web­site, often, in some sit­u­a­tions it is nec­es­sary to have a team of peo­ple work­ing together.  One per­son told me he didn’t want to get into this field because there was too much to learn  – he was talk­ing about the ongo­ing learn­ing required.

This team ori­ented approach to web design comes from the fact that there are so many dif­fer­ent skills and tasks that go into cre­at­ing and pub­lish­ing a web­site.  That is why per­sons like myself have to con­tin­u­ally be learn­ing, not just to mas­ter the wide range of skills required but to keep up with changes in technology.

So, if a small to medium sized com­pany wants a web­site, they could buy a tem­plate or an account with a com­pany that has a site builder web-based tool and try the do-it-yourself approach.  In con­sid­er­ing whether or not to hire a web design and devel­op­ment com­pany there are var­i­ous things to con­sider, some of which you may not have con­sid­ered and other things you may not have known or for which you may not have under­stood their impor­tance.  Here is a sum­mary list of just a few things to consider.

Will your site show up in search engines?  How does this Search Engine Optimization work?

How will you know if peo­ple are actu­ally com­ing to your web­site and if it is working?

Is the site easy to use?  Can peo­ple find what they need or desire?

Can your site ben­e­fit from inter­ac­tive ele­ments, or web­site widgets?

What options exist for the user inter­face com­po­nents?  This is how peo­ple inter­act with your website.

What is Web 2.0 and/or Web 2.0 websites?

Can your busi­ness and your web­site ben­e­fit from new cutting-edge or evolv­ing tech­nolo­gies in com­put­ing and on the web?  Who will update your web­site to keep up with these tech­nol­ogy trends?

Is your web­site going to con­form to Web cod­ing stan­dards;  will it pass val­i­da­tion tests?

There are never sim­ple or exact answers to these things but these are  things to con­sider.  If you asked dif­fer­ent web pro­fes­sions to answer these ques­tions, you would find many dif­fer­ent answers and quite likely other ques­tions to consider.

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This blog is pub­lished by Bruce Whealton, more infor­ma­tion about Bruce Whealton is here… Bruce Whealton is the owner of Future Wave Designs, a North Carolina Company pro­vid­ing Web Design and Web Development. Visit:
NC Web Design:Future Wave Designs

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