Like the majority of entrepreneurs, you wonder whether you should hire a web agency to build a website , hire a freelance developer, or even build it yourself. Obviously, there is no right or wrong answer since it all depends on what you need. However, if you want to create the website of your dreams, there are a number of factors to consider. In this article, the experts at the My Little Big Web agency share their opinions and thoughts from our clients so that you can define the best solution for your business.
THE SKILLS REQUIRED FOR BUILDING A WEBSITE
There are several Content Management System platforms such as WordPress or Wix that will allow you to easily create and manage a website. Only, if you want to make the site of your dreams, you will need some skills that many entrepreneurs ignore.
GRAPHIC DESIGN SKILLS
The creation and the choice of the visual will be an essential job in order to reflect the image of your brand on the Web and to optimize the user experience. For this, design knowledge will be necessary. This is the job of designers. These experts must perfectly master different tools such as Photoshop or Illustrator, in order to work around images and models to create an interactive and ergonomic website. In order to stand out from the competition, it is important to have advanced skills in this area.
Website-design-web
You can also use existing themes (free or paid) if you don’t have web design skills or if your budget does not allow you to go through the services of a professional. Your site will not be unique since others before you will have already downloaded this theme but you will still get an acceptable design.
PROGRAMMING SKILLS
In addition to the visual aspect, programming skills will be necessary for the creation of your website. In this field, there are two types of developers: front-end developers and back-end developers.
The front-end developer will take care of the visual aspect of a website, that is to say the integration of models, for example. It will integrate the existing modules in the case of a platform like WordPress. The back-end developer, meanwhile, will be able to create modules and modify them according to your expectations. If you do choose to hire an agency for your website design, it is important that you know if the developer you are going through has back end skills as well.
Say you are the owner of a hotel. You will probably be able to develop a reservation platform thanks to a CMS offering modules for this purpose, which will save you time. You will have access to a booking module for rooms, conference rooms, etc. However, this add-on will definitely need some tweaking to make it exactly what you expect. This is why it is preferable to mandate a back-end developer since this work requires programming skills.
SEO SKILLS
Having a website is good, it is better positioned on the search engines. Another skill that will be required is therefore natural referencing (SEO). Indeed, to optimize your SEO, you will certainly need expert advice in this field. However, very few entrepreneurs or independent developers are going to be versatile to the point of mastering both front-end, back-end and SEO programming, and that’s to be expected. While an agency will have the advantage of bringing together all these skills and offering you a complete service with collaborators specialized in these different fields of expertise.