Seems that no matter where we go now days, we are being told that if we want to be taken seriously we need a website design.

There is no doubt that a professional looking website establishes credibility, in the online world as well as the offline world and it doesn’t matter rather it is for a home-based business or a business based business. The problem most people run into is that they do not know anything about website designs and haven’t a clue as to where to start. To make it worse, there are a lot of alternatives and choices that need to be made when looking for a good looking website design.

To get an idea of how crazy the world of web design is, try calling a couple professional Web designers and getting a price quote. You will be shocked to find that the same simple web design can run anywhere from a few hundred bucks up to several thousand, depending on who you are talk to.

We do web designs for people all around the world, so I am sure it will surprise people when I say you are better off if you can find a good local company to build you website.

Dealing with someone that you are able to walk into their office and sit down with the designer and move things around make it a lot easier on everyone.

While you can find a good local designer by opening your phone book, or doing a Google search or even reading the newspaper, it’s best to make sure that their website is up to pare. A good web design is like a good salesman, they make you feel comfortable, make you feel at home, become your friend, teach you and guide you slowly down the path of becoming a client.

If the web designer’s website is unable to sale you, then chances are your website is going to be unable to sale to your website visitors.

Make sure you shop around and make sure that the designer you decide to go with has a website that is able to convert traffic. If they are making all their money with their off-line marketing then definitely would not want them doing my on-line marketing.

I have heard a lot of people say that it is cheaper to find a local designer that is working out of his home, because he will not have the expenses of a large Web design firm.

I Totally Disagree

I own a large Web design firm here in Colombia South America and I can tell you that my expenses with a larger website business, is in lots of cases, a lot cheaper than it would be if I was doing it all myself.

If I was handling the marketing of my business, answering the phone, making the sales, designing the websites, and doing the programming then I would need to charge a lot more for a website design then I currently do.

Reason being, your website is taking away from all the other functions of my business. Other words, if I take on a project that is going to take me 30 days to do, I would need to charge enough money for that project to pay my bills for the whole month, whereas a large Web design firm needs to only to charge enough to pay the salary of the guy working on the website and make a little profit for themselves.

Your web design only makes up for a small percent of the money the company needs to make this month.

I’ve also heard a lot of people tell others to go to www.elance.com/. I’d stay as far away from these guys as I could get.

We have a really hard time finding good Web designers and programmers, seems every time you find one there working for someone else. If someone is on Elance.com looking for work, chances are they are not good enough to work for a Web Design Company or to get clients on their own. For this reason I would stay away from. I know someone is going to say the economy is really bad and a lot of good designers and programmers are out of work, that may be true for a lot of people but good programmers and designers are in high demand. Everyone I know that can design or program has a job and I am always hiring.

Another misleading way to go is with a web hosting company that offers a build it yourself website building program. The problem with these programs is that you are limited in what you are able to do and to make it worst there is a learning curve in figuring out the program.

You are now stepping away from your business to learn how to use a program and even if you master that program, unless you understand the web and art you are still wasting your time.

Web designing is artwork in its finest form, you are taking all types of different arts and putting them together in hopes of building a website that is powerful enough to create an emotion inside your website visitor that will convince them to purchase your product.

I guess what I am saying is at the end of the day you are better off going with a professional Web design company then trying to find a do-it-yourself program or some backstreet, backyard Web designer.