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Building a business can be an expensive affair, so it’s no wonder that business owners look to keep cost to a minimum. And with a plethora of adverts for DIY website building programmes seeming to offer quick and easy solutions to getting your business online, the website is often an area that people think they can tackle themselves. But is this the most cost effective option in the long run? Will it help you to stand out from the crowd? Here we look at six good reasons to choose professional web design over an off-the-shelf DIY package. No shoehorn required A professional web developer will take time to understand your business, its values, your products and services and what you want to achieve from your website. They will also have a good nosey at your competitors. Then they will come up with a proposal for a site that provides a wonderful online representation of your business. So, what you get is something that ticks all your boxes rather than an off the shelf box into which to cram as much of your business as you can. Hey good looking The way your site looks, the way people navigate round it, the colors, fonts, graphics and images it uses are all very important. Remember those competitors of yours? Well your site needs to be easier to use, faster and provide a better overall experience. A professional designer will make sure that your color scheme, text and navigation are super user-friendly. Flexible friend In addition to giving you the flexibility to incorporate all the web site elements that your business needs, using a web developer is also your best option in terms of making sure that the site will be able to grow with you. Down the line you may want to add more functionality and future plans are something that the developer will cover in that very first meeting so they can be kept in mind during the design and build process. We’re not saying you won’t ever need a new site but there should definitely be some ‘growing room’. Save time (and money) We can almost guarantee that building your own website will not be as quick or as hassle free as many of the DIY options proclaim. Time spent tinkering with website is time not spent on running the business. And if you’re planning to sell online (see our ‘You’ll need to know your hamburgers in 2018 if you sell online’ blog) then the quicker it goes live the quicker you can start earning money. At Critical Mission Computing we make no guarantees, but we’ve had sites live within days in the past and a timescale in weeks (rather than months) is certainly realistic for most projects. Search engine Even the most beautiful website won’t be much use if people can’t find it. You may or may not decide to pay for ongoing Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) but if you don’t have the SEO basics in place from the start then you won’t even have the option. A professional web developer will have the skills and know how to lay the SEO foundations; upon which you can then choose whether to build. We’re sure you know your own business inside out and back to front. And that you’re excellent (perhaps even the best!) at what you do. But that doesn’t make you the best person to design and build the website for your business. Whereas websites ARE our business. We understand how they work, how people use them and how to design and build them to efficiently and professionally represent a business. So why not get in touch today to see how Critical Mission Computing can make your online presence something to be proud of. We can guarantee it will be better for your blood pressure than trying it yourself!