Using the internet to market your business is essential to be successful. Having a website that is professional and optimized for the web is the only way to market your business effectively online. Making the decision to have a website for your business is an easy decision, but deciding if you should do it yourself or hire a web designer is something you need to evaluate. The type of business you are trying to promote and your marketing plans are key factors in if you should use a do it yourself method or pay for a web designer.
Finding free page creators with free hosting is simple. Google, Geocities, and 110mb are just a few of the hundreds of companies that allow you to create a free website. No HTML knowledge is required, there are pre designed templates and you can choose your own domain under their Canadian web hosting. Anyone can make a website with these programs, but are they good for your business? The answer is yes and no. If you are planning on making a website for a business that will require self promotion, such as social networking, email marketing or if you just need a url to give to existing clients on business cards, a free site is a good choice.
Although free is great, it has its downfalls. You want your customers to be impressed with a professional looking page. It needs to stand out and be easy to navigate. Free website creator templates can be generic, and if you don’t have much knowledge of the web, setting it up to be user friendly can be difficult. A professional website designer will know what your site needs. Such as rss feeds, a landing page, newsletters and many other features that help you keep track of your customers and traffic. Also, if the webmaster of your free page creator decides to change to a new ISP, or acquires a new domain, you will have to repeat all of your publishing efforts and all your url links will need to be changed.
If you are relying on search engine traffic for business, paying a web designer will help make you money in the long run. Webmasters are pros at web marketing, so your page will be search engine friendly. Free page creators are rarely indexed by search engines, which means that if you are relying on search engine traffic for business, you will be missing out on potential customers. A pro will make sure your site is search engine friendly, and optimized for the web.
What it comes down to is, if you need a small, simple site that does not rely on traffic to be successful, a free website is the obvious choice. If your business needs to be marketed through search engines and pulling in new customers to be successful, hiring someone to build your website is going to help you tremendously. Evaluate your needs, and if hiring a web designer is for you, research possible designers and hire the one that can meet your needs. If you choose to do it yourself, look through the different free options and see which one has the most to offer. Either way, there is no lack free services or an inexpensive web designers online, so getting a website for your business up and running can be done in the blink of an eye.