Hire a Website Design Company vs Hire a Freelancing Website Designer
A website will be a visual materialization of your brand, your business and your service manifesto. It is also the place an online visitor converts into organic traffic which will, in time, turn into a customer. Your website’s contact page is also the easiest way via which a customer can contact you, anytime. Whether you hire a website design companyor hire a website designer, it is up to you but you need to consider all the ramifications of your choice before making it.
There is no right or wrong answer. There are many factors that should be considered before making the decision on hiring a website design company or freelance website designer. Demand and Supply is a global business intricacy; depending on your demands, one of the two will be the perfect choice for you and it will be thus, supplied to you.
Intro:
We live in a world that cares about appearances; the digital aesthetic of your website will attract or repulse the traffic away. The right designer whether one works for a website design company or as a lone wolf will be very important in the whole scheme of things. If you have the resources available, a freelancer website designer or a website design company might attempt to woo you by painting castles in the air to keep a firm eye on the previous work of your designer.
Skills:
Then there’s the aspect of appropriate skills and expertise. Obviously, a website design company will offer a litany of skilled industry experts who will have the knowledge and the experience relevant to a range of industries. You’ll also have a project manager, a graphics designer, an interface developer and a product tester for your requirements. With a freelancer though, you will have to work with one single person or hire multiple freelancers to fulfil the requirements of your website development project.
Strategy:
One also needs a conceptual design, which follows a strategic approach. You have the ideas and the budget. Based on your own analytical and logical cognition, you will conceptualize your portal but industry experts with great portfolios will firstly analyze your approximations and form a logical roadmap for the execution of your task. A freelancer, on the other hand, will provide a roadmap as per his/her specialization only.
Project management:
You are designing a website to further the cause of your business; you have a million other things to do. Hiring a website design company will manage at least the website aspect of your business plan execution. As mentioned before, you get a project manager, a graphics designer, an interface developer and a product tester for each and every one of your requirements. Your project manager will convey and confer with you whenever required but overall, by spending a buck, your website development will be handled for you. A freelancer is a one person team who won’t be able to do it all so you’ll either have to hire a website designer, web developer, tester, project manager, graphic designer, content writer, app developer and other freelancers or you’ll have to handle certain things on your own.
Cost:
Return on Investment is a term that every business owner is definitely aware of. Money earned and spent, the budget and profitability are key components to manage a successful business. Freelancers provide the unbeatable advantage of being budget friendly. A website design company, on the other hand, will dedicate a team to you so it will cost you a bit initially but it will provide an excellent return on investment. You will spend money but the myriad of services you get and the time you save will make the investment worth it. Take a look at our thoughts on ‘How much does a website cost?’
Communication:
A freelancer will remain in communication with you directly for the smallest and the bulkiest communications. You will have to keep track of everything. With a website development firm, you’ll communicate only with the project manager who will manage a highly organized team at your behest. You will receive timely updates which you will track and critique on.
Final quality:
The quality of work you receive will largely depend on your aspirations and interest. Your aesthetic choices and content availability will be completely in your hands no matter who designs your website. Your designer will enhance the look and the exportability of your site. If you hire website designer, you will have to be very verbose and detailed about your requirements. If you hire website design company that specializes in custom website design, you just need to provide the specifics, they’ll handle the rest.
Security:
You are hiring a third party website design company or individual. Your security is going to be very relevant for two reasons – Copyright infringement and Intellectual property theft. You will secure your platform’s security using SSL certification and implementation. You will also beta test your platform to fix all the bugs and glitches. What you won’t actively look out for is new vulnerabilities to your platform.
Your freelancer will meet all your security requirements but his/her commitment will end once your website is live. There are new viruses and malware being released into the nexus every day and you or a freelancer won’t keep track of these for you. Website development companies though have their reputations to protect and uphold. In their commitment to honor all the wishes of their client, they also provide safety measures whenever the client needs them. Also, with a website design company, the legalities of the situation will be thoroughly documented.
On-time project delivery:
Reputations are fickle. One slip up and that goes down on the permanent record. A company dedicated towards website design surely knows this. They’ve built up their brand on the backs of efficiency, connectivity, trustworthiness and timeliness. To maintain their image, they will give it their all to finish your project way before the deadline is up. With a freelancer, a single person is handling it all. If they were to get sick or simply ditch your project, you’ll have to start the whole process over again. The website design company will always stay true to their promises; they’ve charged you for the same.
Long-term partnership:
As the well-known fable goes, a single stick breaks while a bunch of sticks won’t even think about it. Companies are equipped with different departments and support teams to solve every one of your professional complaints. Freelancers don’t provide long term warranties whereas companies do, so depending on your choices, your digital platform will need full-scale services or just a onetime design.
To summarize the main aspects of a Web Design Company and A Freelancing Website designer.
Advantages of Hiring a Website Design Company
- A company will provide a lot of flexibility as it will have a myriad of resources at its expense and a dedicated team of experts to deal with large, complex and new website development projects.
- A design company will prove to be a highly reliable project completion and implementation device for your website’s launch.
- As it is a company, you get your website designed by professional UI/UX designers who have a lot of experience building many websites.
- A company has a highly experienced staff and a very vast client base so they have a lot of experience designing websites for all kinds of market niches.
- An agency will equip you with a dedicated customer service representative alongside providing security updates and technical guidance whenever you require it.
- Website design firm comes with an extremely up-to-date staff that very quickly adjusts to adopting the latest technology trends because they have to stay ahead of other website design companies.
- They will have an expert for every field.
- A company will follow all the industry standards and will definitely adhere to each and every one of them.
- It is equipped with a team so if any delays happen while the website is in a design phase; the delivery will be on time.
- A company is properly registered so it is genuine, safer and reliable.
- Access to multiple experts from the company will be one call away; the in-house team of experts will handle everything for you.
- A company will adhere to all the international development standards and industry recognized IT practices.
- A company will carry out stringent quality checks and will provide accurate beta testing before launching your website.
Disadvantages of Hiring a Website Design Company
- The services from a company will cost you a pretty penny but it will provide the best return on investment. Calculate cost of website design
- Most of the time, website designing companies are not able to work at client’s location.
Advantages of Hiring a Freelance Website Designer
- A freelancer will always be cheaper than a team of experts, and usually this is the reason most businesses choose to go with freelance website designer.
- He or she may be able to work onsite at your location depending on his or her flexibility.
- A freelancer may be good choice if you need a simple small task that is freelancer’s expertise.
Disadvantages of Hiring a Freelance Website Designer
- Usually a freelancer lacks all-around expertise to handle all aspects of the assignment.
- A freelancer is not as reliable as they work on a part-time contractual basis.
- He or she has a limited client base as they only design for one or two niches.
- A freelancer doesn’t have the time, money or inclination to provide 24×7 customer support.
- One person is not that quick to update oneself as he/she doesn’t have access to sufficient resources and time.
- A freelancer is an expert in one or two genres.
- His or Her area of expertise will determine the quality of your work.
- A freelancer is generally a lone wolf so any delay will result in final delivery delay; also freelancers can work only if they are available.
- A freelancer will receive payment directly to bank accounts or email addresses so reliability will depend on the kind of person you’ve selected.
- You will need more than one freelancer to handle different aspects of your project.
- The Web design process varies from freelancer to freelancer; if you need multiple freelancers so you may be left with messy code.
- A freelancer generally lacks the resources to test websites professionally so you’ll have to do it yourself or hire another professional.
As you see, there is no right or wrong answer for website design company or freelancer. Best choice for most business is to interview couple of freelancers and companies, get a quote for your website design project for them, and then decide who is right for your business.