The Definitive Guide to Hiring a Website Designer/Developer (or building one yourself)

So, you need a new website...

Whether you're looking to upgrade an existing site, start a new brand from scratch or move a traditional-media based business into the digital age, maintaining a high quality website is critical in today's market.

Between free/low-cost site services like wix, weebly, wordpress.com... low-cost "web design agencies" you can outsource to overseas (or in your nephew's basement) and the super-expensive agencies, it can be overwhelming to decide what's best for your business.

My name is Eric MacDougall, and I've been a web developer for almost 20 years now. I've been fortunate enough to work with hundreds of companies, developing their websites, ecommerce platforms, custom apps as well as their digital marketing strategies. I've worked with small businesses, government bodies, and large corporations and I've been an employee, freelancer and the owner of a marketing and development agency - as well as my own SaaS platforms.

I want to share my experience and insights into this industry to help you decide what makes sense for your business right now, and in the future - and no, I'm not just going to suggest you hire me and your problems are solved, this is going to be an objective overview of the options and who they work best for.

First, what are the options?

When it comes to getting a website, there are many service providers out there, but it basically breaks down into a few categories:

1. A Professional Agency - A dedicated, professional, web development studio should have the ability to handle your entire online presence. I'll get into what to look for in a minute. 

2. A Freelance Developer - Someone who's skilled and experienced with building websites, but maybe doesn't have a full team to manage everything with your online presence, beyond building the site.

3. Outsource Developers - I categorize outsource developers separate from a normal freelance developer, because you'll find a huge price - and quality - difference. Rather than a professional who anticipates your needs, often, with outsourcing you'll find the developer adhering to a checklist and trying to close the contract as quickly and cheaply as possible. This isn't always the case, but with the almost 1000 websites I've built and hundreds of developers I've hired, my opinion and experience is that it's a significant trend.

4. "Customized Templates" - You'll find plenty of $99 website options where someone updates some templates with your logo and copy and call it a custom website.

5. DIY Websites - There are plenty of options for you to drag-and-drop your way to a halfway-decent (looking) web page.

6. DIY + Consulting - You can find professional developers and marketers to 'assist' you in your mission to build your own website, filling in your knowledge and skill gaps as needed - often saving big money over an agency's done-for-you service, while still requiring significant effort and input on your end.

7. Rolling the dice with an amateur - Maybe your niece or nephew is a "web designer," your kid is learning in school, or your old advertising/print media company has decided they are now web developers... some people pick up the craft quickly, others just don't know what they don't know - which can have a significant impact on your business.

What's the right fit for me?

It's a big question - what makes sense for your business? In my experience, it depends on several factors:

1. What you expect your website to do for you

2. Your own ability to dedicate time to produce materials

3. Your skills with digital marketing and web development (or ability to learn and dedicate time to doing so)

4. Your budget

What do you expect your website to do for you?

If you're looking for a page that people who already know your company can visit to see some static information, you can get away with any option. 

It's dead simple to put up a few static pages and throw your logo on it, but there are still a few things to consider:

1. Make sure your site is mobile responsive/optimized. It's super important that people can access your information from their phones these days.

2. Make sure your site looks and feels like your brand. You don't want people feeling like they are in the wrong place.

3. Make sure you keep the information up to date. Outdated/incorrect information is extremely frustrating for customers.

4. Make it easy to find information. Clear navigation and headlines are important. People will leave quickly if they can't find what they want.

5. Make sure your site loads fast. People won't wait.

If you want your website to up-sell existing customers...

If you're not expecting your website to bring in a ton of new leads, but you want it to do a good job of pitching your visitors on the next-level of service, you'll want to consider putting a little more effort into it's development. At this level, nearly any option is still viable, but you'll want to make sure you take into consideration, in addition to the above points:

1. Tracking your visitors behavior with something like Google Analytics - knowing how to read these analytics can give you insight into what content is being consumed, ignored, found/not found, what devices are being used to view your site, how people are getting to your site, and a whole lot more. 

2. Content that is written and designed specifically to "call out" the individual customer you're trying to upsell. You'll need to make sure it's blatently obvious what page the visitor should be on, and ensure the content is written to identify their needs and desires. Content strategy is usually out of the realm of most freelancers, outsource developers and amateurs, but that doesn't mean that YOU can't organize this aspect for them.

3. Ascension paths - if a customer is on the right page, presented with the right next-step, make sure they have the ability to quickly and effortlessly take that next step. Whether it's book a call, submit a form, download a resource or make a purchase, it's important that you eliminate friction and confusion. Decide what makes sense, and ensure your website platform or developer is able to provide the functionality you need - then thoroughly test it yourself.

4. Follow-up - if a visitor is exhibiting bevahior that indicates interest in an offer, how are you going to follow up with them? Are you able to track the customer against an email address? Do you ask for their email? I recommend using Facebook and Google's tracking pixels to create retargeting audiences by interest - but this may require a little more know-how than some website design options provide.

5. Communication - how do customers talk to you? Is there live chat? A ticket system? Contact form? Or just a phone number?

6. SSL - Ensure your websites has a working SSL certificate (https://yourwebsite.com works fine on multiple devices)

If you want ecommerce...

Accepting actual payments and selling directly on your site takes it into another category: ecommerce. Many web designers/developers will tell you they are pros with ecommerce, but there are really quite a few nuances that, if not taken into account, can really hurt your business. 

If you're going to go the DIY route, and you're not an experienced ecommerce developer, then I'd recommend you at least stick to platforms like Shopify or sales funnel systems like ClickFunnels that do their best to simplify the ecommerce part of the website... but whether you're going to build it yourself, or hire someone to help, I'd make sure you look out for these points (in addition to all of the points above):

1. Payment options - Make sure you offer as many payment options as you can, and that you have a good relationship with your payment provider, understand their transaction fees and remittance protocols, and they've had a chance to review your site before it goes live (if needed). Also, consider your requirements for recurring payments and whether you need a way to enable future checkout without entering payment details again (if you do, look into "token vaults" with your payment provider).

2. Currencies - Keep it clear what currency your product/services are in, and use fair automatically maintained conversion rates if you list in multiple currencies.

3. Taxes - Some products and services, sold from some place, to some other places, require different tax rates... in other words, properly tagging each product/service with the right tax requirements and having a proper taxation table is essential to avoiding audit issues.

4. Shipping - If you're shipping products, make sure your shipping options are clear, timing expectations are stated, tracking information is provided (when possible) and your shipping costs are properly accounted for. Use your shipping provider's API/plugins when possible to automate rate calcuation and delivery time estimates.

5. Order management - Instant notifications and a clear order management queue is essential for rapid and quality assured fulfillment. Your ecommerce platform should keep you informed of pending orders that have not been marked as shipped.

6. Policies - Terms and Conditions, Refunds, Returns, Shipping, Cookie and Privacy policies need to be clearly visible - this isn't just for a customer's convenience, many ad networks like Google or Facebook will ban websites that sell products without them and new regulations like GDPR in Europe demand certain policy points.

7. Return and Refund Management - Make sure your ecommerce platform makes it easy to process refund/return requests (if required)

8. Inventory Management - If you're selling physical products, tracking inventory is important. If you also have a brick-and-mortar location, an ecommerce platform that integrates with your POS makes maintaining accurate stock-levels easier.

9. Enhanced follow-up strategies - You can actually track the product(s) a visitor looks at, and retarget them with ads for those exact items on major social networks, websites and search engines using "catalog retargeting."

10. Abandoned Cart - If someone starts the checkout process, but leaves before completing the purchase, do you have a way to remind them and entice them to complete the purchase?

11. Deals and Discounts - Your ecommerce platform should allow you to make the kinds of coupons and deals you want for promotional purposes. Do you know how to easily implement and track them?

12. Navigation - It should be easy for customers to find what they're looking for. If you have multiple product options, a way to help customers narrow down and select the right product will help increase sales. Categorized navigation, filters and search engines are important for user experience.

13. Compelling product pages - Photos, demo videos, engaging product descriptions, detailed specifications, social proof, reviews, and the ability for visitors to get to know you and the team behind the website are important for instilling trust and driving sales.

14. Up-sells, down-sells and cross-sells. Consider maximizing each transaction by offering bundles, volume discounts, related products and add-ons... just make sure your ecommerce platform, retargeting systems and email systems are set up to make relevant offers and take the order effortlessly - without duplicate payment card entry.

15. Customer delight - Make sure your ecommerce system triggers email sequences, messenger sequences, and/or retargeting sequences that help customers avoid buyer's remorse, stay excited about their purchase and actually use it to experience the value. 

16. Reputation Management - Ask for reviews, monitor the web for reviews and stay active on social channels - people who actually buy from a website are more inclined to take further action online - and it's important you see what your prospects see when stalking your brand before deciding to buy from you.

New leads and more sales...

If you're hoping your website will be a source of new customers, then you'll really want to consider at least working with a professional consultant for a while (or an agency, if you can afford it). DIY websites, amateurs and most freelancers won't have what it takes to dive deep into what it takes to turn a website into a sales machine. 

Whether you're looking for ecommerce sales, to schedule calls or appointment, or just capture qualified lead information, the hardest part of creating a website that sells is making it discoverable to your market. 

You'll hear everyone pitch you the same concepts: SEO, social media, search ads, affiliate marketing, inside sales, lead gen via reach out, mass emailing, content marketing... they are all legitimate components of a marketing and advertising strategy, but making a website do the selling for you takes more than just posting content and paying for exposure, it takes a combination of marketing and sales expertise along with technical development skills.

I'm not going to deep-dive into each digital marketing skill and it's procedures, but I'll tell you this:

1. You need to truly understand each customer type and their underlying motivations for buying.

2. You need to know where each customer type starts in their journey and the media they are exposed to.

3. You need to produce systems to capture each customer type's awareness and warm them up to your brand, generating a sense of "know, like and trust"

4. In person or on the phone, you get a chance to adapt to the input the customer provides you - and you have their attention enough to be able to probe, fumble words and recover to still make the sale - but online you need to CREATE opportunities where you say the right thing, to the right person, at the right time - and you DON'T have the chance to fumble and adjust to input the same way.

5. There are quite a few technical aspects to getting search engines to drive you traffic, running profitable ads, and setting up systems to automate follow-up via email or other mediums.

6. There may be many steps between a stranger and a direct ecommerce sale, so starting with lead capture (and immediately calling to follow-up) may be the best strategy to start with.

You are probably too close to your business already to be completely effective at doing this with a DIY platform (maybe not, but it's usually the case), your DIY platform will NOT cover all of these bases, your amateur freelancers won't have the experience and focus to do a good job of this and agencies and consultants are well worth their fees IF they do this properly.

Your ability and skills...

Whether DIY is even an option, assuming after reading above you still feel it's on the table, will still depend on your comfort with:

1. Copywriting - You'll need to create compelling, jargon-free content.

2. Image editing - You don't have to be a photoshop expert, but if you don't know about image resolutions or can't comfortably crop/resize a photo, you may want to jump into some YouTube tutorials - or make some contacts on Fiver or Upwork to help you out.

3. The concept of websites - You SHOULD understand the basic principals of a domain, hosting, and what a content management system is.

4. The image you want for your brand - You'll likely find it hard to create a truly 'elite' feel with a DIY site builder.

If you can buy a domain and Wordpress hosting, pick and install a theme, and customize the content - you can create a basic website... just be realistic about what you know, how much time you're willing to bash your head against the computer while things break/become misaligned/give you weird errors/differ from tutorials you're watching and whether investing $50-$500 in some help may be worth it to supplement your efforts.

Your skills with digital marketing...

If you aren't expecting the site to drive new leads and sales, then you don't need to stress too much about your digital marketing skills. However, if you are hoping this website will be a major revenue source, you'll want some kind of consistent, predictable and profitable system of driving qualified traffic to relevant parts of your website.

Your Budget...

Here's the part everyone is always stressing about... "How much should I spend?" 

Let's be honest, you'll see everything from $0 - $100M when it comes to website pricetags, but what it should cost YOU will really come down these factors:

At minimum, a website usually comes with some basic costs:

- A domain ($10-$20USD/year on average) - this is the yourcompany.com address people will expect you to have

- Hosting ($5-$500/mo) - a basic site will be closer to $5-20/mo, a big ecommerce site may cost hundreds of dollars per month - this is the computer (or computers) your website's files and databases sit on. A host needs to have fast servers, fast network connections and solid security protocols to protect your data.

Most of the time you'll either need to buy a website "theme" ($10-$200 - typically around $50) which is basically a bunch of predesigned pages you can edit to make your own... or you'll need to pay a designer to create a custom theme (from $50-$2000, typically around $300usd if you use an outsource developer or $800-$1000 if you use an agency or pro freelancer.)

Then, if you want a proper system for email delivery and campaign tracking, you'll need something like Mailchimp or ActiveCampaign (or many others) that start out free or around $5-$10/mo...

If you want someone to actually build a basic site for you, you're probably looking at between $300USD for an outsource developer to $2000USD for an agency or freelancer... prices can land anywhere in-between... but we'll get into what to look for when choosing someone later...

Setting up extras like membership areas, setting up your retargeting systems or automated email follow-up sequences, or taking marketing factors like citations, social integrations, link building, analytic reviews, search engine optimization will cost you extra... site functionality ranging from the cost of a plugin (free to usually around $300 max - sometimes a monthly subscription) to the cost of a developer integrating a plugin for you, or creating custom functionality at rates from $20usd/hr for outsource developers to $200usd/hr for agencies. Marketing services like social media management and search engine optimization are usually ongoing retainer contracts.

Ecommerce takes a website into another category and can either be accomplished with something like shopify, or an amalgamation of plugins like wordpress + woocommerce, or may require further development efforts to integrate with ERPs or local POS/inventory management systems. With ecommerce you'll need heavier security, more expensive hosting, and either quite a bit of set up effort or a hefty fee to have someone do everything for you. Expect a proper ecommerce site to exceed $10,000USD for even just a few products if done properly for you with marketing in mind (yes you can hire freelancers to build you an ecommerce site for $500-$1000, but keep in mind all the points I made earlier).

Website Options: Pros and Cons

When it comes to picking the best path to your new website, it may help to weigh the pros and cons of each option:

DIY Website Builder Platforms

Pros: Cheap, simple

Cons: Requires effort, can be frustrating to turn your mental picture into reality, not likely to cover all the marketing bases or offer all of the functionality you hoped for.

Best for: Patient people who can edit images and content that need a simple site up quickly, but aren't expecting the site to be a major source of new leads.

DIY Wordpress

Pros: Cheap, simple, lots of plugins for functionality, can be the basis of an ecommerce or effective lead gen website

Cons: Requires effort and a little experience, finding plugins and themes that are safe and fast can be hard, security can be an issue, optimizing loading time can be difficult, customizing functionality with plugins can require a bit of experience

Best for: the tech savvy person who's ready to build a slightly more advanced site who either doesn't expect it to be a major source of new leads on its own or can handle the marketing aspect

Customized Templates

Pros: Cheap, less effort than DIY, no tech skills required

Cons: Requires content creation and strategy, won't be as complete or high quality as a professional website

Best for: Low-budget start-ups or solopreneurs looking to get something basic up without having to learn website management skills.

Amateur Website

Pros: Minimally expensive, lower effort, doesn't require technical skills

Cons: You probably need to create your own content strategy, probably won't be totally effective from a marketing stand point, may not look at polished or be as thoroughly tested as a professionally developed website

Best for: Low-budget builds by busy business owners who don't have the skill or time to put the site together themselves, but don't expect to rely site to be a major source of new leads

Outsource Website

Pros: Minimally expensive, reach even advanced functionality levels

Cons: Requires some effort, quite a bit of testing will need to be done, clear requirements will need to be written, may take a while for completion and requires content to be created in-house to be effective

Best for: Agencies that can supplement the website build with internal content and qa services, business owners with low budgets who are patient and able to produce content and test and specify each things they need

Pro Freelancer

Pros: Less expensive than an agency, more likely to be more polished than an outsourced website

Cons: Likely to lack some specific skill or attention to marketing details, will still require constant input and oversight from the business owner

Best For: Low to medium budget businesses looking to get something of decent quality out fairly quickly - but maybe not an entire 'system' from one person.

Consultant + DIY

Pros: Less expensive than an agency, the right consultant will educate you and fill the skills gaps

Cons: Your still in the driver's seat, you'll be doing most of the work, can cost a fair bit 

Best for: entrepreneurs looking to handle their online presence into the future but need to help to gain the initial skills and experience to launch their site/upgrades

Agency

Pros: Likely able to handle everything after just asking you questions and asking for approvals

Cons: Expensive

Best for: Professional companies with a decent budget, looking to have a high quality web presence 

Who to Hire

If you've decided that developing a website on your own isn't the best fit, then I advise to take a few minutes more to learn what to look for when hiring someone to build you a site. I've broken down the questions to ask into 3 categories:

1. Basic Site - You should always ask these questions and expect a quality answer.

2. Lead Nurturing - If you're expecting your site to help upsell customers, and the entity you're hiring to tackle this aspect for you, you'll want to ask these questions

3. Marketing - If you're expecting your site to drive new leads, and the entity you're hiring to tackle this aspect for you, you'll want to ask these quetions - as well as all of the Lead Nurturing and Basic Site questions.

Assuming you understand the pros and cons of the entity type you're hiring and have valid expectations in mind, you should ask these questions depending on the scenarios listed above...

Basic Site:

1. What websites have you built before? (Have them send you links and make sure you test them on your phone and computer)

2. How do you make it easy for me to update the content? (They should offer some kind of CMS like Wordpress but with even easier editor interfaces like WPBakery)

3. How will you ensure the site will be secure from hackers? (They should offer a combination of secure install protocols, secured hosting, security scanning services like Sucuri, Web Application Firewalls like CloudFlare or Sucuri's, installation hardening protocols (if wordpress) like brute force protection, sucurity plugins and update maintenance and frequent backup services - which will cost extra or be bundled into your hosting costs).

4. How will you ensure the site loads fast? (They should offer optimized themes and plugins and scanning with a tool like GTMetrix.com to prove the speed)

5. How will you ensure the site loads well on all devices? (They should offer a responsive design and cross-device testing)

Lead Nurturing:

1. How will we track visitor behavior? (They should offer Google Analytics at least)

2. How will we be able to follow-up with visitors based on their interests? (They should offer email opt-in forms at least, and retargeting audience set up for higher-end entities and services - and catalog retargeting for ecommerce sites)

3. How will we enable communication with visitors? (They should offer you live chat, tickets, contact forms and messenger bot options - these features will cost more)

4. How will we enable visitors to [take your desired action]? Insert what you want them to do (fill out a form, book an appointment, schedule a call, make a purchase, etc.) (They should offer a system that automates your needs)

5. How will you provide SSL for my site? (They should be able to tell you... there's many possible answers from using a free Let's Encrypt certificate with CertBot automated renewal, to paid SSL certs from companys like Godaddy, SSL Certificate functions from CloudFlare or even SSL offered by your hosting provider)... Make sure they mention how renewal takes place (certificates you buy from sites like Godaddy expire and must be manually renewed and uploaded)

6. How can we prove the navigation structure is effective? (They should offer systems like Hotjar and analytic reviews)

7. What Email Service Providers (like MailChimp) have you worked with for autoresponder campaigns?

Marketing:

1. What should we take into account for Search Engine Optimization? (They should at least suggest connecting your site to Search Console, using something like Yoast SEO if you're using Wordpress, ensuring social signals are integrated, creating content specific to search intents, creating citations and backlinks, and running paid campaigns)

2. What should we take into account for social media marketing? (They should at least suggest creating valuable content around topics of interest to your specific customer types, reaching out to and being active on other social pages and groups, potentially creating your own community, creating videos, being on relevant social channels, using paid posts to increase exposure and retargeting visitors and fans)

3. What should we take into account for email marketing? (They should at least suggest split testing subjects, setting up tagging and automated campaigns based on tags, creating automated indoctrination series, and emailing your entire list at least once a week with segmentation campaigns)

4. How can I identify my customer avatars/types? (They should suggest digging through your sales history, looking at your past testimonials and reviews [ and those of your competitors ], and should be able to run through some exercises with you to accomplish this for a small fee)

5. How can I identify what is important to my customer avatar/types? (They should suggest pulling out the top positive points in positive online reviews, and negative points in negative reviews, for your company and others in your market)

6. How can I rapidly and affordably test offer concepts? (They should suggest putting together quick landing pages and email or paid social campaigns and measuring click through rate and number of opt-ins, clicks or completed actions on the landing page) with a minimum period of 14 days and minimum budget of $5-20/day for paid social campaigns.

Of course, ask for references and examples in any case and just keep your expectations realistic for the price and type of entity you're interviewing.

Now, it's up to you...

I've done my best to give you the run-down of your options and what to expect and look for, but if you're still stuck or you just want to skip right to working with someone who can fill any of the above roles, reach out to me and my team here and I can either help you or refer you to someone I trust :)

DISCLAIMER: The prices are just samples - many people/agencies are WAY MORE EXPENSIVE or way cheaper... and many freelancers/outsource developers/agencies are more capable than others and there are plenty of reasonable/acceptable responses to the screening questions and my answers are meant to be used as a reference point.