Many small business owners struggle with deciding on how to make the right choice for designing their website. They search the web for affordable web design companies and find that the choice is hard to narrow down. Currently there are (literally) millions of websites who claim to be professional web designers.  However, one must be careful in choosing the right person or people in which to trust their company image. In this article, I will attempt to categorize web designers into manageable groups, and teach the reader to be able to identify whom they are dealing with and which category they would prefer to deal with.

Web designers fall into four general categories: freelance amateur, freelance professional, full service professional, web development firm.

Freelance Amateur

The majority of web designers you will come across, especially searching the Internet, are freelancers. That is, individuals who do web design but are not employed by a web design company. Some are self-employed professionals but most of these freelancers are amateur-hobbyist types. They find a copy of  FrontPage™  came with their MS Office™ Suite. They discovered how fun it could be to make web pages so they started telling their friends that they could “design” web pages.

The “pros” of using an amateur is that they are very cheap. The “cons” are too numerous to mention, but I’ll point out a few. They have no training; they have little knowledge of what makes a good website work; they do not understand HTML code or CSS but only FrontPage point and click; they do not understand general design and layout concepts and they have little real experience. The biggest reason they should be avoided for the serious businessperson, is that their work looks amateurish, which makes your company look amateurish. Who wants that?

Freelance Professional

A professional is often defined by simply being paid.  People think that if you are paid for something, then you are professional. Maybe that’s true in the Olympics, but for the business services world you are not a professional until you are established and respected as one by your clients and peers. Freelancer professional web designers are a giant leap above the amateur in that they have established a portfolio of respectable work. They have some sort of qualified training and experience and they have credentials that can be verified by legitamate references. They have a good reputation with their clients and other professionals. In general, a good freelance professional web designer is a good person to have doing your site.

Some drawbacks to using a freelance pro are that they are usually part-time, meaning they are limited in how much time they can devote to your project. They are also limited in what the can do for you. Most freelance web designers are just that: web designers… not programmers… not hosting providers… not project managers… etc. One could be all these things, but most are not and you will have to find others to fill these roles. In addition, freelancers are not always cheap although many of them are aspiring to create their own company, many are highly sought and charge $100 per hour or more for their work. My advice here is, if you have that much to spend, go with full-service company that has a team of professionals to get the job done in a timelier manner.

Full Service Professional

This is the next step beyond a freelance professional. The full service professional web designer has moved beyond just web design and into the “whole show”. This type is usually a person who has gotten into project management and has pulled together a team of freelancers to get full service jobs done. By “full service” I mean, web design, programming, database work, hosting, writing, optimization, coding, graphic design, marketing and promotion. This type usually has several years experience, a nice portfolio and offers the full spectrum of web services. The company is often very small, and generally contracts work instead of employing professionals. The cost associated with this type varies but is usually much less than what a larger firm charges. For serious business people looking for quality and professionalism, without refinancing the house, this is the way to go.

One drawback to the full service professional is that the team of freelancers are usually in different locations and projects can be delayed a slowed by communication issues. If speedy work really matters and money is no issue, then the next type is what you are after.

Web Development Firm

As the title implies, a web development firm is like any traditional company. They have a staff of office workers, they have owners and officers, and they have a team of talented professionals who are paid a good salary for their work. They usually have a sales force who do inside and outside sales. The firm provides office parties, Christmas bonuses and paid vacations. The quality of their work goes without saying, as you could not be so well-established by doing shoddy work. These firms have a team of professionals who work on your project and get the job done in a timely and extremely efficient manner. If cost is not an issue and the highest quality work is necessary then this is whom you want to do the job. For smaller budget businesses, a quote from an established web development firm might knock you off your chair, but know that companies who can afford $150 - $200 per hour know what they are paying for. Thus, the only real drawback for a web development firm is that they are expensive.

In summary, the choice is yours. For the serious businessperson, I would recommend that you budget a decent amount of dollars to properly design and execute a professional website. I would avoid the amateur and find an individual or company with good experience and reasonable rates to create my web presence. If money were no object, then I would only deal with established firms and pay them the big bucks to get the job done right and done efficiently.

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