There will be times in the life of your business when you need a new website or you want to redesign an old website. And there are countless ways to go about the task: you can hire a WordPress agency, work with a freelance, or do it yourself. In this article, we’re going to explore the cons and pros of hiring a WordPress agency versus doing it yourself.
It’s hard to make a decision on the best course of action because pretty much all information is available online and it might be tempting to go for the cheapest option. But once you get acquainted with positive and negative aspects of creating a website yourself versus hiring a professional, you’ll have a more clear picture of what each option entails. So let’s first explore the reasons for doing a website yourself.
Creating a WordPress site yourself
The first point that comes to mind is the price. There are countless free themes available and by looking up the courses and tutorials online you can learn how to set up a theme yourself. Additionally, WordPress CMS is a fantastic intuitive tool, that takes seconds to learn and set up. It might be tempting to save some cash and opt for a DIY installation.
Even though the price is a very important factor in decision making, low price doesn’t always mean high quality. You might be able to do a website yourself, but it’s unlikely to be a mind-blowing website, that brings thousands of visitors.
Consider making the cost-benefit analysis: What ROI are you expecting from your website? Is your website the main point of contact for the visitors? Are there any other tasks you have to attend to as a business owner and will set up a website yourself divert your attention from more important business issues? It’s easy to set up a WordPress website, but the consequences of that decision might be dire for your business. Treat the price of your website creation as an investment, and believe that it will eventually pay off.
Another important point to consider is that setting up a website might not be your passion. Successful people stick to their passion and become masters at one thing instead of diluting their efforts in thousands of different directions. They also know how to delegate things they don’t like to do to people who might like doing those things. Setting up a website yourself, if it isn’t your cup of tea, might have a bad influence on your mental health. There is only so much willpower one can exert before they decide that enough is enough. If you’re constantly procrastinating on tasks relating to setting up your website, consider hiring outside help.
The only time that creating a website yourself can work is when a website isn’t an important business asset and you get most leads from somewhere else. If a website is just an informational resource or a personal blog, it might be a good idea to set it up yourself. You’ll save money, learn new skills, and have lots of fun in the process.
Hiring a WordPress development agency
The first greatest advantage of hiring an agency is collaboration. When you design a website yourself, you are pretty much-doing everything yourself and while you can ask friends for feedback, your friends aren’t likely to have the experience the agency team has. Hiring an outside agency gives you access to the best people in the industry so that together you can create the best website.
A decent WordPress agency will not simply do the tasks you set for them but will act as a consultant, propose new ideas, and move the project forward steadily and confidently. Execution is the easiest part of WordPress development and that is the part you can do yourself, but strategic thinking is the hardest part and that’s where your agency’s knowledge accumulated over several years will come in handy.
A WordPress agency will help you distribute your budget in the best way possible. For example, they may suggest using a premium WordPress theme instead of developing a theme from scratch. Since many premium themes, these days are highly customizable, this is a great money-saving solution. Your budget than can be put to better use and you can develop additional features and plugins to improve the user experience.
The only thing to be aware of with a premium theme is that it’s easy to turn a premium theme into a badly designed theme. Premium themes can be customized in many different ways so there is a high chance of choosing the wrong images, color schemes or fonts. However, a professional agency will keep your interest in mind and ensure the overall great look of a website.
An agency will also help set your priorities straight. The best websites are just as about the design as they are about the content. The agency will make sure you pick the right balanced theme that is visually attractive but also informative and easy to navigate. Keep in mind that there are many websites that look ugly but people don’t mind using them: Quora and Reddit are the best examples that come to mind.
Lastly, a WordPress agency will keep SEO in mind when they will be designing and developing your site. The agency folks usually understand SEO strategy very well and can show you the ropes of running a website that is loved by Google and other search engines. SEO can get very complicated and boring because at the stage of setting up a website you have to perform many SEO related repetitive tasks, so you want to delegate that part to an agency, who will happily do it for you.
Perhaps, the only downside of using a digital marketing agency as opposed to doing it yourself is the price. But we’ve already established that the price is a relative term. You might create a website for $0 but in the long run, it will cost you thousands of dollars in lost sales. Similarly, you can spend millions on a website only to find out that its loading speed is too low and visitors are leaving in masses. A good agency will act as an advisor who will help you optimize ROI and get the most out of your budget.
Final Word
A website is considered a success when it brings visitors who are then converted into buyers. Once the website starts generating revenue, it’s time to determine how much of that revenue should be put back into your website. See your website as a product that can always be improved and work on updating and keeping your website in good shape. This is a more effective strategy than redesigning a website every 2-3 years, especially if you need web design for business.
