So you’re thinking of hiring a professional web designer to produce your website. Or maybe you’ve had thoughts on trying to design it yourself, either way, it all depends on the level of expertise you have. If you have the skills that are needed in designing a good website, then you will save a lot of money, but will have to put in many, many hours of work.

Some of the necessary skills are as follows; HTML knowledge and good web design software are crucial. You need to have the appropriate web design software, such as Dreamweaver, and have a substantial amount of knowledge.

You will also need some sort of artistic ability, having a good eye for colour and structure, and knowing how to best design and display your website.

Having some marketing and business experience will be a huge help as marketing the website needs to be taken into account from the very beginning of the design process.

You will need some graphic software expertise, as displaying images and site graphics for the web can be quite complicated.

If you are writing the content yourself as well, you will need to have good written skills, and to make sure the content is as close to perfection as you can get it.

Some of you may have all these skills needed, but many others will need the help of a professional in order to achieve an attractive and good quality website. The most productive way of finding a web designer, is to search on the internet. Many web designers have their own websites, and from looking at these, you can get a feel for what their work is like and whether you think they will do an adequate job for you.

Freelance web designers tend to be cheaper than a web design firm, as you only have one person handling the whole website, compared with a team of people working on different aspects. If you do choose to hire a professional, make sure to always communicate to the web designer, going through the design and the standard you wish to achieve. A good web designer understands how to build internet marketing into the site and to make it search engine friendly.

When it comes to cost, web designers can be quite pricy. For a simple, strong, 6 page website, you should expect to pay around £500. For a much more complex, interactive website you could be looking at paying around £1000 for the entire website; including the graphics, content and the marketing. Some web designers charge by the hour, but the overall costs will still be similar.

Always keep in mind that it’s not all about the money. If you already have a well established company brand, you want to seriously consider hiring a professional web designer; to enable consistency within your brand and to present your website in a professional manner.