In the modern era, most digital jobs can be successfully completed remotely, regardless of where you are in the world. Designing and building websites fits this description. With somewhere to host a website, an Adobe Creative Cloud account and an active internet connection there isn’t much that cannot be achieved in web development.
The digital marketing industry is thriving. As it grows, month by month and year on year, you will find more people are entering the industry every day. But not every digital marketer is the same. Within the industry you will find digital marketing agencies, freelance digital marketers and part-time digital marketers.
There is a vast difference between all three different types. Digital marketing agencies are registered businesses, with a team of people who are employed for a specific role. An example agency could consist of web developers, graphic designers, social media executives, SEO specialists, copywriters and account managers. A freelance digital marketer will essentially be one person who will cover some or all of the skills mentioned above. Rather than being a specialist in one particular area, they will have skills in multiple areas. A part-time digital marketer will be one person with multiple skills, but this person will likely have another part-time or even full-time job as their main source of income, using their digital marketing skills as a secondary source of income.
We are going to focus on a website project in this article because every business, no matter how big or small the business is, should have a website. There are many reasons for this such as: online exposure, the ability for a potential customer to browse without having to contact anybody and, in most cases, to allow the purchasing of products and/or services at their own leisure without the need to contact the business they are buying from. It’s vital that a business does their research before choosing where to spend their website development budget. It shouldn’t be a decision taken lightly.
From the outset, it may seem like a simple task. “It’s only a website, right?” But what happens if your website goes down, what happens when your website encounters an error and – as no website is ever complete – what happens when you need your website updating? Another important aspect to consider during a new website build is, can you make simple edits and changes to the pages on your website yourself?
One common mistake a lot of businesses make is paying for a website to be built using ‘hard code’. This basically means that the website is built from scratch, with web code that only the agency or digital marketer will be able to make changes to. This means no functionality for the business to make changes from their side. Every time the business needs to make a change, they would need to contact the agency or digital marketer to request the amends. This means spending money more frequently. This might be OK for some businesses, as they may not have the time to make changes themselves, but for the businesses that do have available personnel, small and simple changes and amends should be possible.
The price of a brand new website definitely varies. There are a lot of mitigating factors such as: what type of agency/digital marketer you are looking to purchase from, the location of the agency/digital marketer and the size and scale of the website project. Nobody is exempt from wanting the best value for their money spent, but it’s always advised in this industry to not simply choose the cheapest option. The cheapest initial option could end up being the most expensive option in the long run, whether that’s because of on-going costs or even due to a bad job needing to be re-done using an agency/digital marketer who quoted at the very start. We also advise taking caution when considering a part-time digital marketer (such as a family member or a friend of the family) to build your brand new website, especially if it’s an e-commerce website (a website which sells products directly on the site itself) and even more so if your sales and profit is reliant on the website making money.
There are a few reasons for this. You have to consider the priorities of the person building your website if they have another job (a primary source of income) then how long will it take them to build the website? How much time can they commit to on a daily or weekly basis to build your website? If they have other priorities, what will the quality of work look like? Once your website is built, what would happen if your website went down? Or your online shop stopped working at 10am? Your digital marketer doesn’t finish work till 5pm. What now? Of course, this isn’t the case with every part-time digital marketer. There are, however, legitimate questions that you should have answers to prior to purchasing your website.
We will sign off here. But just before we do, our final piece of advice is to take your time choosing who builds your new website. Don’t make a rash decision, don’t take the task of choosing your agency/digital marketer lightly. Do your research, shop around and pick up the phone to talk to multiple places. Remember, you always get what you pay for.