Benefits
You probably know someone who can build web pages. Your nephew, a neighbor, a co-worker who maintains a personal website in her free time. Why not ask them to design your site? Why bother paying a professional to build a website when anyone with a few hours to spend reading a book or tutorial could do it?
It's a perfectly legitimate question and while truthfully the only one who can decide which way to go is you (since you're the only one who already knows what your site is going to need), there are some very specific benefits to using a professional designer or design firm and only really one drawback.
The drawback of professional design is quite simply money. Professional designers, like eggsites, charge for their services. Your nephew may do your website for $50 or a plate of your homemade chocolate chip cookies, and there is no way eggsites can compete with that.
But the primary problem with amateur web development is that people who don't design sites for a living are actively limited by what they don't know. Professional designers have seen and done it all. Members of our team have developed sites for all manner of organizations, companies and businesses. We've made tiny little contact page sites and developed sprawling government sites that cover many thousands of individual pages. We've created custom database-driven applications, designed countless layouts, modified existing code, redesigned broken sites and snapped hundreds of thousands of digital photographs. Very few situations that we encounter are new to us at this point and eggsites is honest enough to tell you when you're looking for something that is beyond our scope as well. One of the common issues that arises from amateur designers is that they bite off more than they can chew.
Another benefit of professional design is accountability. So long as you're laying down your hard-earned money for your site, you can be sure that when you want something done a certain way, it will be done. We believe strongly that it is our job to educate our clients as to the pitfalls and inherent limitations of web design (sometimes it seems like there are a lot of limitations), but ultimately it is your site and your call. If you need your site colors to be pink and green, we're being paid to deliver a pink and green site! Often amateur sites are done by people you know, people you may call friends. It can be tough to criticize a friend's work and sites created in this way often end up being less than what you hoped for but you're left with few options for fear of hurting someone's feelings.
Something many people overlook when evaluating whether or not to use a professional is expediancy. Family members and friends are often working in their spare time, on weekends or between TV shows. Time tables can stretch into months or longer as they slowly work toward your completed site. Eggsites may be busy, but we understand your timeframes and we believe it is our duty to deliver in a timely manner. When you set a deadline a professional should realize that isn't an abstract ideal, it is a committment and strive to deliver when it is best for your business.
Yet perhaps the most important reason to seriously consider professional design over a do-it-yourself approach is simply for our consultation capabilities. We're experienced and trained to understand the difference between desire and need. When we sit down with you to discuss your ideas, we can offer helpful suggestions for ways to save money or recommend additional features you may not have known were possible and work with you to find ways to deliver the best site that fits within your budget. Building the site yourself or using an acquaintance is usually a “take what you can get” proposition which may not be the best idea for your business. We'll even offer our consultation service to you without requiring that you ultimately choose us as your development firm.
Are you convinced that eggsites is right for you? We feel confident that if you allow us the opportunity to talk with you, you'll be so excited about your site that you won't want to wait to see what we can do for you. But, what's our secret?