In the digital age, a web presence is a non-negotiable for your business. With a great website, you can connect to potential consumers via social media, get your message out, and spread awareness about your brand. Your website also helps you with practical aspects of your business: selling products, generating leads, and increasing conversions.

Because your web presence is a cornerstone of your growth and success, it can be risky to go with a DIY web design solution. Drag & drop can be tempting, but they simply don’t provide the opportunities for growth that you’ll gain by using professional web design. Let’s take a closer look at why you should outsource your web design:

1. Opportunity Costs: Conversion Rate Optimization

In the short term, a generic drag & drop DIY web design solution will probably be less expensive than partnering with a professional web design company. This difference in price is often an enticing factor for small businesses and entrepreneurs looking to get established. However, it’s important to consider the opportunity cost: how much more can you gain in the long run with a custom solution?

Like every aspect of a well-organized business, your website should work for you. So when comparing the overall cost benefits of using a professional team, consider your conversion rate optimization. Essentially, this refers to how effectively you get your site’s visitors to complete a specific goal, like some of the following:

• Getting in touch by sending an email, chatting with a customer service rep, or calling your customer support line.
• Downloading an e-book that describes your products and services.
• Purchasing a product through your site.
• Signing up for your newsletter.

A professional web design company doesn’t rely on drag & drop. They work with you to help focus on your goals and provide recommendations, then design your website accordingly. In terms of getting the most bang for your buck, this translates into real results, more leads generated, and better conversion rate optimization.

2. Professional Web Design Builds your Brand

“Your brand is the single most important investment you can make in your business.” — Steve Forbes

When it comes to establishing your business, you already know the importance of branding. Branding is what allows you to take your company from simply a set of products and services — and elevate it into a narrative that speaks to consumers on a different level.

Without a well-designed web presence, it’s difficult to promote your brand online to its greatest potential. Sure, DIY web design will let you insert a logo and perhaps let you drag-and-drop a slogan here and there. But because there’s no professional behind the overall design, you’re dealing with disconnected parts instead of a whole.

Professional web design takes all those disconnected aspects of your branding — design, story, logo — and synthesizes those elements intuitively. It helps you show your consumers that you’re not only providing products and services — but you’re the best in your field, selling the best that’s available, with the greatest transparency and authenticity.

3. Brand-Focused (and Scalable) Solutions

Your business is different, so your website needs to be too. DIY web design solutions simply don’t allow you to incorporate all the features you’ll need to make your brand stand out. For example, you might need recommendations and solutions for some of the following:

• Secure Sales. Did you know that 84% of people won’t purchase from a website if it’s unsecured? You need a smoothly-functioning, secure e-commerce solution if you’re planning on selling any products or services through your site.
• Social Media Integration. Don’t miss out on opportunities to have your site designed to integrate with your social media outreach.
• Professionally Built. By partnering with a web design company, you can ensure they’ll use the latest knowledge to cater your site specifically to your audience and your business needs
• Lead-generating. 68% of B2B brands use a strategic landing page to generate leads. You need to work with a company that can customize your landing page to fit your needs.

Not only do you need professional solutions for your site, but you also need them to be scalable to allow for growth in your business. You don’t want your site to crash if you get more business than expected — because more business should be a good thing! If you outsource to a web design company, they should be able to design your websites to be scalable and adaptive.

4. You need to Satisfy Search Engines — and Your Customers

To get the most out of web design, you need to achieve the perfect balance between satisfying Google’s search algorithms and presenting a readable, pleasant experience for your customers. Luckily, your customers and Google are looking for the same things — and web designers know how to achieve both ends:

1. Easily Navigated. Google crawls your page in its efforts to categorize websites appropriately. Similarly, your customers rely on well-organized and easy to navigate sites. Good web design will ensure both.
2. Responsive. Since Google rolled out its mobile-first indexing, it’s clear that they are prioritizing websites that display just as well on a mobile phone as they do on a laptop. Similarly, 30% of customers will opt not to purchase from your site if it doesn’t work on their mobile phone.
3. Search Engine Optimized. Your customers go to your site for a reason: they want to find the solution to a problem, learn more about an issue, or get in touch with someone. Search engines rank websites on how well they think a site is going to achieve those ends for your customer.

If your site’s not easy to find and well-optimized, you’re not going to generate any organic traffic to bring customers to your site. And if your site isn’t well-designed and intuitive, the customers that come your way may not be impressed enough to turn into leads. In order to achieve the balance of satisfying search engines and your customers, you need to outsource to professionals.

At Squiddly, we provide the expert recommendations and budget-friendly solutions so you can write for the web.

5. Learning Curves of DIY Solutions

Let’s get down to practical considerations. Even with DIY web design solutions and drag and drop, building a website by yourself takes time and energy. Not only do you have to muddle through the technical aspects of using the platform, but you need a solid grasp of the aesthetics and flow of web design. How do consumers usually navigate a page? What’s the most intuitive way to use a menu? Where should graphics be inserted? How do you insert meta tags on the page?

Remember all those attributes of a well-designed website we just mentioned? Search engine optimization? Ability to be indexed by Google’s bots? Web responsiveness? All of these technicalities require an extensive learning curve and a lot of research. Your skills are best utilized in running an amazing company, not scouring internet forums for solutions to tech issues.

Even in the most streamlined solutions, there’s still a definite commitment of time and energy to designing a website that actually works for your business. When you outsource web design, you’re saving that time and applying it towards strengthening your business with your own skill set.

Grow Your Business By Outsourcing to Professionals

By outsourcing to a professional web design company, you’re not only bypassing a frustrating learning curve, but you’re also benefiting from the expertise of professionals. It’s their job to ensure that your website fulfills your needs. It’s their job to complete your website quickly and efficiently while maintaining communication throughout the process. You’re not going to get that firsthand industry knowledge from a drag & drop service — and you certainly won’t get the individualized attention your business deserves.

As a business owner, a CEO, or an entrepreneur, you have high standards and expectations. Make sure your web solution echoes those high standards by providing a well-optimized and brand-focused solution for your needs.

By outsourcing your web design to a professional, you ensure that you’re getting the best of the best for your brand’s all-important digital presence. If you’re interested in getting started, contact us at Squiddly. We design custom solutions not just to fit, but to enhance, your brand.