Running a business in this post lockdown era is almost impossible without having a robust and effective online presence. The best way to ensure an effective online presence is by having a business website to ensure that more potential and existing customers can reach the business. 

But how to go about website development? Should you hire a website designer? Maybe a website builder like Elementor or Squarespace will do just fine? The answer to these questions is not easy because there is a concrete way to calculate the ROI from deploying a website. 

On the other hand, a business without a website has little to no chances of succeeding. Nonetheless, certain factors can be considered to make this decision easier, so let’s check them out. 

Should I Hire A Website Designer Or Use A Website Builder?

1. Intricacies Of The Website: Businesses from every industry need to have a website to reach out to potential customers. However, the catch is that there is a difference between hosting a simple online store and developing a website for a complex niche such as an engineering firm. Hence using website builders for an online store might work fine, but it is always better to have a custom-built website for any other type of business. 
2. Your Competence And The Complexity Of The Website: Building a website is not as easy as one might think, as a website designer has to be equipped with great skills and knowledge to create the ideal website for a business. On the other hand, if you think that a simple website with a simple interface will serve your business right, you can create the website using a website builder. 

Therefore, make sure to be very honest and transparent about your level of expertise in website development and how exactly you want your website to appear in front of the audience.  

1. Define Your Budget: Budget can play a crucial role here as someone with the necessary skills could easily hire a website designer, while someone with a smaller budget might have to settle for website builders. 

Hiring an expert to build a custom website for the business does not come cheap, and one might have to spend a significant amount as an upfront cost, followed by recurring hosting fees. On the contrary, building a website with a website builder will cost much less in comparison to a custom-built website. Hence make sure to have a clearly defined budget beforehand.

1. Amount Of Time You Can Spent On Building The Website: The last thing to consider is the value of your time. Consider if you will need to spend time on acquiring new skills sets for the task and the type of customizations you want on the website. Increased customization means more time which will also increase the cost of building the website with a website designer. 

However, with website builders, one could simply build their using templates in just a day or two. Manage your time accordingly to ensure one task does not hamper other tasks that are equally or more important for the growth of the business.

Wrapping Up

All the aforementioned factors will help you make the right choice about building a website in a way that is feasible for you and the business. However, no matter the alternative you decide to go with, make sure that the website designer or website building platform is reliable.