I have a small business and my website is 10 years old and homemade. The site currently does not help my business at all. My cousin has some web design training and offered to create a new site for me for a few hundred dollars. I do not have thousands to spend. Should I have my cousin create the site or should I hire a professional?

Jimmy’s Answer

Should you hire a professional web designer? There is an old saying that goes something like this… “You get what you pay for.”

When it comes to web development this is most often the case. There are of course exceptions to every rule so if your cousin covers all of the fundamentals you very well could get a great value for your $300. However, there are some basics you should make sure are covered.

For some reason it is very common for people to throw up a website simply because they feel they have to and they end up with a useless site that gets very few visitors and converts none or very few of those visitors into paying customers. A cheap $500 site often does nothing to add value to the business. Spending more to get things done properly can pay for itself very quickly.

Before hiring your cousin I would recommend reviewing some websites he has created. Some very important basics every website should have are as follows.

1. The website should have a professional design that looks like it was created recently. Design styles that looked great 5 years ago do not necessarily stand up today.

2. The text on the site should be well written sales copy that encourages visitors to take action or give you a call.

3. Every website should send a regular newsletter or email communication to a list of previous and potential clients. The site should encourage visitors to sign up for this newsletter.

4. Pages should be fast loading. Slow page loads will turn away visitors.

5. The pages should be search engine optimized.

6. The website should be checked in all major browsers. Just because a site looks fantastic does not mean it will look the same in firefox. If a coder does not know what they are doing problems can occur.

7. The website should have a detailed stats package for reviewing traffic trends and analyzing how visitors behave on the site. Google Analytics is a free stats program that has fantastic statistics. Reviewing your stats can help you identify problems with he site and areas that could use improvement.

This is by no means a complete list. Many very large books have been written on how to make a successful website so it is not possible to provide a quick list of everything needed. Whenever possible I would recommend hiring a professional with a track record of creating sites that not only look nice but are profitable for the owner. However, if you can only spend a few hundred and you choose to work with your cousin just make sure these basics are covered. I also recommend you continue educating yourself on web business and continue to ask the questions so you will be armed with knowledge no matter who you decide to have create your site.

Do as much research as you can. Although it is true that you usually get what you pay for it is also true that there are a lot of people charging high prices and not covering the basics. The more knowledge you have the safer you will be. Good luck!