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Depending
upon your individual website needs,
your budget, and the capabilities
of your internal staff, your project
can involve any combination of
standard or specialized web site
design services, professional
designers, and possibly your own
employees. Here are three options:
- Keep
it all in-house.
If your needs are relatively
simple or if you have design
and programming skills in-house,
you'll save quite a bit of money—at
least on the surface. Professional
web designers' activities can
quickly become a drain on productivity
if you don't keep careful track
of the resources they require.
- Farm
it all out. If
you want interactive tools,
complex e-commerce functions,
or if you just don't have technical
staff available, you can easily
outsource your entire site development
project. Remember that you'll
always need at least some internal
resources to work on content
and to guide the professional
web designers.
- A
Combination. Your third
option is to do some of the
work in-house, and outsource
the tasks your company can't
handle to professional web designers.
This is a very popular way to
achieve a successful web site.
What
to outsource?
- Design
- Simply put, if you don't have
professional web designers on
staff, look to a vendor. Having
someone who is somewhat familiar
with Adobe Photoshop is not
enough.
- Development
- If you're planning a basic
informational site and have
an IT staff, you can probably
handle the development in house.
- Hosting
- An in-house IT staff can set
up a basic web host very easily.
However professional hosting
companies provide guaranteed
uptimes of over 99% and high-quality
backup and security policies—for
a relatively low monthly cost.
Use
cautious judgement
if your staff is already spread
very thin. Even if you can do
the work in-house, it doesn't
mean that you should. Web site
development projects are notorious
for "scope creep"—gaining
complexity as they progress. It
may make sense to use contracted
web designers and let your employees
focus on the day-to-day work of
running the business.
If
you decide you need outside help,
as most businesses do, there are
two different types of providers
you can turn to: all-in-one development
shops, or freelancers.
All-in-one
web site design services
Many web site design firms provide
all the services you need, from
initial design to development
and maintenance. These companies
may have professional web designers,
developers, and IT professionals
on staff, outsource one aspect
to a partner company, or work
with a number of freelancers who
provide different specialties.
No matter how they manage the
job, they provide a couple of
key advantages.
First, by providing you with one
point of contact, they ease the
management of the entire project.
Second, because all the key players
work together, there are fewer
integration problems or communication
errors. Third, having one company
manage all aspects of the project
can allow them to focus on understanding
and addressing your business needs,
rather than merely following a
checklist of development tasks.
Many larger web site design services
offer other marketing services,
such as email campaigns, search
engine marketing, and more programs
to help drive visitors to your
web site. They can be the best
route if you're outsourcing your
entire project or aren't familiar
with web site development.
Freelancers
The web development industry supports
a large number of freelance web
developers and web designers.
If you're taking a "combination"
approach to your development project,
it's often cheaper to hire a freelance
web designer or developer than
to hire a larger company and use
just one aspect of their services.
Working with freelance web designers
can also give you more control
over the project, although that
comes at the price of requiring
more project management work on
your part.
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