Once you have decided what type of website you should have (choose a CMS like wordpress!), you need to decide who is going to build it.
- If you are using an out-of-the-box website builder, you may need no help, especially if you yourself have an eye for design. (If you do not have an eye for design, you should get help.)
- If you are using a CMS, you may or may not want to get some help, depending upon your expertise level. If you are okay with your website looking like this one you are on right now, you don’t need a designer, you can just buy a template. But you may want or need help setting up the CMS.
- If you are getting your site custom built you will need two things, a design specifically for the web and a development team.
Here’s a handy chart:
| What You Need | Out-of-the-Box Site Creator (Jimdo, SquareSpace, Weebly, Wix) | CMS (Drupal, Joomla, Wordpress) | Custom Built |
|---|---|---|---|
| Design | Not required, unless you are uncomfortable designing your site. But if you are, hire someone who has designed specifically using your site creator. | Purchase a theme template. If you want more of a customized look, you can do it yourself, but you may want to hire someone with experience changing a template. Custom designs are not a great idea. | You must have a designer familiar with designing specifically for the web. |
| Coding/Development | Not required | Only required for customizations (not recommended) | The only way your site is getting online is if you have a development team |
One last piece of advice before we move on to the specifics: do not hire a designer to code your site and do not hire a coder to design your site. Under no circumstances. People will tell you they can do both. In most cases, they are lying to you.
Who Should Build Your Website