The Internet is overrun by amateur web designers. They offer lower rates than their competitors and make huge promises, but they fail to deliver professional results. Think the penny saved on hiring an amateur instead of a professional? Read on to learn the difference between professional and amateur websites to see why a low-cost website can wind up being very pricey.
Difference #1: Experience Level
Amateur web designers typically show up with a thin portfolio that has no more than a few projects. Professionals have years of experience under their belts and they have the portfolios to prove it. When clients request web design by Third Angle, they can rest assured that the professional developers working for this reputable company have all the experience required to produce a website that perfectly suits their needs.
Difference #2: The Bigger Picture
It’s common for amateur web designers to get hung up on minor details and lose sight of the bigger picture. When business owners work with the pros, that will never happen. Professional web designers have the experience required to see the forest for the trees and do what needs to be done to ensure that every aspect of the site’s design has something important to offer in terms of value. They’ll never get hung up on the details because they’ve spent so much time working out minor aspects of every type of project that attention to detail is like second nature.
Difference #3: Ability to Balance Time Between Tasks
Seeing the bigger picture doesn’t just mean being able to keep the end goal in mind. It also means being able to balance time between different tasks. That’s an essential skill given how much work goes into building a website, and it’s one that takes time to develop. Amateurs often find themselves wasting time staring at a blank screen because they just don’t know how to get started, which leads to project delays. Professionals will always stay on-track and will be able to accomplish all the tasks that need to be performed to create stellar websites for their clients.
Difference #4: The Code
Sloppy code is more likely to fail at key moments and less likely to perform well in search engines. Amateurs may know how to code well enough to throw together pages that look good to the human eye, but that doesn’t matter to Google, and it doesn’t count for anything if the code doesn’t perform as intended.
Professional web designers know how to speak the language of the Internet. Their code is neat, well-commented, and perfectly optimized. That makes a huge difference given that search engines need to be able to read a website’s code to index and rank its pages. It also makes a huge difference to the end-user since well-written code will translate across different browsers and platforms, while sloppy code will produce pages that are inaccessible via mobile devices.
Difference #5: Completion Timelines
Want to make sure that a new website is up and running before the company’s grand opening? It’s never wise to trust an amateur with this essential task. Professionalism breeds integrity, while amateurs often fail to deliver when it comes to project deadlines.
The difference isn’t just that professional web designers can perform their work much faster since they know exactly what they’re doing, although that is typically the case. Professional web designers also take their work more seriously. Their livelihood depends on the ability to produce exceptional results and get them in on-time. Amateur web designers just getting a foot in the door haven’t truly committed themselves to their trade and since they don’t typically rely on web design as a full-time profession, they have less to lose if they drop the ball on deadlines.
Difference #6: Professional Attitude
There’s nothing worse than hiring a web designer and coming up with a plan then never hearing back from the person responsible for getting the business’s message out there. Amateurs often work other jobs or try to take on too many clients at once, which can make them hard to reach. Professionals know how important it is to maintain open channels of communication with clients.
Professionals will treat every project like it’s their only one. They’ll keep clients updated about how the project is going and will go out of their way to accommodate their wishes. Amateurs will leave business owners in the dark and make excuses for botched code or missed deadlines that just wouldn’t fly in the professional world.
Difference #7: Quality of Clients
Professional web designers are used to working with serious clients who have big goals. Most of the people who rely on amateurs to design their sites don’t have as much to lose and they don’t take their goals as seriously. Working with web designers who have crafted sites for industry leaders gives small and mid-sized business owners the chance to leverage their experience to grow their own companies. Working with amateurs will only lead to headaches and wasted time.
Difference #8: Return on Investment
Return on investment is arguably the most important difference between working with amateurs and professionals, especially when it comes to the company’s bottom line. While amateurs charge lower rates, they don’t deliver anything close to the same level of value as their professional counterparts. Business owners will get what they pay for. If they’re willing to pay the extra money to hire an experienced web designer, they’ll see a much better return on investment in the long run in the form of more traffic to the website, improved customer conversion rates, and more credibility.
The Bottom Line
Working with amateur web designers isn’t worth the frustration. The websites they create won’t look professional, their code will be sloppy and inaccessible to search engines, and customers will know the difference. It’s always better to spend extra money on a professional web design firm that knows how to do everything right the first time than it is to waste time and money on an amateur-designed site that won’t provide a good return on investment.
