Whether you use your website as a business or as a leading authority of information, your website is your face and presence on the Internet. The web design of your Internet site is the first impression others have of you. Your web site can be considered your “Internet Face.” It is the first chance people will have to form an opinion about you or your company or business.Therefore, your web design should be polished and professional. Your web site should be dependable and it should be easy to understand and navigate. Those who come to your web site looking for information should be able to easily find your web site, and once there, they should be able to easily find any information they are looking for.

When first starting out, it can be easy to make the decision to either do your own web design or to hire friends or family to do it for you. After all, thanks to some programs, there are plenty of templates out there to choose from and it really is a matter of just plugging information into the required fields, correct? Well, yes, and no. You can go this route, but unless you only want friends and family to see your web design, you are better off spending the extra money to hire a professional.

You need someone to do your web design that knows how to market and design your site, is familiar with SEO, and who knows how to drive traffic to your web site. You need someone who can make your web site stand out in its field. Your web site needs the expertise of professional design and professional marketing.

Becoming a well-known presence on the Internet today takes more than merely slapping a few images up and filling in a few information fields. Your web design has to be noticed and ranked by the search engines. That means you need quality, up-to-date, relevant content; you need colors designed to catch the eye of potential customers, and you need back links and tags that will drive potential customers to your site. In fact, if any of these terms are unfamiliar to you, that is just further proof as to why you need an expert to do your web design.

It has been proven that when potential customers search for a web site, they use certain keywords to search, and they rarely venture past the first page that is brought up on a search engine. 80 percent of customers never go beyond page three. Google, Yahoo, Bing, and the other search engines have a complicated algorithm they use when determining web site rankings. Those who are experts in web design have been trained to know these algorithms. They know what font potential customers prefer to read, they know the colors that attract and keep customers on a page, and they have a staff of graphic artists and writers who work to keep your web design fresh, relevant, and ranked.

Other reasons to hire an expert website designer include:

1. Hiring an expert saves you time. Even if you know enough to fill in the blanks and upload photos to a template, there is more information to learn such as secure check-outs, linking pages, and building on your website. Hiring an expert to do this saves you time you could be investing in your business.

2. The Internet changes on a day-to-day basis. Search engine standards change, new businesses are created daily, and what is relevant today may not be tomorrow. You need an expert who has the time to stay up-to-date on this information.

3. You need someone familiar with web browsers. Did you know that information that shows well on a page in Internet Explorer does not necessarily show well in Mozilla Firefox or Google Chrome or Opera? Did you know only 56 percent of users have Internet Explorer installed? Can you really afford to lose 44 percent of potential customers?

4. Do you know how to design not only an Internet web page for your business but also a smart phone application or “app?” More and more people are using their smart phones to access the Internet and to make purchases.

5. Do you know about servers and hosting? Again, you can join a hosting company and get hosting and server space for just a few dollars a month, but again, you will get what you pay for. Do you really want to share your business with a teenage boy’s skating blog?

Hiring a professional to design your website not only gives you a professional and polished Internet image, it also give you peace of mind.