You know that saying, “You don’t know what you don’t know?” Man is that true when it comes to website design – and believe it or not, next to your brand design, your website is one of the most crucial parts of how your business shows up! I know, I know, with so many DIY website platforms on the market, it can feel really tempting to just wing it on your own. But if you’re working hard to build a strong, growth-oriented business, I sincerely encourage you to resist that urge. Here are the top 3 ways working with a professional website designer will prevent you from making rookie mistakes that can set your business back in your growth goals.

Your Website Design Will Impress And Engage Your Audience – Quickly

I don’t mean to scare you, but your audience is judging your website – like hard. 75% of consumers say they judge a business’s credibility by its website design…oh, and they only spend about 50 milliseconds making that judgment*. Oof! Talk about a tough audience!

Here’s the deal. Even though I’m not a carpenter, if I had all the tools and materials to build a table, I’m sure I could build something functional eventually. But it’s probably not something I’d feel comfortable using when hosting a dinner party of people I want to impress. To be honest, it’s more likely going end up being the kids table we pull out for each Thanksgiving. So, with enough time, I’m sure you could pull together a website on your own, but will it be good enough to pass the 50-millisecond test imposed by your audience? I say this endearingly, but I’m guessing not. A professional website designer will bring your brand to life creatively and consistently throughout the entire user experience, leaving your audience with the professional, legitimate, and trustworthy impression they’re looking for. And the more specialized, creative, and unique your brand is, the more important it is to have a professional website designer customize the look and feel of your website – after all, what was the point of making the investment in a custom brand design if you aren’t going to execute it to your advantage?

Your Audience Is More Likely To Take Action

Just follow my train of thought for a moment…there’s a lot that goes into planning a wedding, right? I could probably pick my favorite colors, flowers, and cake flavor pretty easily. But figuring out the logistics of how all the moving pieces of vendors, timing, and decisions come together to have a smoothly and flawlessly executed day is a whole other story. Well, the same goes for an exceptional website. It’s one thing to look pretty, but if your website doesn’t also create an easy and delightful experience for your audience, you’re missing the boat because they will never take action. A professional website designer can keep the aesthetic of your website in mind while also applying all the best practices for user experience and website design such as:

• Proactively planning for all the pages and functionality you’ll need – some of which you may not have known to consider.
• Intuitively organizing your navigation, content, and page structure so visitors can easily find what they’re looking for.
• Applying content formatting on each page to follow the natural reading patterns and attention spans of your visitors.
• Helping with the quality of the content on your website as an objective and knowledgeable professional.
• Applying search engine optimization for your content and the tagging behind the scenes.
• Developing a strategy for what you want users to do with clear, functional, and effective calls to action built into every page.

It Frees Up Your Time For Tasks Where Your Expertise Is More Impactful

Your time is a non-renewable resource and how you use it one of the most critical factors in the trajectory of your business’s growth. So, let’s be honest, at the end of the day you need to decide where you want to spend your time. Most people don’t have the skill set needed to build their own website to the level of professionalism that will shine most positively on their business. So, do you have the time, energy, and discipline to learn that skill set? Or would your efforts be more impactful placed somewhere else in the business…perhaps in building the operational processes and automations to support an overall stellar (and efficient) end-to-end client/customer experience?

As entrepreneurs, we all want to see our businesses succeed and are willing to do the hard work to get there. But we don’t always have the level of expertise in all the areas needed to take our businesses to the next level by ourselves – and let’s be real, nobody does. But that’s where your strategic vision and ability to find the right partners to execute that vision is clutch. The right partners, like a professional website designer, will help you avoid the common pitfalls of DIYing everything, and will accelerate your growth trajectory. Let’s talk about how you want your business to grow and how we can get you there with your website design – go ahead and set up an inquiry call with me here.