If you feel that hiring a custom website designer is not your cup of tea, and you want to try to do it yourself for less money, take a look at our section on “How To Build A Website”. You can do it yourself; you just have to take it one step at a time.

If you don’t know any “techies” to help you build your website, you can find one at www.elanceonline.com. This site allows you to post a job and have qualified professionals “bid” on it. You can also browse through service providers that have posted portfolios online and select a vendor based on their past work. Either way, this site provides an efficient way to put you in touch with qualified technical resources without undue effort on your part.

In any case, you will want to make sure you have a detailed scope of work agreement and contract in place before you start working with a developer. There is nothing more frustrating for either you or your designer than to have a miscommunication about what exactly you expect to receive and how much your developer expects to get paid. Make sure you get it all in writing!

In conclusion, you should hire a Custom Web Designer or Developer if you feel that you are too busy or not capable of creating a quality site yourself. There are three types of site developers: Custom Website Designers, Web Developers, and Search Engine Optimization/Marketing Experts. If you do not have technical contacts to do work, you can find qualified professionals here: www.elanceonline.com. You should make sure you have your ideas organized about your website, and you should make sure you get a contract with a detailed scope of work signed by your consultant before work begins on your site.

Finally, you want to make sure that your template is editable. This means that your template will come with appropriate files (PSD, HTML, SWF, and FLA) that will allow you to make necessary changes to your template. Ask you vendor before making your selection. Most templates come with these files, but it is better to be safe than sorry. You should be able to download your selection immediately or your vendor will provide a link to do so.

Great! Now you have a really impressive template and can’t wait to make changes that will get you a completed website that blows away your competition. Well, you’re halfway there. You have one more important choice to make. Who will do editing? You will either have someone internally run with project or you can hire someone and outsource job. If you decide to handle things internally make sure you have necessary software to edit your files and someone who is somewhat familiar with how to do editing. This is what your template vendor probably didn’t tell you. Certainly it isn’t as easy as purchasing a template and plugging in text. If it were then there wouldn’t be a market for web design and development companies. If you’re confident about handling it yourself then great, but be careful. You might find yourself investing a lot of time and money trying to get your desired results.

Your alternate choice, hiring a development firm, will almost certainly get your site looking and functioning way you want it, but for a fee, of course. It is easy to find a development firm to handle your needs and you can find several online. Simply search with keyphrase “web site design”. Call or email a few of them explaining your situation and needs and ask for a quote to perform editing for you. Depending on amount of editing you will require you should receive price quotes in $500 -$1500 range. This is a very reasonable price to pay for a professional website. Most likely, you will be glad you did.