Many businesses wonder why they should hire a professional website designer. After all, with the new technology flooding the market, you can get a cheap website from a nameless freelancer or even your next door neighbor’s teenager. Here are just a few of the key things that a professional website designer has to offer small business owners.

Cohesiveness with Your Brand. Anyone can use a select group of fonts and colors, but a professional website designer knows how to take your brand and turn it into a visual, digitalized masterpiece that will not just complement your brand, but build it. This will increase customers and make your company seem more professional to the people who decide daily whether to buy your product or that of a competitor.

Appeal to Target Market. You design a website targeted at senior citizens very differently from one aimed at young people and teens. A professional website designer knows this and makes sure that every aspect of your site is just perfect for your target market—attractive, accessible, and capable of rallying further interest and sales. Even the most perfect website will be all wrong if it doesn’t suit your target customers.

Search Engine Optimization. What good is a website that gets no traffic? It might as well not be built in the first place. A professional website designer knows what wording and what design will draw in not just more traffic, but traffic interested in buying a product just like yours from someone just like you. Often, this can even be done without buying advertising on major search engines. There is no underestimating the effect this can have on a business. It’s instant visibility for your brand.

Applications. Whether you need a particular type of shopping cart software or an application that emails you whenever an order is made, a professional website designer can point you to the applications that are perfect for your company’s size, product, and customer base. Sometimes you will save more than the designer costs because you will be able to get these applications at low prices or even free, plus you won’t have to experiment before seeing what is right for your business.

Ease of Use. In order for a website to be viable, it must be easy to use—easy both for you and your customers. A professional website designer knows what elements make a website easy to use and how to include these in your site. A website that is not designed to be easy to use will make your life more difficult and even scare away customers. Take a look at website design samples of our previous work to see how we have tried to emphsize on ease of use.

When you decide you need a website—and every business big or small needs one now—don’t sell yourself short by going cheap on a website that will serve as both a billboard and a sales tool. Hire a professional and make a onetime investment that is almost certain to pay off. With an amateur, your website will one of many taking up space on the World Wide Web; with a professional, it will be another part of your soon-to-be business empire.