subject: Outsource Web Design or Do It Yourself? [print this page] Are you afraid of technology? Many guru's play up the fact that they are a technical dunce. But the truth is it's not hard to do. When you learn these skills you can use them for a lifetime of building sites and even profiting from them.
Outsoucring your website design comes with its own advantages and disadvantages.The benefits are obvious.You can hire someone else's expertise so you don't need the skills yourself or to spend the time. For some this is the best route.
If you want something complex you may need to find someone else to do it for you. Even now I can't do much more than write simple html or changes things around. If I needed anything in CSS or PHP I'd have to go elsewhere. And that's fine by me.
The only problem in this is finding a quality worker. You may end up with someone who is imcompetnet, slow, shady or any combination of the above. When you're searching take the time to do your due diligence. And if you find someone great make sure to keep them around for future projects.
Even with a great worker you may still lose time. If you outsource offshore then you'll likely have to wait at least overnight for anything, even if you have someone who is real fast.
What happens if you want to set something up real quick? Just last week I decided to hold a sale. This required a new page that I was able to put up in a few minutes by myself. No back and forth needed. These days I can throw a website up from nothing to online and functioning in less than a hour. This includes everything necessary from registering the domain, getting it hosted, then putting it online.
Meanwhile I have friends who are taking months to get their first website online by working with other people. One friend hired a guy, who worked on his site for about a month, before my friend got too frustrated with the delays, sacked him and followed my advice. He know has his site running with a second one on the way.
Many people start out on a shoestring budget. If that's you, then you don't even have the outsourcing option (although if you know how to do it you can have real good and cheap work done.)
For these reasons I encourage you to learn how to build a website yourself. Get rid of the hassle and cost and learn how to do it.
It's even easier today than ever with blogs. Once you know how to setup a blog you can do it easily anytime. With these skills you can even charge others money for them.
