From freelance web designers to full design companies there is no doubt that the field of website design is a growing industry. In the late 90’s businesses had to be convinced to even invest in a website. They might be persuaded to splash out on web design only when a competitor adopted a web presence.
These days business websites are commonplace. The industry has come on in leaps and bounds and is still growing. Areas for further development include redesigns of existing websites, website usability improvements, website accessibility, search engine optimisation and other aspects of the wider field of internet marketing. There is lots of go at for the budding entrepreneur who is looking for a business opportunity.
It seems that these days almost anyone can knock together some kind of website. There are lots of packages out there to design your own webpages. There are even certain industries where creating your own web presence isn’t such a bad idea to cut down on costs. But I would argue that the majority of businesses, especially larger organisations do need professional web design.
So what does it take to produce a professional web presence? An experienced web design team that consists of at least a graphic designer, coder, information architect, content writer, usability practitioner and search engine optimiser. Sometimes one person can take on a number of roles but I haven’t met a one man/woman web design company which doesn’t outsource work because, ultimately, designing professional websites requires many different skills and keeping up to date in all of the different areas that I have identified above cannot be achieved by just one person.
If you’re a website designers and you’re thinking of starting your own web design company then I would advise you to play to your strengths and find others who’s own strengths are your weaknesses.
