Building a Website - What a Designer Will Not Tell You

Building a Website - What a Designer Will Not Tell You

Building a website is getting easier and easier. There are website builders, which empower the average user to create their own website without the help of a designer. Of course, it is not very likely that a designer will tell you this because website builders are a strong competitor for designers. Designers are protecting their source of income and are very happy when users are dependent on them.

For instance, a friend of mine hired a designer to design his company site for him. The site in question was under 10 pages but the result was devastating. I have seen many bad designs but I haven't seen something as talentless and messy as this one. When I saw the site, I just could help but told my friend that the designer was a loser and that the site was a disaster. My friend got very angry and he rightfully felt ripped off.

I suggested that I make the skeleton of the site from scratch because this would take less time than cleaning the mess the “designer” had created. Soon we had a new site, which even far from perfect, was much better than the original. I made my friend learn some HTML (there were slight complaints and murmuring but nevertheless he made his best to learn at least the basic tags), so he could finish the site on his own and now he maintains the site with almost no help from me or anybody else!
I guess this is not the only case when users have been ripped off by designers, who just took advantage of the fact that users don't know the following basic things about building a site:
It is easy. Yes, building a site is easy. If my friend, who doesn't have any training in an IT-related field managed to do it, then everybody, who is intelligent and diligent can do it as well.
It is fun. After you get the knack of it, you will see that it is fun. For instance, after he finished the site of his company, my friend slightly modified the template and made a second site (about a hobby of his) and then he started creating sites for the businesses of his family members.
You too can do it. It does not take to be a genius to build a website. If you can use a word processor, you can easily deal with a website builder.
You don't start from scratch. Designers will hardly ever tell you that they don't start your site from scratch. For instance, if the designer uses a layout he or she created for another site, why should you pay him or her when he uses the same layout (with or without slight modification) for your site?
You need additional services. Very often designers build your site and their involvement ends here. They might not mention that after your site is ready, you need additional services, such as search engine optimization or promotion. Even when a designer is honest enough to tell you this, he or she will charge you additional fees for these services, while when you use a website builder, chances are that those additional services are included in the package for free.

I don't mean that designers are obsolete but when you can build a better site on your own, as was the case with my friend, why should you hire a designer? Just to make a mess? Or to continue hiding the inconvenient truth that building a website is fun and easy, you can do it on your own, you don't start from scratch and that if you go for a website builder, you will get many additional services for free?

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