Today, most business owners either have an established website for their company, or they have one in the works. Either way, all companies are alive to the fact that they need a quality, informative, and engaging business website to thrive in the modern digital era. The only contention is whether to hire a web design agency or take the DIY route.

If you find yourself in this dilemma, read on to find out why you should hire a web design agency at the onset of your business.

1. A Web Design Agency Will Build a Unique Website for Your Business

True, there are many free web design tools out there that you can use to build your website. But what do you get with these free templates, and what does it cost your business? Any web developer will tell you right off the bat that your DIY website will be lacking customization and originality. The reason for this is simple- most free web design templates are similar. Resultantly, your website will look like a replica of any other website you can find online.

This is bad for your business on so many levels. For starters, your website will have a poor user experience. Your visitors will have to contend with one too many ads on top of having trouble navigating the web pages. Simply put, you’ll have a generic webpage that will do little to sell your business. Keeping in mind that more than half of internet users -57%- assert that they cannot recommend a business with a poorly designed website on desktop and mobile, a DIY website will sell your business short.

Additionally, free web building sites are not entirely free. If you decide to upgrade to their premium versions, you’ll start paying top dollars for the service. Evidently, you’ll eventually have to switch to premium plans once you’re tired of the cookie-cutter solutions offered in the free plans. However, when you hire a web design agency from the word go, you’ll get a one-in-a-million website design that will set you apart from your competitors.

2. Website Design Companies Will Offer Web Maintenance and Support Services

Your company’s digital journey begins when you launch your website. Even so, it doesn’t end there. It’s not enough to launch your site then sit pretty and wait for results. On the contrary, you should enlist website maintenance and support services to help you grow your website.

Your business website is a long-term investment, and you should treat it as such. In the online world, this means protecting your business data, renewing your hosting plans, removing spam content, eliminating server redirects and 404 errors, and updating the website regularly.

A web design agency will handle all maintenance and support issues for your website professionally. This way, you can run your company with confidence, knowing that you have a backup for your website. In case your website has a technical glitch or is hacked, you’ll avoid lengthy downtimes because your web developers will work a quick solution for you.

3. You’ll Have More Success with SEO When You Hire Web Developers

When SEO is done well, your site will rank high on search engine results. This means that your company’s website will be among the first pages displayed on search engines when users search for your products and services.

However, this takes time and requires a dedicated SEO expert to work on your website. Fortunately, the top web design agencies employ experienced specialists that tailor SEO solutions for your business. On the other hand, free web-building tools only offer blanket SEO solutions that may not be enough even to get your business noticed online.

Hiring a web design agency to build your website will not only lay a strong digital foundation for your business, it will also give you a higher ROI in the long term. That’s why you’ll be better off engaging a web design company than doing DIY.