By John Eberhard

If you go searching on Google today for a web designer, you will see all kinds of ads and listings for people offering to do a custom design of your website for $199.

Well, every business owner wants to save money. No one wants to pay more than they have to for a product or service. So if a business owner needs a website designed, should he hire one of these guys for $199?

Let’s take a look at what goes into designing a website.

• If it’s a brand-new website, someone has to write all the copy (text) for it.
• You have to create the overall design, including what’s called the header and footer.
• You have to decide on a color scheme. This takes some thought because you can’t just randomly splash colors on the page. There is a technology of how to properly combine colors so they look good together.
• The home page usually has a different design than the rest of the site, often with a big image at the top, or a slide show, or a large video background.
• The site should have a separate page for each of the company’s individual products or services, plus an about us page, and contact page. Often there will be a blog, a newsletter signup page, a testimonials or reviews page, an FAQ page, and sometimes pages offering other items like free ebooks in order to collect contact info on people.
• The product or service pages and contact page should have more info forms on them.
• The site should have lots of pictures, videos and other graphic elements to create impact.
• The site should have links to the company’s social media accounts.
• There are many features today to add motion to the site, with items sliding in as you scroll down the page, or items scrolling across the page.

The above is a list of things pretty much every professional website should have. That doesn’t even include having a shopping cart with items being sold right on the site.

Does it look realistic that someone could do all of that for $199? Sure, the designer might be working with people in the Philippines or India or the Ukraine, and you can pay people over there way less money. And I’ve worked with some of those people. Most are excellent technicians, but they are not usually able to plan out a project and think through all the aspects of it.

Your website is usually the first thing a potential client will see before they contact you. Or they will see the website of one of your competitors. A really pro, well-designed and well-thought-out website will give a great first impression of your company.

But if your site looks like it was thrown together or used a boring template, with colors that don’t match and bad pictures – like somebody was paid $199 for it, it’s not going to give a very good impression of your company.

The old cliché is you get what you pay for. A professional web designer can deliver you a product that really represents your company and will help your business succeed.