Choosing Web Design Company or Freelancer?
If you are looking for a web design company in Singapore, you might be feeling overwhelmed. There are countless number of web design companies and freelancers in Singapore that offer very similar and attractive deals. How do you make sure you don’t get scammed or end up working with a lousy web designer?
Most people do not know what to look out for when finding a web designer who can meet their needs.
Before we go into the things to look for when choosing a web designer, we will like to address the most common assumption about web designer and web developer.
A web designer is someone who creates the aesthetics and user experience of your website. He or she will decide on the colors and the placement of content throughout the site. However, web design is not just piecing up pretty pictures and choosing a good font. A good web designer should be knowledgeable about the user experience and concepts like calls to action to achieve the goals of your website.
A web developer is someone who takes the designer’s mockup and turn it into a functional website. He or she will also be able to add in new functionality to an existing website or troubleshoot any errors.
However, the roles today are less strict and static, clients expect web designer to be able to code as well and be a “Jack of all trades“. The line between web designer and web developer is blurring, especially if he or she is a freelancer and need to take on the entire project by him or herself.
Why this matters
It matters because when you are looking for someone to design and code your website, you have to make the decision of choosing a company or a freelancer. A freelancer usually charge cheaper as he or she will handle both the design and the development of your website. A company usually charge higher because they have a team of designers and developers to manage your project and able to hold your project accountable.
So which one is better?
For example, you are starting a honey production business. You will most probably need these following requirements:
- Tell people what your business offers
- Allow customers to schedule appointments
- Allow people to contact you if they have questions
That is considered as an average list of requirements for most start-ups. If your business is a new start-up, we will recommend you to go to a freelancer and get it up at a reasonable cost. The goal for you is to generate some business and evaluating if your business can thrive before investing on a professional website at the start. Once your business starts picking up, you can then consider a revamp of your website with a web design company and get into digital marketing to grow your business.
However, if you have an existing honey production business, but you would like to start selling honey online. You will most probably need these additional features on top of the ones mentioned above:
- Ecommerce platform and SSL with a payment gateway
- Inventory management feature to sync your physical and online stocks
- Different levels of access fo employees or team members who may need to log into the website to process orders
- Highly optimized SEO and digital marketing plans to drive in online sales
In this case, your requirements are much complicated which requires a professional developer to work on and a freelance web designer might not be able to handle that. We will recommend you to approach a professional web design company that has the resources to see through this entire project for you.
We hope this article helps in your decision making for choosing between a web design company or a freelancer.