Hiring a Website Designer: When Is The Right Time?

Hiring a website designer can be an exciting investment to make for your company – but when is the right time to do it? We have worked with businesses of all sizes in the web design space, and there are a few different questions that we’ve discovered over the years that can help to determine if this is the right decision for you!

First: How well do you know your target market and brand identity?

The first step before creating or revamping your website is to make sure you are clear on your brand identity and your target market. Not entirely sure what these two things are? Here’s a quick overview!

Your Target Market

Your target market is the group of people that fit the description of your ideal client or customer. For example, our client, Josh is a luxury realtor. His target market would include high-earning homebuyers or sellers in the Edina, MN market where he lives and works. Even this target market, however, is quite broad. To narrow it down even further, that’s where your brand identity comes in!

Your Brand Identity

Your brand identity encompasses your values, your mission, your brand voice, and more. By identifying the little details of what makes your company distinguished from others in your industry, you are developing the basis of your brand identity!

Let’s look at Josh as an example again. Josh is an Edina native. He lives in Edina, is heavily involved in the community, and has kids going through the Edina school system. This helps to position him as a go-to for his area since he experiences it firsthand every single day. In addition, Josh has strong values around his family and travel. These are two major points of relatability that he can use to better connect with clients. Lastly, Josh is very personable and always ready to crack a good dad joke. This comes through in his brand voice (aka the copy he uses across his website, social media, email presence, and more).

Still feeling a little lost? Here is a helpful article we wrote about branding your business!

Incorporating all of these elements into his marketing has helped Josh to stand out to those within his target market who are a perfect fit to work with him!

If you have a good grasp on these two elements, you might be in a good position to move forward with hiring a website designer!

Second: Should you spend your time working on other revenue-generating activities?

There are a few factors to consider when it comes to this question because the answer isn’t always “yes”.

Early on in business, many business owners may need to wear all of the hats in order to get to a position where they can appropriately budget for a professionally designed website. We are a bootstrapped business so we totally get it! If that’s the case, then your time might be best spent learning a platform with a simple user interface and premade templates (like Squarespace!) to get you by until you can hire a professional.

However, if the budget is there to hire a website designer, then that time can be spent on creating or improving other areas within the business. For some companies this looks like securing new vendors or manufacturers, preparing for a new launch, implementing new systems, or hiring and developing their team.

Third: Are you confident in your ability to create a website that will be shared publicly?

If you’d be embarrassed to show it to your mom, then it probably isn’t going to do your business any favors. (There are exceptions to this rule depending on your industry, but that’s not the direction we’re taking this article today…)

Our clients are all experts within their industry – and one of the best parts of our job is getting to learn from them. As experts, they recognize that website design isn’t a skill that they typically need to excel in their field. By hiring a website designer, they are able to ensure that their website is an accurate representation of their brand and the experience that they have to offer while spending their time where it is most beneficial for the growth of their business.

Similarly, we have to recognize our own strengths and weaknesses. We know that we excel at marketing and design, but we learned very quickly after establishing Jetpass Media that we definitely do not excel at managing our own books. And don’t get us started on trying to figure out how filing business taxes work… It wasn’t hard to decide that bookkeeping and taxes aren’t the most beneficial for us to spend time trying to learn beyond the basics. Instead, we invest in an experienced accounting firm to take care of that side of the business for us.

Sometimes when faced with the challenge of not feeling confident in your abilities, you need to weigh out whether or not the time spent learning that skill will be of benefit to you in the long run.

Is hiring a website designer to help you achieve a beautifully functional new website on your list before the end of the year?

Jetpass Media offers website design services for travel and sports brands looking to create a seamless client experience that transitions flawlessly between the digital world and real life. Inquire below to learn more about how we can together.