Web Developer & Web Designer Blue Mountains NSW
Differences between hiring a developer/designer and going alone
Clients sometimes say to me that a friend asked ‘why do you hire Tara?’ when you can build a website for free using a website builder. This is very true, there are many free website builders, and I use WordPress.org as my preferred building platform which is also free. These are called Content Management Systems (CMS), they are free open source software for anyone to use.
The question is; why do you need a web developer/designer to build a website?
The answer is; you don’t but here is an outline of the benefits of hiring a professional.
Hiring a Developer/Designer
A basic website that contains 5 - 6 pages takes approximately 15 hours. Design elements and webpage layouts are where most time is spent.
When a website is in production status developers follow guidelines for all content, webpage layouts, image sizes and names, and coding practice to meet Google requirements.
Search Engine Optimisation (SEO), website owners want their website/s to appear on the 1st page of Google Search, developers build websites from the ground up and incorporate SEO requirements as they add content, images and functions, when its launch time the website is SEO ready and only a few tweaks are needed.
Indexing; Google crawls millions of websites every day, they rank websites on several aspects; firstly verification of ownership secondly the inclusion of a sitemap, both these files are placed on your server and Google tests to ensure these files exist. Indexing will occur between a few hours to a couple of days.
99% of a developers job is to problem solve as all clients require individual functions for their websites, there are millions of functions that can be implemented and developers spend a lot of time building and testing these functions to ensure that you and the website users (your audience/customers) get the best user experience when visiting your website.
OUR MOTTO
LESS CLICKS TO FIND INFORMATION THE BETTER
Going Alone
Going alone would take on average 100 hours to build a basic website.
There is a myriad of information on the web that can be researched to meet Google requirements and best coding practices, this research can take months to understand the basics this is usually done prior to developing a website.
When you have completed creating your website and have followed Google requirements for best SEO practice, it is time to set SEO Titles, Meta Descriptions and Focus Keyphrase/s to all your webpages, portfolios, and blogs and all content you have contributed. This is time consuming average 1 hour per area of content.
Indexing (listing your website with Google search engine); Google will over time crawl the web and find websites that are not verified and add these websites to the Google Search Results, this can take months, Google will never know who owns the website or how the website is structured and will rate it poorly.
Problem solving, troubleshooting and knowing where to look to find the answers is of upmost importance. Have you ever just sat in front of your computer and stared at the Google Search box and thought ‘What is the question I am trying to get the answer for?’ This can take a lengthy amount of time, digging through many resources to pin-point the information you require to help solve an issue. Developers innately know the questions to ask Google.
FEEL FREE TO EXPLORE THE WONDERS OF WEBSITE BUILDING
I OFFER LESSONS & TECHNICAL SUPPORT TO GUIDE YOU THROUGH GOING ALONE!
The differences between Web Designer & Web Developer
Web Designer
Web designers focus on the aesthetics “look and feel” of websites and their usability.
Web designers gather information from clients on their objectives “what is the websites purpose”.
Then web designers determine the websites information hierarchy to help with the design processes, this is called Information Architecture (IA).
This information is then used to guide the designer to create ‘mock-up’ design layouts called wire-frames.
Alternatively the client may be shown websites that have similar purposes then changes are made to tailor the design to 100% suit their requirements.
Web Developer
Web developers take a web design and make it function.
They use programming languages HTML, CSS, Javascript, PHP and many other languages to bring the design to life.
Web developers are sometimes call programmers. Some websites require unique functions that are specific to an individual website.
Many web developers use Content Management Systems “CMS” such as; WordPress so they can build systems that are easily maintained by the client.