Build a site yourself or hire a designer?

[Messi]

Having learned some basic HTML and CSS, I concluded that my time would be better spent researching affiliate programmes, learning about SEO, PPC and Social Media Marketing instead of trying to design my own site which somebody else could do a lot better.

In the end I hired somebody to set my site up on wordpress so that I could easily manage/add content.

I'm just curious as to who designs their own sites and who hires designers?

[F-L-C]

I personally think design is one of those things you are good at or you are not, if you are not artistic at all with no eye for design then you really have to outsource. IMO it's not a skill you can learn like Seo

[Messi]

I personally think design is one of those things you are good at or you are not, if you are not artistic at all with no eye for design then you really have to outsource. IMO it's not a skill you can learn like Seo

That is a good point - I do know when something looks good but can't put it together myself. SEO it is then......

Which leads me to my next question, anyone have any favourite resources for SEO? Back when I was researching things a while back SEObook was good.

[F-L-C]

That is a good point - I do know when something looks good but can't put it together myself.

Exactly the same as me, I'm completely not artistic, have you researched the basics

http://static.googleusercontent.com/...rter-guide.pdf

[Voids]

I found a template I liked, learnt how to ammend it , tweak it & bend it to my needs, and outsourced the colours, styling & logo design.

If you like the look & feel of the site ( www.cashforfree.co.uk ) hit me with a pm and I'll pass you the details of the business I used.

[rak]

if you are going to do something - do it properly.

treat your website like a project, and have it staggered in development, and use money to build it.

eg.

Website design might cost you $200 (one time)

Applications for links and seo might cost you $50 a month (subscription)

Then you might want to use custom plugins to benefit the user and website - might cost you $250 to get it built.

Stagger your development, build a roadmap, a chart to show you what you want to do when, and in what order, and how much it will cost you.

Try and put aside some $$$'s every month to pay someone to do the job better and quicker then you could hope to do it.

[MichaelCorfman]

Good question Messi.

I've started a new poll question of the week based on it. You can see the poll question here:

Have you contracted for web design services or do you do that yourself?

Michael