As business owners, we love to save money. We all work way too hard to lose what we have easily, and what better way to spare a few dollars here and there than by doing things ourselves? Most successful entrepreneurs I know split their time between running their companies and working as self-employed bookkeepers, salespeople, and custodial engineers.

Should you add web designer to your list of unofficial titles?

After more than 10 years of working in web design in Indianapolis, I would say you absolutely should not. The biggest reason, of course, has to do with quality; a homemade website can be spotted almost immediately. Unless you have a very strong background in design and coding, the endless hours you’re going to spend getting your site up and running aren’t going to amount to a professional-looking end product.

Don’t think it’s only designers who will notice. You might not worry about impressing me, but what about your customers and prospects? Every potential buyer who visits your site and comes away less than impressed represents a missed opportunity – and more to the point, a sale that wasn’t made. Even if you’re only getting a small number of visitors each week, those missing orders can add up very, very quickly.

Functionality can also be an issue. A good web designer can add video, contact forms, and e-commerce features to your new site that can help you make, or save, thousands of dollars each year. Most do it yourself versions, however, are akin to online brochures. That’s sometimes better than not having anything at all, but it won’t do much in the way of generating leads and orders, saving you customer service time, or helping your company’s search engine rankings.

And then there’s that time we mentioned. It can easily take someone who isn’t a professional web designer well over 30 or 40 hours to put together a functioning website, even if they start from a predefined template – something I don’t recommend, by the way – and at least that long again the first time something goes wrong. The dollar value of those lost hours is usually bigger than it looks, when you consider what could have been accomplished in that time.

What all of this really comes down to is a concept that every successful business owner knows, but is all too easy to forget from time to time: the difference between prices and costs. While it’s true that a professional-grade website can require a sizable investment, it’s very likely to pay for itself time and time again. As tempting as it can be to buy a piece of software, crack open a couple of books, and try to design your company’s new website, I advise you to resist the urge. You might save a little bit of money today, but you’ll only be taking it out of your own pocket later.