Entrepreneurs spend roughly 36% of their entire work week on small administrative tasks like emails, invoicing, and data entry. That’s over a third of your time simply managing the mechanics of your business.
I’ve seen firsthand how business owners try to solve this by outsourcing tasks they either have outgrown or simply have no time and skills for. Think accounting and taxes, marketing, or cold outreach and sales. And one common, and sometimes frustrating task, for small business owners that stands out? Trying to figure out how to choose a website designer to build their online presence.
You know you need a professional-looking site. You know a poor site can cost you revenue. But is the process of defining the project, searching for a candidate, interviewing them, and managing the build worth the time you’re currently losing to admin work?
Choosing the right website designer can be a game-changer, but choosing the wrong one can be yet another drain on your limited resources. Before we dive deep into the necessary steps for selecting a great web designer, let’s first get a clear perspective on what the real costs are when setting up your online business.
Should small business owners hire a professional website designer or build it themselves?
The answer isn’t a simple yes or no. It depends entirely on the financial and time-based return you expect from your digital storefront. Many businesses immediately lean toward the do-it-yourself (DIY) route because the initial subscription costs look attractive, often $20–$50 per month, compared to an upfront professional investment that can range from $1,500 to $10,000 or more.
After you choose a website designer, there’s also the decision of building out the design they created. The costs of a website developer can be pretty steep, so you’d have to be certain that going the DIY route isn’t best for your business before you make the investment.
When should you hire a website designer?
When you choose to build your own site, you aren’t just paying a small monthly fee. You could be signing up for a learning curve that can easily consume 10 to 40 hours just to get the basics like domain name registration, website hosting, and the like.
Then, the ongoing time drain for content updates, maintenance, and technical troubleshooting can steal another 5 to 10 hours from you every month.
If you calculate that lost time at your own hourly rate, or the rate you could be charging clients, that DIY project can suddenly cost you thousands in opportunity cost alone in the first year.
Here’s how to know if DIY won’t be the best route for your business:
- You have custom website requirements. Maybe you’re building a big ecommerce store with a lot of moving parts. Sometimes skipping the DIY design and development will save you a lot if you hire a professional in this niche.
- You don’t have time to learn new software. Legacy website builders can have a steep learning curve, making it more difficult to build your own website and design.
- Your design skills could use some work. Part of learning how to choose a website designer means knowing who has good design sense or not. If that’s not you, then it’s perfectly fine to outsource.
Think of it this way: you’re a freelancer or small business owner, not a web developer. Your mission should be working on your business, attracting and serving clients, not wrestling with custom website code and design tools.
Of course, this assumes that you take the self-hosted route that requires all these upfront time and skill investments. There are more economical and efficient options out there, which we’ll discuss in the coming sections.
What do you need to know before you start looking for a web designer?
Before you even send out a single request for proposal, you should first define the scope of the project. If you walk into a conversation with a potential website designer without a clear vision, you risk getting a generic product that doesn’t meet your business needs. You need to be able to communicate exactly what success looks like for your website.
Defining your website’s scope and budget
Start by creating a straightforward list of what your website needs to do for your business. Is it a digital business card, a lead-generation machine, or a full e-commerce shop?
Here’s a practical, actionable checklist for defining your scope:
- List all necessary pages. Write down every page you need, such as a Homepage, Services/Products page, a detailed Contact page, an About page, and perhaps a Testimonials/Case Studies page.
- Identify specific features. Do you need a booking calendar? An integrated Customer Relationship Management (CRM) form? E-commerce functionality? Making these explicit from the start ensures the designer can deliver what you need.
- Set a realistic budget. Since pricing in this industry varies widely, from a few thousand dollars for a basic freelancer site to tens of thousands for an agency, you must establish an upper limit. This helps you narrow your search and ensures you find a professional who can deliver quality work within your financial constraints.
- Be clear on the timeline. If you have an urgent launch date, communicate that immediately. A custom website takes weeks, sometimes months, to design and develop, so set expectations early.
By taking this step, you move from a vague request to a clear project brief, which can look more professional and efficient to potential partners.
Understanding the types of website help available
If you want to know how to choose a website designer, you generally have to pick from three main options on the type of designer you’ll hire.
Understanding the difference will streamline your search and help you match the right resource to your defined budget and scope:
- Freelancers: These are independent professionals. They are often a cost-effective choice for smaller projects or those with tighter budgets. Their process is typically informal, and they can sometimes offer a quicker turnaround than an agency. However, you rely on a single person, so you must vet their reliability and communication skills thoroughly.
- Design Agencies: These companies specialize specifically in web design. They typically have a more structured approach and can handle projects with greater complexity and size. They offer expertise and process control but come with a higher price tag.
- Full-Service Digital Marketing Agencies: These groups handle everything. They have specialized teams for web design, SEO, content writing, and pay-per-click (PPC) advertising. If your goal is not just a website but an entire cohesive digital strategy, this option provides simplicity in communication and a guarantee that all elements, like design and SEO, work together from day one.
How should you evaluate a potential web designer?
Finding a website designer is like hiring a strategic partner, not just a contractor. The difference between a great partner and a bad one is measured in thousands of dollars in annual revenue. You must move past the glossy homepage and deeply scrutinize their past work, their process, and their philosophy.
Look through their portfolio and testimonials
A portfolio is your window into a designer’s style, expertise, and range of skills. Don’t just look for attractive websites; look for effective ones.
Here are the actionable steps I recommend:
- Check for industry relevance: Have they worked with businesses similar to yours? Experience in your sector suggests they already understand your customer base and their information needs.
- Look for balance: Evaluate the portfolio for a blend of functionality and visual appeal. A stunning site that’s impossible to use is useless.
- Check performance scores: A pro tip from my data-driven background: find a live site in their portfolio and check its performance. A professional designer should create sites with fast load times and clean code. A slow site, even a pretty one, is a red flag.
- Read client testimonials and reviews: Go beyond the quoted snippets on their site. Look for detailed, third-party reviews to gauge their reputation, client satisfaction, and, most importantly, their communication and reliability.
Ask critical questions on the web design process and results
When you interview a prospective designer, your focus should be less on what they build and more on how they build it.
Their answers to these questions will reveal their true business focus:
- “How do you get to know our business?” The best answer shows they prioritize upfront research, seeking to interview stakeholders and potentially even your actual clients. This demonstrates a focus on content and messaging, which are the true drivers of lead generation and conversion, rather than just aesthetics.
- “How will you measure the results of your project?” If they don’t immediately mention metrics like conversion rates, traffic, or bounce rates, that’s a concern. A true partner views the website as a tool to drive revenue, not just a digital brochure. They should be talking about analytics and performance.
- “What is your approach to user experience (UX) and design?” This question helps you determine their philosophy. Do they rely on pre-made templates, or do they build custom work based on your specific goals? Their process should align with lead generation and solving visitor needs.
- “How much of your business is dedicated to websites versus other marketing services?” You want a partner who specializes in what you need. If web design is their core competency, they are more likely to deliver high-quality, focused expertise and better results.
By asking these pointed, results-oriented questions, you shift the conversation from a sales pitch to a strategic collaboration, giving you the data you need to make an informed decision.
Is there a simpler, more powerful (and cost-effective) way to get a professional website?
The traditional hiring process for a website designer often adds a layer of time and management overhead that a small business owner simply can’t afford.
We established early on that entrepreneurs already spend far too much time on non-revenue-generating administrative tasks. The paradox of hiring a professional to save you time is that the hiring process itself is incredibly time-consuming.
What if you could bypass the complex hiring and design process entirely, but still get a high-performance, professional website tailored to your exact needs?
Enter: AI website builders
This is where AI-powered technology changes the game, offering a solution that is both professional and completely aligned with the goal of saving you time. At Bookipi, we understand that you need easy-to-use, mobile-friendly tools that simplify complex tasks.
Our approach is to use AI as a smart, supportive assistant that streamlines workflows without replacing your personal decision-making.
Instead of spending 10 to 40 hours learning a DIY builder or weeks interviewing designers, you simply describe your business to the Bookipi AI Website Builder, and the AI instantly generates a complete, professional, and mobile-responsive website draft for you.
This cuts out the entire administrative headache of designing or hiring a designer. It allows you to focus on the content and strategy, knowing that the technical details, like SEO and mobile responsiveness, are handled. You skip the learning curve and the management time, reclaiming those hours to work on your business.
The advantage of an all-in-one business platform
A website is only one piece of the puzzle. The true magic of using a system like Bookipi’s AI Website Builder is the integrated suite of business management tools that are ready to go the moment your site is live.
Think about the administrative tasks that cost you nearly half of your work week:
- Invoicing and Payments: Bookipi simplifies financial management by offering customizable invoices and seamless payment integrations. This is available across every platform, meaning a contractor can be invoicing on-site, or a freelancer can draft a proposal on the go.
- Expense Tracking and Payroll: The system is integrated to manage these essential functions, allowing you to manage your entire business operation from anywhere.
- Digital Signatures and Proposals: Need to send a contract? The platform handles digital signatures and AI proposal creation, eliminating the need for expensive third-party software and keeping your workflow centralized.
You don’t have to cobble together a website builder, an SEO tool, a separate invoicing platform, and an e-signature app. Bookipi offers a genuinely integrated solution where your website and your financial backend are one cohesive system. This kind of integration is how you truly combat the administrative time drain and grow your customer base.
If you are currently researching how to choose a website designer, take a moment to weigh the value of that time spent. You can spend weeks defining a project and interviewing candidates, or you can leverage AI to generate a professional site instantly, connected to your entire day-to-day business operations.
