Do you have a business website? Do you love your website? Are you proud to display your website as both a business tool and as a representation of your business brand? Well, if you answered “no” to any of these questions, then your website may not be performing as well as it should. 

As a small business owner, your website is the most essential tool that you have to grow your business. In this day in age, you must have both a website and a social media page to stay relevant. If you don’t exist online, then your business doesn’t exist. 

This is the true gospel of the situation at hand. Another hard truth is that you may not have the necessary level of experience and expertise on how to optimize your website’s full potential. For that, you must leave it to the professionals. Consider hiring a web design consultant to help your website come to life and increase sales in the process. 

What Is A Web Design Consultant?

A website design consultant encompasses a variety of web consulting services. Website consulting involves providing expertise and insight into both web design and development. A web design consultant is much more than just a web developer or web designer. 

Web developers focus on the internal functionality of a website while a web designer pays more attention to the look and feel of the site from an external point of view.

Web design consultants do a whole lot more than just design pretty websites. A web consultant offers a hands-on approach to web design. They are knowledgeable in all areas of the web, in which their expertise touches the button on the importance of web design & development, graphic design, and digital marketing.

They focus on brand development methods through digital mediums and improve brand awareness to help you build stronger business relationships. Hiring a web design consultant is an excellent move to make, mainly since their expertise exists in a realm where most small business owners aren’t. 

Think of a web design consultant as a mechanic for your website. You wouldn’t work on your vehicle if you didn’t know what you were doing. You’d go ahead and hire a car mechanic. Like a car mechanic, web consultants pop the hood of your website, perform a website audit, diagnose and fix issues, and get your website souped-up and running smoothly. 

Why Do I Need A Web Design Consultant?

To the untrained eye, your website may come up short on the adequacy scale. Perhaps your website is too dull, or maybe you have way too much going on. Perhaps you’re missing essential pages, or you neglected to add social media icons. Whatever the case may be with how your website currently stands, it’s not too late for a vast improvement. 

To improve your website, hiring a web design consultant is a must. Here is a shortlist of what web design consultants do and why hiring a web design consultant is the smart move to make. 

• Optimizes your website for a modern framework
• Makes your website mobile-friendly
• Ensures that your website adheres to accessibility standards
• Performs a website audit to identify areas for improvement
• Fixes broken links, missing tags, and all other errors
• Adheres to search engine optimization (SEO) trends
• Creates high-quality content to improve rankings on search engines
• Focuses on improving the user experience
• Establishes digital marketing strategies
• Networks with videographers, photographers, and content writers
• Manages coding and other programming languages
• Provides insight on how to expand your brand to all digital platforms

How Much Does A Web Design Consultant Charge?

Most web design consultants work for a full-service digital marketing agency that offers all marketing services within the agency. Web design consultants develop websites with the UI/UX design and web development components to create the ultimate user experience for the customer. Similar to that of a project manager, a web consultant takes charge of a collective team of marketing specialists to develop websites that appeal to a broad demographic. 

Web consultants working for a digital marketing agency usually charge approximately $75-$100 per hour. They most often charge on an hourly basis, but some also offer flat rates depending on the size of the project or require monthly retainers for long term business. 

If you want to go the freelancer route, freelance web designers can charge an upwards of $100-$300 depending on the size of the project. However, if the project size is on a more fundamental level, then negotiating the hourly rate down to somewhere between $65 - $150 per hour is reasonable. 

Every website also needs updates and maintenance. A web consultant might include this cost in their monthly retainer or per update basis. This depends on what kind of site it is and ranges from $30 for basic websites to $1,500 a month for e-commerce websites. 

With all of these numbers being thrown, there is one definitive conclusion to be drawn. Hiring a web consultant is always better than handling your website on your own. Leave it to the professionals. Make your website shine brightly with the help of a web consultant!