In the past decade, the explosion of social media onto the Internet has made making something from nothing in terms of web presence more feasible than ever, and many industrious entrepreneurs have capitalized on this chance by creating web startups. Also in the past decade, a high-quality website has become absolutely invaluable in attracting business and growing as an organization. It makes sense, then, that all these new startups would need great site designs to truly establish themselves and have to opportunity to thrive and expand. There are a few routes startups can take in obtaining a quality website design, and very promising marketplaces for each of those routes. The three main routes and several of the most popular services for each are outlined below.
The Crowdsourcing Route
If you trust yourself to pick out a great site design from a bunch of options, go with crowd sourcing. Some sites, such as Web Design by Designhill, allow you to submit a work order for a site design detailing things such as your company’s missions, the attitude you want the site to convey, a desired price, and any other special requests you may have. Freelance web designers from anywhere in the world can log onto the crowdsourcing site, look at the orders that have not yet been filled, put together a site fitting the orders’ specifications, and submit the design for consideration. It is then up to you to look through the proposed designs and pick your favorite. The designer of the chosen site will be awarded the specified amount of money and you will have a great new site to call your own and even modify, if you wish. Some top-notch crowdsourcing website design marketplaces include:
- Designhill.com
- Hatchwise.com
- Designcrowd.com
- crowdSPRING.com
- Choosa.net
The Do-It-Yourself Route
It is also possible to design your own website from scratch. This option used to be unfeasible for anyone who didn’t have some serious coding and web design chops, but a lot of web clients are making it easier to do it yourself these days. Such web clients generally offer a monthly fee to maintain the site once it is designed, but they are very easy to work with. They offer pre-fabricated themes, intuitive menu design options, easy-to-use text and image insertion tools to create the layouts of the pages themselves, and an overall site navigation that is very user-friendly. The only downside, when compared to other routes you could take in designing a site for your startup, is that doing it yourself is a bit time consuming.
If you have no coding experience with web design but enjoy arranging design layouts, you can try a site like Wix to put together a site for your company. The process is fun and surprisingly easy, the final product is professional-looking and visually pleasing, and, best of all, the site can become exactly what you wanted, because you make all the decisions. Most of these design interfaces charge a monthly fee to maintain the site domain. Below are a few of the more popular DIY site designing interfaces:
- IM Creator.com
- SquareSpace.com
- Google Web Designer
- Weebly.com
- Breezi.com
The One-on-One Route
If you want to be included in each step of the decision-making process during the site’s design but you do not feel the confidence in your design skills or the desire needed to create the site completely solo, pairing up with a designer may be the right route for you. There are many sites that will connect you with a web design expert who you can fill in about what you want and what kind of image you want the site to project. The designer will then collaborate with you and use her expertise to give advice as to how you could achieve your desired product. Once you two have established a clear picture of what you want the site to look like, the designer will go to work and, through whatever means she deems fit, create a site that matches the plans. If whatever comes out of it is not exactly what you had envisioned, the designer will make adjustments to the design until you are satisfied. This is usually the cheapest route. Several great web design marketplaces that offer you this one-on-one design route are:
- Register.com
- Indiwork.com
- Skorski Web Design Inc.
- Artists for Humanity
- ACSTechnologies.com
Great Design Is within Reach
No one should go without great web design for their startup company. Services such as those listed above will help you get your startup off the ground and hooked into the grid. No matter where in the world you are located, the modern World Wide Web provides you with multiple options of ways to get ahold of a great website design, so there is no excuse not to seek one out. Get started on the road to better layouts, better public relations, and more sales!
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