In-house vs agency web design – which is better for your business?

If you’re part of a medium-to-large business or organization, and you're weighing the choice between hiring someone in-house and getting an agency to create your website, here’s our take, in the hopes it may be of some use to you as you discuss this decision internally:

• When you hire a design agency, you're getting a team of specialists. There are very few individuals you could possibly hire who can build an entire world-class website alone. An agency brings multiple different sets of expertise: Design, Branding, Copywriting, Programming, SEO, and Project Management. 
• And combined decades of experience. 
• An agency is optimized & engineered around creating, producing, and launching websites. It's the heart of what we do, and our days are structured around it. We can drive your project forward.
• As an outside resource, your agency is focused on what's best for your organization and helping you achieve your goals. We are mostly immune to our clients' internal turf wars. So we can help you advocate for your marketing goals internally in a way that an employee can’t.
• An agency is a one-time expense. When the site is done, you stop paying us for your web design and development. We'll be here when you need us, to offer technical support or launch new projects when you need us, but when you don't need us, you are are spending zero dollars.

After the new site launches, you will want a staff member in-house responsible for updating content and driving your marketing campaigns. It's best if you can designate one primary person on your team who can take over the editorial responsibility of making frequent updates to the site, ensuring the homepage and the rest of the site will always reflect your internal priorities. This person needs strong skills in some or more of the following: online marketing communications, production graphics, SEO, and editorial. If you're using Bizango's CMS, the person you hire does not need technical skills - you're hiring a great communicator and a fast learner, someone with visual flair but not a rockstar ($!) designer. Someone who knows how to articulate your team's priorities and who can drive projects forward. 

In our experience, a person you can affordably hire to do all these things in-house as an employee probably isn’t also going to be able to create, design, and build a world-class professional website all by themselves. If they can do all that, they're not going to stick around once the site launches. They're going to hunger for the next big launch. It's addictive. In our minds, building it and running it are two different personality types and skillsets. 

Hire an agency

The right agency can come in and help you fulfill your vision for your website — build anything you want it to be — and then set it up with awesome management and editorial tools so that you and your in-house team are empowered going forward to take it anywhere you want to go.