Should you get a friend or family member to build your website?
You need a website and a relative or friend has offered to build one for you. If times are tough it’s tempting to use a friend or family member as you know them and trust them. Furthermore they are most likely going to design and build your site for free—or at a reduced cost. Is it a good idea? Allow me to answer the question: should you get a friend or family member to build your website?
Do they build websites for a living?
If you’re considering using a friend or family member over another company it’s most likely to save yourself money. The first thing you need to ask yourself is: do they build websites for a living? If they don’t there’s most likely a reason for it. A web design hobbyist can never hope to compete with someone who spends their entire working life surrounded by web design. So you may be getting something free—or cheaper—but perhaps the quality of the job won’t pass muster.
If they aren’t doing web design professionally then (unless they’re unemployed) they’ll be building your site on evenings and weekends. This could prove to be a slow process indeed. Can you afford to wait?
Finally, someone who isn’t immersed in the world or professional web design will not be as up–to–date on new technologies, scripts and ever–changing search engine optimisation trends.
Would they treat you like their other clients?
If they are a professional web designer would they treat you like all their other clients? If their workload puts them under pressure which job is going to get put to the back of the queue first—yours or their clients? Most likely they’ll fear earache more from their regular clients than a friend or family member.
Is it worth risking your relationship?
Finally, if the job goes wrong do you really want to put your relationship with him or her on the line? Make no mistake: if something goes wrong with the project and you start to have disagreements you may end up parting company.
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