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Establishing an online presence can be an expensive task, so it’s understandable to look for opportunities to reduce expenses. One way that many people have found is to design their own website instead of paying a web designer or web design company. That may be the right approach for you, or it could end up costing you more in the long run. The only way to know for sure is to weigh the pros and cons of do-it-yourself web design vs. hiring a professional.

Before you even get into any of the technical details, you need to know how much your time is worth so that you can determine whether your time spent designing your own website is actually saving you money or simply taking you away from making money.

Armed with that knowledge, your next step is to evaluate your level of technical skill on a computer, specifically, as it relates to web design. Do the terms HTML, CSS, domain, e-commerce, FTP or SSL mean anything to you? If your answer was yes, then designing your own website may be an option, though it’s a good idea to work from a web design checklist to make sure you don’t miss anything. However, if your answer was no, you should either be prepared to invest several weeks just learning the basics, or consider hiring a professional.

If you’re still marching bravely forward, congratulations! Now ask yourself if you can afford:

1. To take time away from your you day to day operations to learn the skills that you’ll you need to design your own website?
2. Not to have an online presence while you’re learning how to design your own website?

From the basics to more advanced techniques, w3schools is loaded with tutorials, but keep in mind that HTML, CSS and Javascript are just the beginning. If you need advanced functionality such as e-commerce, a content management system or a forum or blog, you will need to understand programming languages like PHP or ASP as well. If you don’t have a technical background, the learning curve will be steep.

Another thing to consider is the software that you’ll need to design your website. First you’ll need an image editing program like Adobe Photoshop, but since you want to save money, its $700 price tag may be a bit steep for you. There are alternatives though, such as GIMP or Photoscape which are free but not as powerful. Next, you’ll need a program to edit your HTML and CSS files. Adobe Dreamweaver will give you the most functionality and is usually the easiest to learn since it works a lot like some of the software you’re already familiar with, but it will set you back about $400. If you’re trying to keep your costs to a minimum, there are a few bargain-minded programs available, like CoffeeCup that don’t have all the bells and whistles. Lastly, you will need an FTP program to upload your files to your web server. CuteFTP and SmartFTP are both very effective and inexpensive, and FileZilla is available for free, but is missing a few key features that the other two have.

Now that you know what goes into designing your own website, you can make a more informed decision whether it’s right for you or not.