Your website is often the first thing your customers see when they’re searching for a business or service on the web. As the face of your organization, your website needs to be attractive and functional, offering the latest features that users now expect. To plan and design a site that both reflects your company’s mission and values and appeals to customers takes a professional web designer. While free online services can help people set up websites, web designers can provide a unique solution made specifically to meet customers’ personal or business needs.

Most web designers offer a wide variety of services to make your website aesthetically pleasing and easy to use. Modern web design must be mobile-friendly and scalable, capable of expanding to include a blog, social media sites, and even video streaming; web designers are experts at integrating various web technologies. They can build the site, add functionality, test it, launch it on a live server, and track and maintain its performance.

In addition to web design and graphic design, some web design providers also offer development and security services, including search engine optimization (SEO), social media marketing and management, logo design, site maintenance, domain registration and hosting, protection against malware, and digital marketing and content services.

Grants are available to nonprofit organizations, for-profit businesses that qualify for government grants, and individuals who qualify for foundation or government grants. Hiring a good grant writer can help you gain funding in your chosen field. According to the American Grant Writers’ Association, grant writers can help you research potential grant opportunities; write grant proposals, create budgets, and build budget narratives; review written materials before you submit; prepare a business plan; analyze your organization for grant competitive qualities; prepare research grants; help with 501(c)(3) applications for nonprofits; and more. Investing in the right grant writer could result in a financial win for your organization. Generally no licenses or certificates are required to be a good grant writer, but you may want to find a grant writer who has been certified (not just received a certificate of completion) by a reputable organization such as the Grant Professionals Certification Institute. Qualities to look for in a good grant writer include:

• Proven success writing winning grants, especially in your target area.
• Strong writing skills.
• Strong math skills and demonstrated proficiency with budgeting.
• Careful attention to detail — brilliant grant proposals may be rejected just for formatting errors, so you want someone who follows instructions explicitly.
• Expertise in your target area.
• Punctuality and good communication skills.

The average cost for hiring a web designer varies greatly depending on the scope of the work, which may range from building a site from scratch to rebranding an existing one, as well as the amount of content and graphics the designer will create. In general, the more complex the project, the more time the design agency will have to spend. Because web designers often work on an hourly basis, the longer the project, the higher the costs; you can count on the web designer spending at minimum 10 hours to create a very basic website with just a handful of pages with few elements. Prices also depend on the designer’s skill set, the process, and the company’s rates. In general, the national average cost for a basic website package starts at $500, but a customized website can cost as much as $2,000 or more. Here are typical average hourly rates, broken out by the complexity of the work:

• Basic layout and user interface: $15-$40 per hour
• Content management system design: $20-$50 per hour
• Custom website design with custom code: $45-$75 per hour

A professional web designer creates the look and feel of your website, collaborating with you to choose colors, creating logos and other branding materials, establishing page layouts, and creating sample pages. An important part of web design is making sure the site is functional, meets your goals, and is easy for users to navigate. When you’re looking to hire a web designer, start by reviewing the person’s portfolio. Look for samples of work that match what you envision for your website, including experience building the types of pages or features you want. Make sure the web designer is familiar with your industry and understands both industry trends and web design trends — an old-fashioned or out-of-touch site will turn customers away rather than intrigue them.

Because web designers tend to work as freelancers on a project basis, they must be excellent communicators, willing to manage their own work, and available on your schedule. Some critical skills, such as working collaboratively and responding enthusiastically to feedback, aren’t core to good web design, but make working with a web designer much easier. Finally, look for a web designer who has cross-functional knowledge, such as understanding marketing and conversion rate optimization in addition to web design.

The web design company you choose must be able to interpret your company’s mission and identity and turn it into an appealing website that connects with potential customers. They must help you reach your target audience and meet your business goals. A web design agency should have on staff both talented web designers, with fresh ideas and extensive technical and creative skills, and a marketing team that knows how to drive traffic to your site, encourage visitor engagement, and convert visitors into customers. Web designers should be able to build in search optimization and integrate your site with a content management system and e-commerce tools. Look, too, for a website design company that understands responsive design and can optimize your website for mobile devices and desktop browsers. The right web design company understand current design and website trends, has experience building sites in a variety of industries (not just yours), and has an expansive portfolio of live websites. Finally, don’t simply hire the cheapest bidder — in web design, as in all things, you get what you pay for.

You’ve determined that the best way to create a professional, modern, mobile-friendly new website is to hire a professional web designer to build it. To hire the best person for the job — and to get the web design that best fits your company’s identity — it’s important to ask a few key questions:

• What’s the scope of the work? Will the website be basic with just a few pages about your company, its services, and contact information? Or will it also have an e-commerce section for online shopping, a blog, or content for visitors to download? Before you hire a web designer, make sure you have a thorough, specific list of the components you must have the designer include in the web design.
• What do you want your website to look like? Consider websites that are similar to the one you’d like to build, ideally in the same industry or serving similar types of customers. Build a set of examples of types of pages, design aspects, and website features that you can hand off to the web designer — the person you hire should have experience creating websites with the features you want. If they don’t have the right skill set, they’re not the right pro for you.
• What’s the web designer’s start-to-finish process? What will the final deliverable be? Before you hire someone, make sure their availability works with your timeline and that their process meets your expectations. Most important is finding a web designer who will work collaboratively with you to create a successful online presence.

Hiring a grant writer can give you a competitive edge when applying for financial grants for your business or nonprofit organization, or as an individual. The cost to hire a grant writer can vary depending on their academic background, areas of expertise, previous grant writing success and years of experience. According to the Grant Professionals Association, grant writers should be paid hourly or by flat fee. It is unethical for a grant writer to accept a commission or percentage compensation of grant monies received. They can, however, be awarded bonuses in line with the hiring company’s prevailing practices. Here are some examples of average grant writing fees:

• Hourly rate for grant writers with less experience or fewer grants awarded: $25-$35 per hour.
• Hourly rate for grant writers with some degree of success: $35-$75 per hour.
• Hourly rate for grant writers with proven success winning large grants: $75-$150 or more per hour.
• For a smaller grant, the writer may charge a flat fee of $200-$500 for preparation and submission.  

Pricing may also vary based on the complexity of the grant application. A federal grant that requires pages of research, budgets and a business plan may take more than 30 hours to prepare. For a high-level grant writer who charges $100 per hour, this means $3,000 or more in grant writing fees.

Most grant writers will provide you with a total cost estimate before agreeing to the work. You may be required to pay a deposit up front, or the grant writer may work from a retainer. Often, seasoned grant writers pay for themselves in the long run by writing successful grants.