Welcome back to launch your online business. You're almost ready to start building your website. Let's talk about production. In lesson 9, we will cover what you need to do it yourself or DIY versus what you need to hire someone to work for you. We'll also learn how to create a scope of work, and get a bid from a freelancer or an agency. Whether you build your website yourself or hire help, you have to get your assets organize before you begin. Here's what you need to get started. Your sitemap, which we covered in lesson 6, all of your copy and your copy deck and make sure you include product pricing. And all of your photos diagrams and size charts. If you don't have all your assets together before you begin, you'll have to regularly stop in the middle of production. So that you can write a missing segment or complete another photoshoot. If you're working with a freelancer, or an agency, these missing assets will really slow you down and delay their schedule and cost extra time and money. Now that your assets are organized, you can decide whether to build your site yourself or to hire someone to do it. The biggest factors are skills, time, and money. Doing it yourself may save money, but make sure to consider the following. Do I have the basic digital skills? Do I have the time? And do I have the budget? Let's take a closer look at each of these questions. When I say basic digital skills I mean, knowing how to use programs like Microsoft word, or Google docs, Microsoft Excel, or Google sheets using your phone to take pictures and edit them. Or if you have a digital camera and can shoot product pictures. And ideally using a photo editor like Photoshop, if only to size your photos. If you don't have any of these digital skills, there's never a bad time to start learning. They will help you in many areas of your business besides your website. If you're fairly skilled, but need more help, the platform that you picked and lesson 6 will offer three great ways for you to get help. Most platforms have extensive frequently asked questions or FAQs, where you can search topics and get detailed answers. And there are many how-to videos that can walk you through step by step. And you can always reach out to your platform directly with questions through their customer support. Let's move to our next question. Do I have the time? Assuming all of your assets are organized, if you have a simple website with 5 to 10 products or one to two services, it could take you 3 to 5 days to build it. If you have a more complex site with 10 to 50 or more products or 10 to 20 services, the site could take you 14 to 30 days to build. You may be saying I have the skills and I can commit 3 to 5 days of my time. I'll build it myself. Or even though it won't take me long, I don't have the skills. I'm going to hire a professional. That leads us to our last question. Do I have the budget? I did a chart that illustrates a range of hourly fees for a low end of 25 an hour to a high-end of a 100 an hour. To give you an idea of what your site could cost you to build. For a simple website, if you hired a freelancer for 25 an hour and they work for 8 hour days, the costs would be $800. For a complex site that would take 20 days, the cost would be $4,000. These are just estimates to give you some ballpark idea of cost. To help you decide which way to go, let's review the pros and cons of doing it yourself versus hiring professionals. For doing it yourself, you know what you want your website to be, and you don't have to spend money hiring a professional. The cons are, building your own website will take you time and learning skills on the fly is hard. If you hired skilled professionals the work is taken off your plate and gets done a lot faster. The cons are it will cost you money and a certain amount of time to manage your contractor. If you're hiring someone new, you're also taking on the risk of whether they'll do a good job or not. For the student activity, use the DIY or hire worksheet and do the skills assessment to help you figure out if you should do it yourself or hire a professional.
