Today, having an online presence is essential, and having a website is no longer an option—it’s a must-have for any business that wants to be visible. Whether you’re a retailer, a craftsman, a freelancer, or a business owner, building your online presence is a key strategy for growing your business and attracting new customers.
Creating a website may seem simple at first glance. Many online tools promise quick creation without any technical knowledge. Some people also turn to a freelancer, thinking they’ll save money. However, if your goal is to have an effective, well-optimized website and scalable, the best option is still to hire an agency to create your website.
In this article, we compare the different options available (doing it yourself, hiring a freelancer, or working with an agency), and we explain why, at Digital 64, we believe that building a website should leave nothing to chance.
Why create a website in 2025? 🤨
In 2025, not having a website is a bit like refusing to be listed in the business directory back in the days of the Yellow Pages. A website is an essential tool for digital visibility, regardless of your industry.
A well-designed website allows you to:
- Inform your target audience about your offering, your value proposition, and your areas of expertise while maintaining full control over your message.
- Boost your credibility and brand image with your customers by projecting a professional, polished, and polished image.
- Be visible on Google and other search engines through search engine optimization (SEO).
- Reassure your customers and prospects by highlighting customer reviews and your portfolio
- Generate inquiries, requests for quotes, or direct sales: to achieve this, it’s crucial to design your website with the goal of improving conversion rates from the very start.
- Develop a digital marketing funnel by laying the groundwork for your future marketing efforts (advertising, email campaigns, social media, etc.)
But to achieve that, you need a well-designed, well-developed, and well-maintained website. And that’s where the development process comes into play.
Building your own website: cost-effective but not fully polished ✍️
With tools like Wix, WordPress.com, or Shopify, it’s tempting to build your own website. With just a few clicks, you can get a few pages online. This solution is often appealing because it costs almost nothing to start with. However, without any expertise in the field, while you may be able to create a website, it won’t necessarily deliver the expected results.
To sum up:
✅ The benefits of building your own website:
- Very very economical
- Range Total
- Useful for testing an idea or get started
❌ The downsides:
- Design often standardized, unoriginal, and not tailored to your business
- Lack of optimization Lack of mobile optimization and/or insufficient consideration of the user experience (UX)
- No SEO strategy, so you’re not visible on Google
- No support in case of a problem
- Maintenance, security, and hosting to handle on your own
- Risk of significant time loss significant time loss and technical errors
👉 This is a viable option for a personal project or blog, or simply to “have a presence” on the web. But if you want to sell, generate leads, or make your online presence more professional, this approach quickly reaches its limits. So it’s a starting point, but not an end in itself.
Working with a freelancer: flexibility but dependence 🧑💻
Hiring a freelancer to build your website can seem like a good compromise. You work directly with a specialized professional who designs your site, the costs are often more affordable than those of an agency, and the interaction is more personal.
✅ The benefits of working with a freelancer:
- Direct relationship, plus flexible
- Prices that are often competitive
- Support plus personalized than DIY platforms, with a customized service
❌ The downsides:
- Skills often limited to a single field (design or development or SEO, but rarely all three at the same time)
- Dependence on a single person (the freelancer).
- Maintenance often optional and billed separately.
- It's hard to move on toother services (SEO, advertising, social media, etc.) through the same professional.
Little assurance regarding timelines, security or the project’s longevity.
👉 In short, this approach may work for a simple showcase website, but it requires clearly defining the scope of the project and having the expertise to manage it yourself.
For a large-scale project, it’s hard to compete with a more comprehensive and structured agency approach that is rooted in a global marketing strategy.
Hiring an agency for your design project: comprehensive and long-term support 🤝
Hire a website design agencymeans choosing expertise, comprehensive support, long-term performance, and reliability. Unlike a freelancer or an in-house solution, an agency offers you a wide range of skills all under one roof: strategy, design, development, SEO, tracking, security, hosting…
At Digital 64, a web agency based in the Basque Country, we’ve chosen to offer high-performance, turnkey websites designed to convert, last, and evolve with your needs—all without a subscription or any unpleasant surprises.
💡 8 good reasons to hire an agency like Digital 64 to build your website:
1. Save time, work faster
Building a website on your own can take weeks or even months if it’s not your area of expertise. An agency saves you valuable time: they know the steps involved, the mistakes to avoid, and can deliver a website in just a few weeks using a proven workflow. That’s the advantage of working with multiple experts on the same project.
2. Comprehensive support
An agency does more than just “build a website.” At Digital 64, for example, we help you define your goals, organize your content, design the user experience, optimize your SEO, and track your performance.
Creating a good website is the first step. Next, you need to bring it to life and promote it. As a digital agency, Digital 64 can also assist you with:
- online advertising (Google Ads, Meta Ads),
- social media,
- advanced SEO,
- copywriting,
- email marketing…
In short, you gain consistency and efficiency, with a single point of contact for all your digital marketing needs.
3. A website that really converts
Working with an agency to build your website means integrating this project into a comprehensive digital strategy designed to help you achieve your marketing and sales goals. With a professional design, an optimized user experience, and zero bugs (whether on mobile or desktop), you significantly increase your chances of converting visitors into customers.
The result: a better return on investment right from the start.
Whether you're in manufacturing or services, the requirements remain the same.
For a B2B company such as Soka Hygiène, the website must instill confidence in the company’s certifications and technical expertise.
For a high-end service company such as Private Choice, he must embody the excellence and discretion of private concierge services.
4. A 100% custom design
No more generic templates: our agency offers a visual identity that truly reflects your brand, featuring a modern, responsive, and impactful design that captures the essence of your business.
An agency will take the time to understand your business, your expectations, and those of your target audience in order to provide you with a custom design that sets you apart and inspires confidence.
At Digital 64, for example, we develop the entire website using mockups to give the client a realistic preview of the final result. It is this bespoke approach that has allowed us to create Sofia Vera’s unique brand identity, combining a luxurious aesthetic with the values of sustainable fashion—a far cry from standard templates.
5. SEO included from the start
This isn't the case for all agencies, but at Digital 64, we've chosen to include SEO from the very beginning in every project: meta tags, clean HTML structure, heading hierarchy, performance, internal linking, etc.
Why did we make this choice? To make sure you can visible on Google and to have a website that meets its objectives right from the start.
6. Google Analytics to track your results
Many agencies plan ahead to analyze future performance metrics. At Digital 64, we set up Google Analytics so you can track visits, page views, and user behavior. Plus, we’re here to teach you how to interpret this data and understand how your site is performing. Performance analysis is a powerful tool for continuous improvement.
7. Underestimated maintenance and hosting costs
Many clients realize too late that the real work begins after the site goes live: updates, security, backups, reliable hosting… We include one year of maintenance with every project, giving you complete peace of mind. This way, you can rest assured and count on our support even after the project is delivered.
8. No mandatory subscription, no hidden fees
With us, you own your website. You pay a one-time fee with no commitment and no mandatory monthly subscription, for a straightforward service with no hidden surprises. We make it a point of honor to offer a transparent and clear model so you can enjoy a stress-free experience.
❌ Disadvantages of the agency
Higher initial cost: Hiring an agency is more expensive than doing it yourself or hiring a freelancer, but it’s a worthwhile investment in the long run.
The process is sometimes more structured: timelines may depend on the agency’s schedule, although at Digital 64, we make it a point of honor to meet deadlines and remain responsive.
Conclusion: Which solution is right for you?
Build your own website:
✅ Advantages: cost-effective, quick to set up
❌ Cons: unprofessional, no SEO, little room for growth
Created by a freelancer:
✅ Benefits: flexible, personalized, personal and professional
❌ Disadvantages: skills limited to one or two specializations, dependency, little support, and additional costs not apparent at the outset
Designed by an agency:
✅ Benefits: professional, comprehensive, SEO included, maintenance
❌ Disadvantages: Higher initial cost (but long-term durability and cost-effectiveness)
Ready to create a website that reflects who you are and really delivers results? 🚀
Chez Digital 64, notre agence web du Pays Basque accompagne des professionnels et d’ailleurs à prendre en main leur présence digitale avec la création de sites fiables, rapides, visibles et bien conçus. Mais nous faisons cela dans une véritable stratégie digitale globale.
Contact our team to discuss your website development project.
Check out our website dedicated to website design : I'm exploring
