Firstly let's consider what web design is. Basically this is the art of creating the visual images of a website. Usually this will be a graphic designer who will have a good understanding of colours and what to do to make your site look great.
Your website designer will be able to understand how to create a beautiful website and how the navigation should work. Usually your web designer with have abilities in HTML and so will be able to create a very simple website where the pages link up.
You will usually find that you will need to provide your web designer with all the content for your website in advance so that they can set this all out on the pages and provide you with a finished site. You will probably then have to go back to them to make changes to the content that appears on your site.
Basically the idea behind web design is to design a great looking site that is static with little or no functionality.
Web Development
Web development is a more all round service and will give you a lot more. A good web development firm will employ graphic designers that can create you that beautiful looking site you are after. That designer will then pass your designs onto a developer to take it forward.
A web developer will also be able to do the HTML, as the web designer and create the static website that will allow you to move from one page to another. However a web developer will be able to add a lot more functionality to your website as well as make it more dynamic.
One of the extra features a quality web developer will be able to provide you with is a content management system. This is basically a back office system that will allow you to edit the content on your site. This can involve changing text, adding images and even adding pages. This quite clearly gives you a lot more flexibility and means you will not need to rely on someone else to get your site updated.
Other things that can be added, are newsletter databases, logins and any function that allows the end user to interact with your site, including buying products from you. These functions all require much more knowledge of programming a different languages than a web designers requires.
Conclusion
There are many advantages to using a web designer, they may be cheaper as they will do less work for one. However a major disadvantage is that you will need to pay every time you want to change something on your site, and may have to wait several days or weeks for that change to be made.
The advantages of using a web developer are there for everyone to see. Not only will you get a great looking website, but you will have control over it after it is complete. Yes this may cost you a bit if extra cash upfront but in the long run it will save you a fortune, not only in money but also in time.
We would always recommend using a firm that has experience in both web design and web development so that you can get the best possible website for your needs.
