The Internet has fundamentally changed the way we work and live. Whether it is for effecting transactions, informing about or promoting your products or services, or simply for the sake of having some kind of presence in the 'virtual' world, a website is a prerequisite to tap the global marketplace. To make an impact on the visitors and retain them, effective web design is required.

You can have the website designed by professionals or use thousands of templates of the designs available online. The latter types are also called the do-it-yourself (DIY) sites.

Based on the distinguishing features of DIY, some of the situations in which the DIY sites can be used are listed below:

1.General Information Input: When the nature of information to be incorporated in the website is general and no special or distinctive content is required, then it is better to resort to the DIY formats. This is essentially true of small businesses where the limited number of products and services are dealt with.
2.Easy on Budget and Easy to Make: The DIY design templates are usually of lower cost than the professional web design. You can find thousands of templates being offered on the Internet by many companies around the world. There is a wide range available in terms of designs and prices. So you can find the web design quote suited to your budget. Also, these can be made in a few hours or days.
3.Ease of Updating: You can make amends in all the sections of the website, including in the template design and layout without waiting for the professional designer. If the site requires frequent updating, then the DIY alternatives are more convenient to use. Also, you do not need special software programming skills for this. A person with basic understanding of computer and the Internet can do it all alone.

The DIY web design services are not without limitations. Some of the points where professional services score more than the DIY are as follows:

1.More Attractive: Most of the DIY site templates are static designs. There is little or no dynamism that animations on the flash sites provide. So the innovative and unique graphic design along with the animations on the latter certainly makes a professionally designed website more attractive.
2. No Limitations: Professionals can work on a variety of technologies to make the site without limiting themselves to the predefined technologies of the DIY sites. Also, there are no limitations of design, layout, content, size, etc. This could be anything from integrating new forms of payment to social networking features.
3.Expensive and Time Consuming: Hiring a professional may be an expensive proposition compared to the DIY templates. It may consume considerable time and effort. It might take a couple of days and even months to make a site.
4.Optimization: A DIY website typically suffers when it comes to ranking highly in search engine results. Most professional web design companies will be able to build an already keyword optimized website.

Therefore, both the DIY and the professional web design services have their own relative merits and demerits, and a choice is usually made keeping in mind the aforementioned points.