The development of an effective website requires many skills apart from the ability to write HTML code and transfer files to a web server. A website is an important part of any business, on view for 24 hours a day, seven days a week 365 days of the year. It could also be the first contact a potential customer has with your business, and the first impression gained may well be a factor when deciding whether or not to do business with you. Most businesses/organisations call in expert help for the creation of their advertising and promotional materials and it makes sense to adopt the same policy for website development as well.
Also, once the time and effort required to learn how to produce effective and good looking results are taken into account, it can actually prove to be much more cost effective to call in professional help from the outset.
Another benefit of using a professional to develop your website is the cross-fertilization of ideas that occurs from project to project. For instance, an idea that worked well on one website may well be adapted to another completely different type of business.
Finally, most authoring software currently on the market does not generate HTML code that properly complies with latest Web standards.