Thank You Economy Revolution

Find out some of the benefits that you will get from hiring a professional web designer...

Marty Note
Excellent article and reasoning here. For websites designed by pros I would include: 

* Convert better (caveat below). 
* Be FASTER (very important).
* SEO Better.

I could go on, but why (lol). If you don't want a pro to do your web design after reading those three BIG ones then I'm not going to change your mind with a long list (and good luck to you by the way).

Caveat
My caveat is you pay designers to think about beauty. Great designers like the ones I work with at Atlantic BT also think about SEO and conversion. Not ALL designers think beyond the pretty pictures and that can HURT your website.

Listen for how potential designers think about SEO, conversion and handing the keys to the car to YOU to maintain.

This last idea is the MOST IMPORTANT one. You must learn to fish with the website a designer builds for you. If they create something so complicated only they can maintain it they've hurt your website.

They (any designer) can't move as fast or as well as YOU in your vertical so never get strung out by an overly complicated design and make sure you know how you will maintain THEIR design.