When I first saw the internet I was astonished at its potential. Having a newsprint publishing background, I was able to quickly understand that it was only a matter of time when having a website would not be a choice decision, but a mandatory one if a business was going to compete in their marketplace, whether it be local, statewide, national, or worldwide.

At that time I was the Marketing Director for a successful 7 figure plus a year remodeling construction firm. We handled all of our marketing in house, producing all of our promotional materials that was anchored by our own Home Improvement Monthly Newspaper which was delivered to the driveways of 10,000 single-family homes each month.

After recognizing the potential of the internet I was able to see the necessity of our firm expanding to the internet. Keeping with our established policy of in house marketing production, we elected to produce our own website. Believing in doing so, it would provide us with the same flexibility of our newspaper. The problem, however, was none of us knew anything, whatsoever, about producing and maintaining website. How bad could the learning curve be anyways?

To cut a long story short, I, after a considerable learning curve, was able to accomplish my goal of becoming a webmaster learning 5 different programming languages. In fact I enjoyed it so much I became a freelance web designer and have design a considerable number of sites requiring a varying degree of skill levels from the simple five page site to complicated community portals.

The sad truth, however, is that with each passing day, the need for the freelance web designer is diminishing as technology advances. Recently I read a blog post somewhere which was specifically challenging the need for a designer at all.

The author, a successful consultant in his field, stated that after several years of frustration with finding and maintaining a designer he could depend on, he researched the possibility of managing his own site making use of one of the many open source content management system (CMS) that are out there. The entire article was concerning the fact that not only was he able to locate a CMS which met all his needs and more, but how with a minimum learning curve he was able to produce a quality site for more flexible and interactive that what he had receive from the designer.

Having made use of several of the open source scripts out there in my development, I had little to do but to agree with the author. In fact, in my own design business I have gone almost exclusively to using open source programs for my clients.

For the same money charged, I am able to provide my clients with a far more effective and interactive site. In fact, being CSS based and template driven, the majority of my income now a days is derived from training office personal to administer the site in house, which is how I got started in the business in the first place.

Additionally, as the ability to store more and more information on the head of a pin increases, web hosting companies are being forced to develop and offer more and more point and click web development tools designed specifically for assisting the business to be able to produce and publish their site in house to attract and maintain business.

The writing is on the wall. While there will always be a need for Freelance Designers because there will always be those businesses who have no interests in managing their site in house, with the ease of all of the point and click development out there, with more and more coming out everyday, the market is shrinking daily.

My philosophy is simple... if you can't beat them, join them. While I don't expect my business to fall of the face of the earth tomorrow, I do recognize the need to shift emphasis from primarily designing sites to primarily counseling and training businesses to maintain and administer their own site in house.

To learn more about managing your business' website in house, or producing a quality home-based internet business visit http://quality-web-design.com .

Peter Bolduc is a Freelance Web Designer presently serving as the Webmaster and Marketing Manager for Second 8th Week Ministries, Inc. and maintains a local Web Design Business in Ruidoso, NM http://quality-web-design.com http://ruidosowebservices.com