Websites are very different in modern times and require many aspects to think about; Design, Front end, Back end, as well as the marketing parameters needed such as emails, SEO, SEM, advertising and marketing.
The design process covers the details such as colours, brand guidelines, the images to use, the fonts to stand out but also to be readable.
The front end often requires thought about how your customers/clients will use your site. This requires careful thought about where the navigations links, the titles, text content, as well as what information should be shown first. This all needs to be designed and coded. There are 'off the shelf' templates which can be utilised but you will often want something bespoke to your desires. Front end designs need to also consider the devices the users will have; mobile phone, tablets, or desktop. These devices have vastly different sizes which need to be considered, as well as coded.
The back end is the main configuration. If you are a developer, or handy with basic programming or configurations, you should be comfortable with back end development. If not, then web developers are not too expensive.
The need for marketing is depending on why you are creating your website in the first place. The main focus is to get an audience, new or old, returning and keeping up to date with your content, products, or brand. You also need to create a ranking within Google, which you may have already heard with the very often used SEO - search engine optimisation.
At Scenegraph, we develop our own sites; ScenegraphStudios.com, Pitch4D.com, ScanMeSeeMe.com.
We have also created many client sites; check out our Portfolio for more examples.