Honestly, I think you are missing the point of using a designer to help. A website is not a choice between technically effective and pretty. Designing a website to be truly effective is all about clear communication and getting the information you need people to know in order for them to want to buy your product as clearly and efficiently as possible.
This is achieved through; typographic hierarchy, image, image and type placement (left-right brain stuff) and many other factors that take years of experience and aptitude to know – as with any other skill or craft.
Of course, a website’s technical foundations have to be solid too, but all too often website design Is tackled from only a practical and technical stand point, with aesthetic considerations (by which, I don’t mean pretty adornment) all but ignored. I am afraid your site seems to fall into this category.
There is little point getting a site to rank in the top three, if once people see it, they walk away. That is the same as investing in a shop in High Street Ken and not bothering to put anything in the window. You may get the footfall (well, not at the moment, perhaps!), but they will probably walk straight past. It would be commercial suicide, as much as dressing the window yourself would be. You need people who know what they are doing to encourage people to walk through the door.
Naturally, the aesthetic of your website should be different to an architect’s, or a photographer’s. Your product and business has its own, unique tone of voice. It is the job of the designer to reflect this and tell your story,
People deliver bad news in a completely different way than they would tell their child a bedtime story. If you mixed the two up, your message would simply not ring home and you’d likely be awake all night with an insomniac toddler. Of course, this is a gross over-simplification, but you can see where I am going.
The other consideration, which others have touched on, is that just learning word press, or SEO, or css, etc, etc is unlikely to ever have the desired result, I could go and learn all there is to know about sheet fabrication and the production of PCBs and it would not mean I could do what you do.
Get your tone of voice right and speak to the people you need to speak to in the way they expect to be spoken to.
I have a client who manufactures radio amplifiers. Initially he came at it from a not too dissimilar, objective, scientific, practical standpoint and employed a similar DIY, kitchen table approach to all his business communication.
In the end, he realised that he wasn’t getting beyond a very narrow, niche audience. He and I put our heads together and determined what it was that is unique about who he is and what he does. His is fairly high-end kit and sits on the cusp of serious amateur and commercial, but it appeared only to be selling into the bedroom amateur market and at the price point, not all that often. Quite simply, he had the wrong tone of voice, so the wrong people were listening. After creating a coherent, consistent brand that extendEd right through all he produced, from leaflets to website, to the graphics on the amps themselves, a couple of years on and he is doing very well.
To that end, I think you need to be thinking about getting your brand image right before even thinking about your website (the site’s aesthetic would, in turn, be driven by the brand identity), It’s all about building your personality, or rather communicating it. You already have a brand. It is who you, what you do, how you do it, but at the moment, you are telling people all about it in a pretty monotone voice. On the upside, you may get the toddler to doze off!
Apologies if this all appears somewhat harsh, but there is little point in sugar-coating, as that would be of no use to you whatsoever. I hope it helps. If not, feel free to ignore it.