Do you have a website for your business? If not, you’re seriously behind the times. A website is a must-have for any business in today’s digital age, not having one can make a business seem less legitimate. With so many customers nowadays turning to the web as their first port of call, with no website your customer base potential could be on a steady decline.
But should you build your own website, or hire someone else to do it for you? You may ask yourself, can I build a website for free? Actually there are many DIY website design tools currently available that make it now possible to make a website free. But are the free websites all they are cracked up to be? What are the catches? How do they really compare to a professionally created site. What are the unknown factors of creating a website for your own business?
Here are some pros and cons to help you decide
Using a DIY Website Builder: The Pros
You could save some money
Start ups and small businesses usually have a tight budget. As such it can seem quite appealing to save thousands of dollars on something that could potentially cost nothing at all. The cost of a website from a digital agency will generally start from around $2000-$3000. For many business owners, new to the world of the internet, this fee can seem like an unnecessary expense, especially those possessing an IT skill or two.
Create your own timeline
You can make it happen whenever you want. Need a new website tomorrow? No problem, just sit yourself in front of the desktop, pour yourself a few cups of coffee and whittle away at it into the wee hours of the night.
Good website designers are usually busy, often having to juggle more than one project at once and may not get to yours as fast as your would always like. A DIY website means you can start and finish whenever you want.
You know what the quality will be like
Hiring professionals, no matter what the profession sometimes poses the risk of a poor outcome. Hire someone to paint your house and you’ll only really know what the quality is like when they’ve completed it. The same goes for website designers. The internet is littered with budget ‘professional’ website designers who can sometimes turn out to be complete amateurs. If you create your own website, you know the quality of workmanship you’ll get.
You know your business better than anyone
A website designer you hire is not an employee of your business and may understand your niche but will not understand the nuances of your business like you do. A great way to ascertain if you’re hiring a good webs designer is the level of questions and understanding they try to develop before commencing the project.
Develop a new skill
Building a new website for scratch can be fun but can also be a great learning experience, especially if you’re new to website design. Many of the DIY website builders like WIX, WEEBLY and SQUARESPACE are easy to use to create a basic website. WORDPRESS is a more powerful builder with almost unlimited potential but is more difficult to use. Many website developers use WORDPRESS when creating websites for their clients.
Using a DIY Website Builder: The Cons
It WILL take longer than you think
A good rule of thumb when creating your own website for the first time is to estimate how long you think it will take and then double or even triple it. Even with drag and drop software, you could reasonably expect to be glued to the front of your desktop for several days before you have anything ready to go public. Time taken for testing, proof reading, creating good copy and making alterations all need to be taken into account. Let’s also not forget about the time it takes to make your website optimised for mobile devices.
Your website may lack uniqueness
Many website builders use free templates that are used over and over. The paid ones look better but if your there to build a free website, you want it to be free right? Using these free DIY website builder templates may mean that your website is destined to look similar to many other websites already out there.
You may focus on design over customer experience
Everyone wants a cool looking website these days and DIY builders are no different. However a good professional website designer will also know what layout and content will keep your customers on the page. Have you ever landed on a website and thought “Wow, that looks good” but you had no idea what the website was even about?
Search Engine Optimisation can be tricky
Marketing your website to rank well on search engines such as GOOGLE can be complex. You might have a fair idea of the basics, but not getting Local SEO right could mean the difference from landing on the 1st page or the 5th. Keyword research is a must for creating a new website, especially in competitive niches. Most developers use paid for 3rd party software for advanced keyword research. Whilst free versions of these exist albeit with limited functionality, it can take considerable time to learn to use these tools effectively.
Would you like fries with that? Don't forget about the up-sell
Free websites builders are great in theory, but that’s not the real business model for these companies. The free website is the bait to lure you into one of their paid for packages often up to $40 per month. Removing annoying ads, adding a favicon, visitor analytics, customer support or boosting your site are just a few of the up-sells awaiting the unsuspecting DIY website builder.
You need to value your own time
Too often business owners trying to work to a budget will opt for doing something themselves to save money. However by doing it themselves they fail to recognise the value of their own time. They often getting bogged down in tasks that could and should be outsourced. Let’s conservatively say that your time in the business is worth $40 per hour. If you were able to create a website in three, (eight hour) days at $40 per hour, it would theoretically cost $960. As a business owner can you afford taking this time away from growing your business?
Ongoing maintenance
It would be great to set and forget your website. However, just like a garden, your websites need ongoing care and maintenance. Websites, like gardens have bugs. Bugs need to be removed, updates and fixes need to be taken care of and SEO needs to be analysed regularly. Failure to do these could result in reduction in website ranking, poor site performance or even the site crashing completely.
Website Security
Professional website designers know how to make sure that the site it’s secure for you and your customers. Not only does this create better trust in your business, but it also helps your site rank better in searches. GOOGLE penalises websites that are not secure or that don’t appear to be legitimate.
Weighing Up All The Options
At the end of the day whether or not to build your own website comes down to an individual choice and what’s right for your business.
While there certainly are benefits of creating your own website, these need to be carefully lined up against the time and effort required. Developing new skills and saving some money short term might seem great initially but in the long run income is what your business needs.
Your goal in business is to attract visitors to your website and convert as many of them as possible into paying customers. Can this be achieved building your own website? Most likely not to the level of a professional website developer, and certainly not without a lot of ongoing work.
Your move!
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