Are you wondering whether you should build your own website? As a small business owner, you’re probably used to wearing a lot of hats. You’re the CEO, Creative Director, and Head of Customer Service all rolled into one. If you’re thinking of adding Web Designer to your list of titles, here are some things to consider.
Front-End Design
The main reason to DIY your website is to cut costs. There are templates available from web hosts like WordPress and SquareSpace that cost significantly less than hiring a professional web designer. If your priority is to spend as little money as possible, this might be the right option for you. However, using these services will significantly restrict what you are able to do with your site, both visually, and functionally.
Unless you know how to code, your website is going to look like every other website that uses the same template. While there’s nothing wrong with that per se, it does give a vibe of being a bit less professional. A professionally designed custom website inspires confidence in the company. Take a look at the sites below. Can you tell which one is custom made and which one is a template?
Template
Custom
Knowledge of Market Trends
Professional web designers know the market. Not only do they know what the latest trends are in web design in general, but they will also understand the trends appearing in your specific field. Since trends in technology change rapidly, web designers have to constantly educate themselves in order to stay current. Chances are, you don’t already have that expert knowledge, or the time required to keep up-to-date.
Web Design and Marketing
If you have any kind of marketing background, then you understand that messaging is important, but it’s how you convey your message that can make or break your success. Web designers are experts in how to communicate your message to a web audience. They understand how to catch people’s attention and how to convert curious viewers into paying customers.
Usability
The most successful websites are user-friendly. Again, this comes down to knowledge. Do you have the data on what makes the best user experience? And do you have the technical ability to put that information to use? Most professional web designers have invested in a number of premium (read: expensive) licensed plug-ins to help create the best experience for site users.
SEO
We’ve just done a whole blog series on different ways to improve your SEO, but the most foundational way of all is to build a website with SEO performance in mind. If you don’t have a thorough understanding of how search engine crawlers work, how to handle metadata and tagging, or how to use software like Yoast, you will need to learn these things in order to build a successful site.
Back-End Management
Let’s say you have some mad coding skills and you’re able to build yourself a site that looks pretty legit. Awesome. How are you going to manage your site security? Do you have a private server? Do you know how to patch a bug? Or increase your disk quota? Have you purchased WP Rocket or looked into Clean Talk?
A lot of people don’t realize that web design isn’t a one-and-done deal. There are a lot of day-to-day elements to manage at the backend, and these can be very time-consuming. A full-service web design company (like DenWeb) will take care of all of these things for you.
The Bottom Line
So, can you build a website yourself? Yes. Should you do it yourself? Only you can answer that question, but unless you already have the skills, permissions, and licenses outlined above, you’re likely to end up sacrificing a ton of your valuable time to get a sub-par product.
We believe that time is a sacred resource. We only get so much of it in our lifetimes, so it’s important to use it wisely. Do you want to spend 100+ hours learning how to code so that you can build and manage your own website? Do you want to spend 40 hours a month managing security, running updates, troubleshooting, and analyzing SEO data? Or do you want to take that time and invest in what you are really passionate about? For us, it’s a no brainer.
