Top Reasons To NOT Build Your Own Website
It is in human nature to always look for the most trouble-free option available. But, sometimes, even though the simplest and the best option is to hire a professional, the scrooge in us comes alive and makes you go down the hard path. After all, there are so many website builders available in the market with ready templates. So, how hard can it be, right? Wrong! We have had so many clients come to us with a broken or unprofessional looking website that had to be redesigned extensively. The amount of time and money wasted to maintain or update a DIY website quickly outweighs any savings you make initially. Here are the top reasons to NOT build your website on your own.
1: Time is Money
Your website is the first place a potential lead will check to know more about your products, services, and your brand as a whole. The first impression matters, and to create an impactful impression, you should put time and effort into your website. While the thought of building a website on your own in a couple of hours is an attractive option, perfection takes time.
Don’t rush the creative process behind building a site that embodies your brand. When you turn to DIY site-building options, you’ll have to invest more time in the future to keep up with the dynamic web development world as well as your growing business. Time and tide wait for none; if you don’t arm yourself with a functional website, your business won’t keep up with the competition.
2: It takes Experience to build an Efficient website
Building an effective website takes experience and expertise. Period. There may be scores of ready-to-build web builders in the market. But, the accuracy and efficacy of a creative process are products of experience.
You can build a good-looking website using templates available in CMS such as WIX and WordPress. There is no guarantee the website you designed will enhance user experience and drive traffic. Without years of experience, you won’t be able to assess how well your website will perform and how you can improve it.
Here’s what happened recently with one of our clients for whom we had just finished building a WordPress site. The client found an ‘amazing’ plugin and installed it, without consulting us. The website broke! Our web development team on analysis found that there was a conflict with an existing plugin, and proceeded to fix it. We had to restore the site from the last backup. Unfortunately, some of the work was overwritten and we had to redo it.
3: Building your own site is actually more expensive
The main reason behind business owners doing their own website building is money. Building your website seems like an inexpensive and easy quick-fix solution for an instant online presence. Most website builders offer free or low-cost templates that you can use to build a site quickly. However, more often than not, this is a bane rather than a boon.
The “free” services only provide you with the bare minimum required to build a website. High-cost monthly subscriptions follow the free trials, forcing you to pay to do more edits on your website. Web hosting and domain registration require additional payment. If something goes wrong, you’ll have to either spend hours on public forums or call in an IT technician for an hourly rate. In short, self-build websites become an expensive burden very quickly. And that is one of the key reasons to avoid building a website on your own.
4: Limited Customisation Possibilities
Since building own website is a way to save money, business owners prefer to work on free or low-cost plans from the website building platforms. These plans give you limited customisation possibilities. The aim behind creating a website is to establish a solid online footing for the business. How can you do that when the options you have are sparse?
Any additional feature you want to include in your site would require a new plug-in. Plug-ins cost money, and thus you’ll have to either upgrade your current plan or be satisfied with a website that does not suit your vision. Designing a good website also requires other skills. You have to be well-versed in editing, illustrating, photoshop, site analytics, marketing, and the list goes on. To do them accurately, you’ll need tools such as Adobe Photoshop, Adobe Illustrator, Technical Audit Tools, Competitor analysis software, etc. These resources are expensive and hard to perfect.
5: Websites need to be SEO-friendly
Using a website as a marketing tool doesn’t end at creating and publishing it. A website is successful only when it ranks high in search results of browsers like Google and Bing. For a website to rank well, it has to be search engine optimised.
SEO is a constantly changing landscape. Google updates its ranking criteria frequently, and unless your website meets those criteria, all the time and money you put into building it will go down the drain. Without proper SEO knowledge, it’ll be hard to manage and promote your website for organic growth.
6: Performance and Appearance matters
Your website has a significant role in marking the credibility of your brand. For a customer to trust your brand, your website has to look professional and neat. The website you build with pre-existing templates will fail to be a strong, unique, and trustworthy image for your brand.
Slow-loading pages with constant layout shifts will be a huge turn-off for your customers, and at times, lead to high bounce rates. The website has to be pleasing to the eye and responsive. If your website fails to load fittingly on mobile devices, it is safe to assume you’re losing potential customers.
7: Support
Things can go wrong with your website performance any time of the day. It could be due to browser updates; it could be due to hosting issues. The elements could have functional issues. When such problems arise, it can be headache-inducing even for professionals. Searching for solutions in FAQs and public forums of website builders could take hours. These wasted hours will be an unfavourable hit to your productivity.
If you partner with a web designing company, they will be monitoring your website regularly to ensure smooth functioning. You will receive timely support as well to solve issues asap, and decrease downtime.
Website building is a pivotal aspect of digital marketing. While a build-your-own website might be a quick solution for the moment, self-built websites do not persist in the long run. There are many reasons not to build your own website, some of which we discussed above. If you have any queries on website building or need assistance creating a new website, we have your back. Contact us or email us at sales@computingaustralia.group. Our experienced team of professionals at Perth will be happy to aid you any time.
Jargon Buster
Web hosting – is an online service that enables you to publish a website by allocating space on a web server for a website to store its files.
Layout shifts – is when a visible element on a webpage changes its position or size.
Plug-ins – is a software add-on that adds a specific feature to an existing program without making any changes to the program itself.
by The Computing Australia Group