6 reasons you shouldn’t build your own website
Doing it yourself can be cheaper…for now With so many apps, sites, and forever-improving technologies now available to us, it’s finally possible to achieve nearly anything by Doing It Yourself. EVen something as complex as building your own website. But the question is, how do you know when to D.I.Y. and when it’s time to bring in the experts? When it comes to building a professional, presentable and functional website,…
Doing it yourself can be cheaper…for now
With so many apps, sites, and forever-improving technologies now available to us, it’s finally possible to achieve nearly anything by Doing It Yourself.
EVen something as complex as building your own website.
But the question is, how do you know when to D.I.Y. and when it’s time to bring in the experts?
When it comes to building a professional, presentable and functional website, we believe that it’s okay to ask for help.
In fact, we highly recommend it. And here’s 6 reasons why:
1. Do you have the T I M E?
Time is money. You don’t want to waste it, do you?
Building your own website from scratch is going to take AN AWFUL LOT of time.
You might as well go ahead and say goodbye to your weekends, eVenings, lunch breaks, sales pitches, product improvements, and anything OTHER than technical website stuff for the foreseeable future.
Now, don’t get us wrong – we’re all about doing things for free when you can and learning important skills along the way.
But we also believe that it’s important to ask the question: is this project going to waste my time or fulfil it?
2. You might not have the required skills or access to the right tools
As we said, there are PLENTY of tools these days that can help you do just about anything. Which we love!
And while these tools can empower you to do amazing things, they often have a limit to their capabilities. A limit that can be expanded – for a fee.
Website builders like WordPress and Squarespace have a mammoth amount of pre-designed templates for you to choose from. However, there is a limit to the functionality and customisation that they offer.
Before you know it, you’ll be spending MONEY on plug-ins, extra features and better packages, and TIME on research that helps you understand each additional function.
3. Surprisingly, you are not your target audience
So you’ve got a product that you love. And you use it all the time. And you assume that you know EXACTLY what your customer wants to see on your website.
Being an expert in your industry means that yes, you know a whole lot about what you’re selling.
But it also means that you see your product, your website, and your business from the perspective of an expert. And not from the perspective of a customer.
This can be a problem when you’re building a site not for yourself, but for the people purchasing your product.
4. What do you know about SEO?
SEO is the new black in the digital realm. When executed correctly, it increases traffic to your site and helps you climb the ranks of Google.
SEO is a necessity for your website if you want people to find it. And it is something that can be learned, as with anything.
However, it takes a lot of research, time, and practice to get a good handle on it. It’s also ever-changing, so just when you think you have a handle on it, it’s back to the drawing board.
There are many facets to SEO including on-page, off-page, technical and local.
An ongoing, never-ending process, it will take precious time away from you to improve, sell, and work on your product.
5. Your website is browser-friendly but what about mobile?
So you’ve built a website on your laptop and it all looks B-E-A-UTIFUL. Yay!
And then you check it out on your mobile and it looks like a 1980s game of Tetris gone horribly wrong.
Why? Because building a website means making it compatible across all devices, including mobiles, desktops, iPads, and more.
If you’re lucky, you’ll get a template that does all the hard work for you. But if not, you’re looking at another fee.
Oh, how we (don’t) love those hidden fees.
6. Technical support and maintenance
Holy Mackerel – you’ve built a whole website! That’s a HUGE effort and you should be proud. We sure are!
But now you realise the need for technical support and ongoing maintenance. Eek!
When something breaks (as websites tend to do), how will you fix it? Do you have the time?
Learning all of the technical stuff is impressive and empowering, absolutely. However, if you’re busy learning the nitty-gritty of your website, you’re NOT focusing on your product.
And your product is where your focus should be.
Short-term pain for long-term gain
So what have we established? Two things:
1. Building your own website is something that you are 100% capable of doing (and our hats off to you if you achieve it!).
2. But for the reasons stated above, you should really get a trained professional(s) to do it for you.
If you enlist the experts to build your website, it’ll have a look, feel, and user experience that’s unique to you.
You can customise it as much as you want and there will be no limit to your site’s capabilities.
And all that good stuff means potential customers are far more likely to stick around, browse through your site and purchase your product!
