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The Pros and Cons of the Do-It-Yourself Website

Whether you are a business owner or an entrepreneur, your online presence can make or break your professional enterprise. Having a compelling and relevant website is essential to establishing yourself as a serious competitor in your industry. It can also have a massive impact on the success of your business.

Keep in mind that the vast majority of your potential customers will visit your website before deciding whether to purchase your products or services. And the quality of your website has a lot to do with whether you can convert visitors into customers, which is critical toward establishing a reliable pool of new customers for your business.

In today’s digital age, you need a dynamic website to attract new consumers in order to ensure a healthy bottom line.

The challenge then becomes figuring out if it is to your benefit to create your own website.  You immediately think of the money you could save. You wonder if by doing it yourself, you might be able to create a website closer to your specifications. Maybe you could complete the site faster if you take complete ownership of the online marketing project.

As you can imagine, there are pros and cons to utilizing the DIY method for website development. In this space, we will explore the benefits and the challenges of creating your own website.  We will showcase various aspects of your DIY website fulfillment solution, including the associated costs, design elements, time involved, and the skills required to create your own website.

We anticipate that once you’ve read this blog article, you will be equipped to decide for yourself whether building your own site best suits your online presence needs.

Pros & Cons of DIY Website Development

PRO:  Cost of the Website

Creating your own website may save you some money, at least at the outset. Whether its Wix or Squarespace, you probably will be able to take advantage of special offers. Saving money for basic website development services is especially coveted by small business owners and start-up companies.

However, there are hidden costs associated with these DIY website construction services.

Here are just some of the additional costs you will invariably incur if you want to have a dynamic, compelling website:

Costs associated with branding. If you use a prefabricated website service, you will still require graphics designed to showcase your branding for your business. This cost is normally included when you hire a professional marketing agency to build your website. You are likely to shell out at least $75 to $100 per hour for graphics work.

 Then there is SEO, or Search Engine Optimization, that you will need for your website. Web designers typically have the SEO tools to ensure your online presence includes SEO capabilities. If you vie for the DIY option for website development, you will need to purchase the SEO tools yourself or hire an SEO expert to incorporate SEO keywords into your site so your potential new customers can find your business online quickly and easily. Keep in mind that you will need to regularly update SEO keywords to ensure your website is current and still drawing online users to your site in adequate numbers.

 There are also security features. DIY website builders usually do not include security features in their website development packages. There is no cutting corners when it comes to having a safe and secure website.  If you go it alone on your website creation project, you will need to hire someone or a company to provide adequate security for your site. You will likely spend at least $15 per month for an automated security program and substantially more than this for someone to actually institute and monitor your security settings.

 You will also require a secondary service to ensure your website is saved and safe. This will probably cost at minimum $10 a month.

 PRO:  Ease of Use

You are probably aware of popular spokespeople touting the ease of use of building your own site.  This is true. For example, Wix and Squarespace offer their customers scores of templates that are categorized by industry. You simply drag and drop various elements and you enjoy the relatively easy process of creating a visually appealing website.

You do not need any programing skills to accomplish building a basic and simple site.

However, you do need to have website development knowledge if you wish to create a fully customized website using a content management system like WordPress. You will also have to hire the services of a website development professional to assist you with competently producing a customized site.

PRO:  Immediate Feedback

 As you personally put together your website, you can solicit input from people who have legitimacy in online marketing. You can also ask loyal customers to give their impressions of your site as it is being developed.  This feedback is invaluable and can influence the positive changes you make to ensure your website is as effective and relevant as possible.

You have complete control of how and when you inquire of others their opinions of how your website appears and how user-friendly it is. This frequent feedback allows you to adjust quickly to be sure your website is meeting the needs of new and existing customers for your business.

 CON:  Time

 As a business owner or entrepreneur, your time is extremely valuable. You have to devote considerable time and energy toward the day-to-day operation of your company and make sure that no critical aspects of your business get overlooked.

Creating a website yourself takes quite a bit of time, when done right. This takes time away from growing your business. Whereas a competent website design company handles all facets of your website development. This company will be completely responsible for product updates, online security, uploading the right images and photos, and ensuring that your online branding is optimally effective.

By handing off all of the website development work to a professional marketing agency, you can be exclusively focused on tending to important matters of your business.

CON:  Limited Templates

Despite touting their templates as customizable, both Wix and Squarespace have extensive limitations. For example, you don’t have the ability normally with pre-fashioned templates from DIY services like Wix and Squarespace to move text and images exactly to where you want them.

What’s more, these one-sized fits all templates restrict how creative and dynamic your website can be. Keep in mind that your business is unique and you want your website to reflect the distinct personality of your company. You want your site to stand out from your competitors’ websites. This is next-to-impossible to achieve with ready-made templates.

Conversely, when you hire a website development company to build your site, it can be as unique and customizable as you want. There are virtually no limits to the ways they can tailor your website to accurately represent the unique qualities of your products and services.

CON:  Lacking Professionalism

Even if you utilize all of the development features of a DIY website service, people will still be able to tell that your site does not appear as professional as it should. An example of this is the invasive ads that infiltrate your site. These ads compromise your customer experience.

Free websites will tend to read like canned products to online users and that includes your potential new customers. People are drawn to creative flair and innovative use of space on a website. They want to be “wowed” and perceive your website as special and unique from your competitors’ sites. In order to pull this off, you need to have a first-rate, professional site that dazzles anyone who comes to your website.

CON:  Website Support

 You will find that DIY websites do not offer support for your website. Invariably, websites experience bugs and frequently need to be updated. If it is all on you, then you are solely responsible for making updates, fixing technical glitches and troubleshooting, all of which can take an inordinate amount of time.  This drains your energy and resources that could be better spent running your business.

Making the Right Decision for Your Business

As a business owner or entrepreneur, you are faced with many decisions every day, and they are often critical decisions. This applies to determining which direction you will pursue for building your website. There is much to deliberate when you examine the pros and cons of creating a website by yourself.

Keep in mind that your website plays a big role in whether your business will be a success or failure. And if a DIY site takes a lot of time and energy to develop – even if it might save you money in the short term, you could be sacrificing a lot when it comes to devoting substantial time and energy to running your business.

Remember, the end goal with your website is to convert visitors into customers.  So when it comes to searching for a website designer, go with a company that is trustworthy and proven.

Let Lemon Head Design Help Your Business Succeed Online

Lemon Head Design is a web services agency that has a proven track record of helping businesses be successful with well-designed, money-making websites. Our award-winning designers produce websites with the user in mind so businesses can more easily connect with potential customers.

Among the online services we provide are Web development, Web maintenance, graphic design, marketing services, and Chatbot with Live Chat and SMS.

With Lemon Head Design, we will create a professional, eye-catching website that attracts the people you want as customers, all while contributing to your bottom line! 

For more than a dozen years, Lemon Head Design has been the premier source for website design in Utah. We have helped hundreds of our clients succeed online.  Why shouldn’t our next client be you?

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