Why you shouldn’t use a DIY website builder
At Start Digital we get a lot of enquiries from clients that have attempted to build their own business website. There are so many options available that claim to make building a website ‘easy’ that it’s easy to see why people try it for themselves. There are however many reasons why you shouldn’t use a DIY website builder such as Wix or Weebly.
Let’s tackle the big one first. You’ll save money by building it yourself. Well, no. Uh uh.
We’ll look at this further down the page (point 2. SEO) but, in short, a DIY website will not compete with your competitors and will likely not be found at all. If you consider the real cost of having an unprofessional web design you’ll see that it’s more about missed opportunities.
Imagine for a minute that your website is performing well and gets one job per week through the site contact form. Lets attached $250 to each job that comes through your website.
- 1 x $250
- 52 x $250 = $13,000 per year
For each year that your DIY web design is live your business is losing $13,000!
Lets look at a few other reasons why you shouldn’t use a DIY website builder.
Professionalism
It might be easy to build a website but will it look professional and, importantly, will it perform and promote your business? Perception is everything and having a professional looking website is vital if you’re going to win clients and beat your competitors.
A DIY website builder will get you so far but inevitably your site will look homemade and, unless homemade is your thing, it won’t be something you can proudly show to your clients.
Search Engine Optimisation (SEO)
DIY website builders make everything simple. Great right? Well, no. By hiding the code it may make the design simple but it confuses the hell out of Google. Why is this important? Well, Google loves to see websites that are well coded and clearly structured. It’s how it makes sense of your sites information. Your website could be the best looking site in the world…..ever but if the coding behind it is poor then it may as well not exist in Google terms.
At Start Digital we follow the Google Friendly guidelines for all of our websites. Our goal is to use honest, white hat strategies to become a leading provider of SEO Perth.
Site management
If you design a website using a DIY web design tool then you have to host it on their servers. There’s no other place to go. If you use the free option then it will include their name in the domain address (see point 1 re Professionalism) and if you attach it to your own domain you have to pay a hosting fee. Either way, you’re locked into a system that you have no control over and, over time, could cost you as much to manage as it would to have a professional web design.
Ownership
When Start Digital hand over their Perth made web design it’s owned by you. You own the content, the data, the plugins, the images. Not only does this give you the flexibility you’ll need to manage the site moving forward but it allows you to control every aspect of your web site. Everything.
If you design a web site on a DIY builder then it’s next to impossible to do anything else with it. You’re stuck. If you outgrow that site and need more control it’s very difficult to move your site and it’s content away. Want to rebuild your Wix website on WordPress. You’ll need to start again – and that can be pretty demoralizing.
Efficiency
Building a great looking website is hard and incredibly time consuming. Rather than spend valuable time working on a website you should be focusing on your clients, your staff and marketing. There’s a reason why there are a lot of professional Perth web development companies – Perth businesses need well designed, carefully crafted websites and they can’t build them on their own.
How much is your time worth?
If you’re a Perth business that’s looking for a cost effective web design solution then contact Start Digital today. We have a range of web design packages and marketing strategies to suit all businesses and can modify our services to fit with your budget. If you’re asking yourself how much does a website cost, please visit the Start Digital blog which outlines our project management process and highlights how we provide our quotes.