When your new business needs a website, the question of whether you can build it by yourself will undoubtedly cross your mind. The simple answer is yes, of course you can. The more complicated answer is… it depends.
There are plenty of online tools for creating a professional-looking website quickly and easily, without knowing anything about web design. However, before you take the DIY plunge, it’s worth considering a few important points.
Single page site
If you just need a nice-looking single page site that tells people what you do and how to contact you, any of the free site builders are going to do the trick. They usually come with drag-and-drop templates and require no more than a standard level of computer literacy to use. As long as you have some good-resolution images and a bit of content to populate the site, you’ll be good to go. Popular DIY site makers include Weebly, Wix and Squarespace.
However, it’s important to remember that the free versions of these website builders come with some drawbacks, including limitations on how much you can customise your page, the amount of data storage and bandwidth you can access, the amount of technical support you’ll receive, and the types of features you can have (such as e-commerce). They also require you to use a subdomain of their website address rather than your own URL, and you’ll have to share hosting with all the other free sites made through their service, which could cause your page to load slowly.
Multiple page websites
f you want to retail a large product inventory online, have a very specific site look and feel in mind, or plan on expanding in the future, you’ll need to pay for their premium features, which can work out more expensive over time than if you’d paid someone to design a site for you that you can publish on an affordable hosting plan of your choice.
Another thing to consider is the cost of your time. Again, a single page site won’t take you long to get up and running. But if you plan to create a more comprehensive site in something like WordPress, you’ll need to take into account that there is a bit of a learning curve involved, and it may take you many days or weeks to get your site to a finished state. If that takes you away from paying work, it could well be a false economy to go down the DIY route.
How will it perform in search
You should also think about how well you want your site to perform in search engines like Google. Search engine optimisation is vital to help your site appear higher in people’s searches and drive organic traffic to your page. Your site will need to be optimised for mobile, fast-loading, and have content containing specific keywords to appeal to Google’s algorithm. If search engine rankings are important to you, it’s a good idea to bring a web design specialist on board.
Now how your website works
On the flip side, one of the big pros of creating your own website is that you know exactly how it works, and it is therefore much easier to update whenever you need to, without having to call someone else in. This ability is especially important if you have an online store and continuously update your product list and pricing. If you get your site created by a professional web designer, it’s important to make sure the handover comes with training so that you can make ongoing content changes yourself.
When you get your small business website built by Moreweb, we’ll provide you with an easy-to-use interface and complete training on how to manage your site, plus ongoing web design assistance at preferential rates if you need to make more extensive changes.
If you’d like to find out about getting a modern, eye-catching website that’s optimised for SEO and mobile, get in touch today!
