Should I DIY my Website?

When we first started creating websites back in 2005, if a client wanted to DIY (do-it-yourself) any portion of the site, they would have had to learn how to code. Today, however, there is a bevy of website builders all claiming to have the most user-friendly interface, with the best templates, and all the tools needed to sky-rocket your business. If you’re starting (or building) a business on a budget (and who isn’t?) it may seem really attractive to just quickly throw together a site using one of the website builders. Just because you can, however, doesn’t always mean you should. It’s a decision that’s worth weighing carefully, since for some projects a professional cannot be replaced by a tool.

When we talk with customers who are considering a DIY site, these are the main things we discuss.

Time – 

In our experience, here is how building a DIY site goes for a client… The client signs up for the account and spends a few hours putting together a “good enough” template by dropping in their logo and maybe a photo or two. They add whatever content they can pound out on their keyboard during that time with little thought to what their story is and what may be important to their customers. Then they publish what they have created with the intention of coming back and refining it once they have more time. Spoiler alert – there is never more time. 

As a business owner, you’ll find that as you are growing, you are wearing 100 different hats. You’ll be networking, supporting, invoicing, stressing, actually working, crying (j/k that’s just me), and doing 100 different things that don’t leave you with extra time to sit down and really create a website that is an asset for your business. This illusion of consistently working on your marketing and website someday rarely becomes a reality. Our number one reason to avoid a DIY website is to allow you to do what you do best – actually work with your clients.

Your best foot forward – 

If your next best and biggest client were to go to your website right now, would they be impressed? Would they have a deep and immediate understanding of how you can help them solve the problems they are facing? 

Things like slow loading times, un-tagged images, improper title tags, dead links, and poor user experience are all pitfalls of building a site when you don’t really know the in’s and out’s of building a site properly. Your site is a reflection of your business. Are you putting your best foot forward? 

Objective – 

During our sales cycle, we talk to the business owner a lot about what should go on their site. Often, our opinion and the business owner’s opinion are not inline. Some business owners are very “me or we” focused and talk a lot about themselves. We tend to look at websites and all digital marketing from the “what’s in it for me” point of view. If I was your customer and I went to your site, can I easily see “what’s in it for me?” 

Hiring a professional means you’ll get the technical aspects done correctly, but it also means that you’ll have an objective voice in helping you determine what should go on your site. Looking at what matters to your customers and organizing the data properly for your site is one of best things you will get by working with a professional.

Expertise – 

One thing I love and hate about the digital marketing industry is that no one will ever know everything. This industry changes daily and there is no handbook telling you what Google is going to do with their next update or bulletin from hackers letting you know vulnerabilities before they are exploited. You have to be on top of the industry news every day in order to remain relevant in the digital marketing space. 

While DIY solutions tend to take some of the worry out of your hands (many are closed environments which makes hacking harder) they also really limit what you can do. Many templates/themes are not inherently ADA compliant (read more about that here) – and even if they were, the changes you make to the template may make it non-compliant. 

When creating a page, there are certain best practices that you can ignore if you DIY which may make your site not mobile friendly, slow to load, and/or not easy to find in the search engines.

Connections – 

If you’ve seen any of our marketing, you know that we are of the opinion that a solid website is the main hub in your marketing wheel – but it is not the only thing. Social media, email marketing, Google Ads, and landing pages all have a place in your marketing plan and they all need to be connected. 

The only way to really know if your marketing is working is to track it. If you’re not able to add your Google Tag Manager or have your forms write to your email marketing system, or offer free downloads with email sign up, your systems are not working for you and there is no way to tell what marketing efforts are working for you. 

Making these technical connections between site and email marketing system and social platforms isn’t rocket science – but it does take a knowledge of systems and tools that most people not in this industry don’t possess.

If you’re still deciding between hiring a professional and doing a DIY site, I hope this post has shed some light on why going alone may not be the best idea. I’ll wrap up with the suggestion that this decision does not have to be all-or-nothing. The majority of our clients hire us to do the initial layout and build of their site and then use our training services to learn how to make updates to the site on their own.

Building a site in this hybrid type model ensures that everything is set up correctly from the start and that any updates that need to be made will be done in a way that keeps the look and feel of the site consistent and compliant.

If you think it’s time for a website refresh or are needed a new website, contact us for a quote today!