There are a ton of solutions out there offering the quickest or easiest way for you as a busy business owner to create your own website. Creating your own website can have its advantages of course, especially if you’re right at the beginning of your business set up and money is tight and you still have time to spend on it. The reality is though, there are websites and then there are websites that really work well for your business. The question is which of these do you want to go for and which of these can you really build yourself?
Let’s look at all the reasons why, while building your own website might be an option, is it the best option for you and for your business?
You’ll need to learn the how and the what
No matter the platform you use, to build a website that works well for your business, you’ll need to learn. You’ll need to get used to how the platform you are using works as well as understanding the best way to create a website on that platform for your business. Not all businesses are the same, so not all websites should be the same. This means also learning about the best ways a website can work for your business, keep traffic on your site and turn website visitors into paying customers. These are all aspects of website design and development that can take professionals years of experience and a ton of practice and are aso things that change over time that even pros are kept on their toes, so really think about whether this really is a job for you to undertake.
Do you have time?
Creating a website for your business will take you time. Depending on the platform you choose, but also on what your website needs to do to help you get more leads and more sales, it could take you a lot of time too. A lot of that time could be taken up by learning what you need to do to build a great website, but also then learning the best way to execute the plan. No great website gets built in just a day, especially one that’s created specifically to your business’s individual needs. It’s also worth weighing up whether your time is better spent on the things in your business that are where your skills really lie. Working on your skill or craft and getting out there and getting business coming in is where you really should be, rather than spending what could be months hidden away behind a screen trying to work out how to create a website that may or may not do the job in getting you business.
Will you keep it up to date?
It’s so important that your website is kept up to date in a number of ways. This includes both its content, but also the behind the scenes tech of a website too. If a potential client visits your site in March and finds your christmas offers still available or any out of date information, obviously this won’t give a great impression. Behind the scenes, if the tech side of your website isn’t kept up to date, it can run slowly, be more vulnerable to hacks and end up costing you more money to fix in the long run, so it’s super important to make sure it’s kept up to date.
Do you know about user experience?
It’s so important to consider the user experience of a website and if you build your own, will this be something you bear in mind? Even Google now ranks websites more favorably if it considers websites to have good user experience. User experience means the functionality of your site, how well it works and does the things that its users need it to do. If there is a particular section of your site at which point lots of your website users leave Google will pick up on this. Also, if there is a problem with a button not working, a page not loading or any function not working on your site, this will put off your website users and can result in you losing website visitors and therefore customers, so this is a super important part of building a website and the big difference between creating an average website and a great website.
Will people be able to find it?
Great! You’ve built your website and launched it in to the big wide world and now what? No visitors! That’s because it’s all very well having a website, but completely pointless if no one can actually find it, and that’s where SEO comes in. Your website will need to be SEO optimised to make sure that search engines can find it, rank it and drive traffic to it. SEO (search engine optimisation) should be considered while a website is being built if it’s to rank well once it’s launched. So many business owners will create their own website and then wonder why they have no visitors. Website SEO is also something that needs to be worked on after ;auch to help it get found and keep it ranking on Google. Google will need to trust your site in order to rank it and ongoing SEO work will help with this. So, when you’re thinking about creating your website or hiring a professional to do it for you, consider whether you are happy to take on the SEO part of the process too.
It’s all about the long game
Websites should never be finished. I’ve heard many a tale of a business owner, who by the time their website is ‘finished’ and launched, they’re so sick of the site of it that they never want to touch it again. And they don’t. For years! But once you’ve built your website, it’s going to need to be kept up to date and current and if you’ve taken it upon yourself to be the person that does that job, it can get way too much for a lot of busy business owners. This is when that all important task of ‘update website’ sits on business owners to do lists for a long time. They dread making changes to their site, they have to relearn how to make changes to their site every time because it’s been so long since the last time, meaning their website get more and more out of date and becomes more of a hindrance than a help to their business. Make sure if you decide to undertake the task of creating a website for your business, that you’re happy to be the one that continues to keep it up to date too.
So there we have some of the reasons why, perhaps a DIY website might or might not work for your business. Creating your own website for your business might seem simple and there are so many great tools out there available that make it easy to do, but it’s worth considering what kind of website your business really needs, what functions it’ll need to have, how it will rank for SEO and how you’ll make sure to make it individual to your business. Considering all this, is a template or a half-done-for-you approach really the best option for your business?
If you’re not sure, or you still have a ton of questions and need to weigh up all the options, I’m here for a chat, or find out more about what I offer.
