We meet too many business owners that have attempted to build their own website. They usually come to us after months or even years of frustration, struggling with something that doesn’t look quite right or with complaints that no one can find them or they can’t add more content without spending hours inside of a janky system that never works quite like you expect.
We suggest you save yourself hours of aggravation and more money than it will ever be worth and do it right from the start by hiring a professional. In case you need a few more reasons why that’s the best path…here are our top four reasons you should not make your own website.
#4. Placeholder vs. Website
If you build your own site, you will more than likely be creating something that should not be called a website. It should be called a placeholder because that is about all it will do for you: hold your place on the world wide web. We often refer to this as an “online business card.”
Your new “site” might tell people a little about you if they happen to search for exactly your business name. If you want your website to do more than that, as any good website should, then you should not make it yourself. We have not yet reviewed a “do it yourself” system that is worth any money, regardless of how little.
If you are dead set on going it alone, you will be better off getting a free account on Blogger and listing your business in a few online directories.
#3. You Might Actually Want To Be Found
If you build your site on your own, the chances of being found when someone searches for your services are close to the same as finding your way through a maze blindfolded. Not just any maze…one of those big corn mazes they have at Halloween. Make that one of those big HAUNTED corn mazes.
The internet is huge and search engines get frustrated pretty easily and the mess of code they run up against in “do it yourself” scenarios are very irritating to the poor little search bots.
On the other hand, a good web developer understands search engines and builds your site so it will be found. Not just found. Found often. Imagine waking up and where there once was a corn maze, there is now a crop circle (can you tell I just watched the movie Signs?)
Our own search engine optimization (SEO) expert, Emmanuel, spends way too much time studying search engines. His wife (that’s me) will tell you she sometimes thinks she is married to a search engine for how often he talks about indexing and algorithms. It may get so bad that she’ll have to start pasting keywords and meta tags to her “Honey-Do” list.
#2. You Wouldn’t (Or Shouldn’t) Wear An Ugly Cat Sweater to a Formal Ball and Neither Should Your Website
If you live on Earth, you’ve probably heard that our society is obsessed with how things look. Billions of dollars every year are spent on the process of making every possible thing more esthetically pleasing from cars to refrigerators. You may have noticed that especially successful companies have invested a lot of time and money in how they present themselves to the world, whether through their logo, materials, locations, or websites.
If you make your website yourself, it will more than likely wind up a hot mess. In other words, it will be ugly and you don’t want the first reaction people have to your business to be “oh, that’s unfortunate.” You also don’t have to have a $10,000 website in order to look like a million bucks. A good developer knows the necessary balance to get the most out of your investment.
#1. If You Want A Hobby, We Recommend Quilting
Ask yourself: if you aren’t a pilot/lawyer/doctor should you fly a plane/defend a plaintiff/surgically remove a spleen?
No?
Imagine that.
Web development is not a hobby. You have better things to do. Quilting really is a lovely hobby. Or maybe juggling? Jugglers seem like happy folk.
If you happen to be a pilot, lawyer, or doctor then you probably agree that you wouldn’t want us to fly your plane, defend your plaintiff, or remove your spleen. It would be a disaster.
You get the idea. 🙂