the dangers of a DIY website
Not wishing to scare anyone (it is Halloween week though! 🙂 )
There are obviously pros and cons to everything, and that includes building your own website.
So in order to answer the above question, I thought I’d highlight the main ones for you, and then you can make up your own mind.
First, while I’m in the scary mindset, here’s a scary statistic: only 1-2% of visits to your website will convert.
that means that of every 100 visits, only 1 or 2 people will enquire. AND THATS A GOOD CONVERSION!!! So what about bad???
Bad is simply 0 – yes ZERO conversions (or enquiries). Which is pointless to you and your business. You may as well not have a website… But You’re told you need one when you have your own business so, well, there you go…
Like anything in business, you want a return. On time or money, regardless. And if you’re not making money from your website, it’s costing you. It will cost you one way or the other, depending on how you look at it…
cons:
The main problem I’d say with designing your own website is the TIME element. Learning a new skill for one if you’re not already designing websites.
And then there’s the fact that you do want to get some customers from your website. If you get the first bit sorted, and learn the skill of using web design packages then you actually want to get some money for your time and effort.
Of course you do, you didn’t build it for fun! We all know we need a website, and why we invest. But what if we spend weeks/months/years (yes years – I know it has happened!) designing and building our websites to then find that no one knows we exist, or they find us but have no clue how to get hold of us!
DIY builds are very time expensive. But I would say thats the biggest concern. That and getting on the right platform for you.
You’ll need to make sure you go with a good hosting company, and then what do you build on?
Every time I’d suggest WordPress. It’s what I built my own website on, and what I build ALL of my customers websites on. It’s easy, its adaptable and its favoured by the big serach engines.
Another biggie is considering what your audience might want, and can you give it them with your knowledge on website building?
a website needs 6 things to make it work
a good
experience for your visitors
testimonials across the website
a simple (easy to spell & remember) web address
be searchable and seo ready for google etc
content that sells to your clients.
easy to understand calls to action
now i'm not saying don't build it yourself
but if it were me, I’d want a website that worked for my business. So i’d probably end up spending a lot of time researching and looking for ways that I can do just this.
Otherwise all your getting is another time sucker and nothing in return for it.
it’s so hard these days to get
1, found and
2, conversions. (I have a new blog coming next week that explains this – I’ll put the link here but it may not be live for a few days)
If you’d like to learn anything about any of the section above for your website, my next membership is coming up soon! Check it out here members only architects club
pros:
of course I couldn’t miss the pro’s of building your own website.
Because (especially with the announcement yesterday) many businesses are feeling a little nervous about things. The UK are about to go into our second national lockdown, and if you can save money in certain areas, I say do it.
The pros of DIY are that of course, your bank account isnt hit as heavily. Especially if you can stick to free platforms and plugins like WordPress. Of course you want to pay for hosting and security, and you do have to buy your web address, so its never going to be completely free.
Also you’ll learn a new skill, it can feel really empowering to create something from scratch that you had no idea how to use in the beginning!
There’s a lot of fabulous software out there at the moment that can really make a DIY website look great.
You can 100% fully build yourself a website on a good budget these days. And you can probably find all the info you need on YouTube and Google. But as I mention earlier on in the blog, TIME is a factor. And I’ve met many people that start with the best of intentions and never finish.
I WANT YOU TO FINISH YOUR WEBSITE, which is why I’m introducing you to The Web Architect’s Club, where we build your website together.
