Decide whether you should use a do it yourself (DIY) website builder or hire a professional website design agency to create your new site.
If you’re looking to build a new website or update an existing one, one of the hardest decisions you’ll have to make is choosing whether to do it yourself or call in a professional.
The question is, which one is right for you?
To help answer this question, here are some considerations for you to think about.
DIY website vs professional website
The pros of a DIY website
Nowadays, website builders are a dime a dozen. From Wix to WordPress, these sites have thousands of free templates waiting for you to swipe and deploy.
The immediate benefit of using a website builder to create a DIY website design is that it’s often free.
So, if your budget is tight and you’re scouring the net for “cheap website design”, taking the reins and doing it yourself is the best option.
Many website builders also make it easy to set-up and go within a few hours. There are no meetings with website designers or ongoing amendments to think about. With a DIY website, you’re the master of your destiny.
You can add pages, drag and drop content in, test different elements and make design tweaks whenever you want. The only real cost you need to think about is the time it takes you to build it, plus the website hosting and domain costs.
Ultimately, a DIY website is what you make of it. In theory, there’s no reason why you can’t create a fully functional, SEO-friendly website. But at what cost?
The cons of a DIY website
Unless you’re a secret graphic design whizz with a marketing background, you’ll probably struggle to build a website which competes with other professionally developed ones.
As we mentioned in our website statistics blog, it takes just 0.05 seconds for users to form an opinion about your website. Further research highlighted by Web FX also revealed that a staggering 94% of first impressions are related to your website’s design. So, if you have unprofessional visuals, poor load times and unresponsive pages, you could put off a new prospect for life.
As well as the visuals, there are a lot of technicalities which impact a website’s performance and ranking too. This can be anything from enabling AMP to speed up the delivery of content on mobile devices, to adding a structured data mark-up which helps search engines better understand the content on it.
Sure, most website builders include the basic SEO fundamentals as a part of their free service. But if you’re operating in a highly competitive industry and want to rank on page number one on Google or Bing, you’ll need to spend a considerable amount of time focusing on the content creation and website design.
The pros of a professional website
Hiring a professional website designer or website design agency from the UK will undoubtedly free up your time and result in a quality finish.
In this day and age, your website needs to be mobile optimised for people on the go and function in a way which makes information accessible while enhancing the user experience (UX).
On average, the world’s internet users spend 6 hours and 42 minutes online each day. That’s an extraordinary amount of time looking at websites, scrolling through social media channels and watching videos. With all that surfing brings higher expectations too.
As digital-savvy humans, we expect stimulating visuals, easy prompts to find things and clear concise messaging. Hiring a professional to build a website on your behalf will help you achieve this.
Most of the best website design agencies will also have marketing competencies. This means you can get a website which doesn’t just look good, but it performs well too.
Bringing in a professional will remove the biases from the design process as well. Granted, your new website needs to be on-brand and consist of the elements you want, but it’s also important to make decisions based on logic. A professional website designer has the experience and knowledge of what works from a visual point of view.
The cons of a professional website
The biggest(and only) downside to hiring a professional website designer is the cost. Standard professional website design can cost hundreds for a standard one-page website to thousands for an e-commerce one, depending on what level of functionality and the number of pages you require.
If you see website design services for less than £400, it’s usually too good to be true and you’d be better off doing it yourself.
DIY website vs professional website: the verdict
One of the best ways to decide between a DIY website and a professional website is to ask yourself how important it’ll be to your business’ success.
For example, if most of your business comes from existing relationships, you probably don’t need a fancy professional website to drive a big part of your income. A DIY website can simply act as a landing page for existing clients and social media traffic.
However, if you’re keen to generate more income in the local area, boost footfall, run marketing campaigns which attract new prospects or sell products/services online, a professional website will give you the edge.
The decision is yours.
We’re here to help
If you think a professional website is for you, Design in the Shires is here to help. From brochure sites to extensive e-commerce websites, we can build you a new website which makes an impact in your market, without burning a hole in your pocket.
For a free quote, get in touch with us today.
