Do free website builders hurt your business?

There are many articles written by many online marketing experts about the risks of building your own website, a.k.a. DIY (Do It Yourself). Let’s take a look at it from a different perspective to shed more light over this subject:

Are you building a website to impress yourself or your customers?

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder — when you are the creator, you are the beholder.

When you begin building your own website, you can only depend on your personal taste. In other words, you select a template that you feel best represents you. You choose a style of typography and color scheme that appeals only to you. Eventually, you become too focused and obsessed with the design elements of your website.

Since you have no historical data on which to base the effectiveness of your website’s user experience, you will end up seeking the advice of your friends and family, which can be beneficial in terms of your end user view point, however, they are not experts in the art and science of web design. As you show case your newly found talent, you expect only bravo and praise.

You don’t appreciate even the slightest constructive criticism. After all, you have just spent an inordinate amount of time, effort and sleepless nights building your masterpiece. Attracting and retaining new customers is not high in your list of priorities.

Already growing weary of maintaining your website?

Another challenge you will experience in the long run is boredom. If building a website is not your expertise and neither your passion, constant updates will feel redundant. There is a 99% probability that you will be logging into your website less and less overtime to update content.

You will begin seeking out junior talent to update your website, i.e. — your teenage child or other family member, who may be extremely active online, but is an amateur at web design.

Bad idea? You may be risking too much to gain very little results. In other words, it is much easier to destroy than to create. You can’t hold family members liable for any damage that may occur to your website — you allowed it to happen.

Unless your family member, be it cousin, nephew, uncle or sister is a website professional, avoid asking such favors at all costs. Once again, in the shift of responsibility to maintain your website, your customer’s needs get lost in the shuffle.

Are you building a website that looks like a million-dollars or building a million-dollar clientele?

As an entrepreneur, you can wear multiple hats and wear them well. You assess the needs of your customers effectively, provide profitable resolutions and develop a successful client portfolio. More concisely, you are a specialist in converting your clients into long term partners, who in turn become your biggest promoters.

A successful entrepreneur also knows how to delegate authority and collaborate. You can’t build an empire all by yourself without the expertise of your partners, agencies or contractors. Simultaneously, it is crucial for your website to portray your business’s purpose effectively so that you attract the right audience for the right reason. Remember, what problems your website chooses to solve determines what audience you attract.

Should you DIY?

Perhaps you are excited about the prospect of being able to build your own business website. This new-found passion will come to an abrupt halt the moment you run into technical issues that are outside your base of knowledge and skill sets. In the same way that you qualify your customers by asking key questions, below are a few questions that will assist you in qualifying whether or not DIY website builder is the right choice for you.

If you have trouble answering any of the following questions, perhaps you shouldn’t DIY.

1- Can you define the difference between building a website and a landing page? Which one is more important for your type of business?

2- Do you have a concept of what is a measurable call-to-action strategy?

3- Why Search Engine Optimization is important?

4- How does Google search engine ranking position (SERP) indexing work?

5- How do you target keyword phrases to get to the top of the SERP?

6- If you are selling products, do you understand E-commerce best practices?

7- Do you know the steps of how to set up hosting for your website?

8- How do you improve the buyer/lead conversion ratio on your site?

9- How do you recover from negative customer ratings?

10- Do you actually have time?

This is the basic digital knowledge base and technical skill sets that you must possess in order to effectively create your website, utilizing best practices and the required tools available to become visible, and on top of the search engine rankings.

If you understand and can answer all the above questions, then you are well on your way to launching a successful online presence using a DYI website builder. You can enjoy laying on the beach, sipping on your Pina Colada while watching the sunset.

Today, building a website is no longer about design. It requires a digital marketing strategist to grow your online business. Therefore, partnering with the right marketing and design agency can aid you in strategizing your plan of action, creating a tunnel vision that will attract your target audience, improving your website performance for greater user experience and enhancing your marketing brand. Hence, a successful agency will share your vision and make it a reality.

If you select the right agency, budgeting for a web project will not be as much of a concern, as an effective strategy will allow you to garner a higher return on your investment (ROI).

Meanwhile, you can focus on the big picture and your mission to make your products or services stand out from the crowd.