Why Building Your Own Website Could End Up Costing You More

You know that having a website is essential for your small business but you don’t have the budget to hire a professional to do it for you.

So, what do you do?

You do it yourself either with a DIY website builder that GoDaddy, Weebly, Wix and other web hosts provide, or attempt to use WordPress on your own.

That could prove to be a massive mistake, one that could cost you far more in lost revenue and opportunity than paying a professional to build your website.

I understand why you need to save money where you can but believe me, scrimping on your website isn’t something I’d ever recommend. Here’s why.

DIY websites often focus on design rather than functionality

I know a lot of business owners embrace the opportunity to stamp their personality onto their website by choosing fun colours, pictures and other design elements that are totally different to other websites.

There’s a reason most websites don’t do this – because it doesn’t work!

Website design is far more about science than it is about art. There’s psychology determining how visitors use your website, and what they are looking for is:

  • easy-to-use websites where information is clearly presented
  • websites where they can find what they want quickly and easily
  • a logical progression through your website
  • a simple way to contact you on every page

User experience is important. A badly laid out and cluttered website will put your website, visitors, off completely and drive them back to Google results for a competitor. This will have a knock-on effect on your SEO score too.

Mobile responsiveness is often forgotten about

Yes, most themes and DIY builders promise to be completely mobile responsive.

Do you know how to test it and make sure that’s really the case?

It’s not unusual for some tweaking of the background code to be necessary to ensure that your website looks amazing on every mobile device, tablet, laptop and desktop computer. Getting this wrong can break the entire website on every device, so most people just don’t bother.

The problem with ignoring mobile responsiveness lies in the fact that more people browse the internet on mobile devices than traditional computers now. This is what your target audience are using and if your website won’t work on a smartphone or tablet, your prospective customers will look elsewhere.

Google does factor mobile responsiveness into their SEO algorithms with this fact in mind, so you could prevent your target audience from even finding you on Google if your website will only work well on a computer screen rather than a phone.

DIY websites are often slow to load

We’re talking page speed here, something that Google takes so seriously they have their own tool to tell you how quickly your website takes to load.

If your website is like a sloth waking up in the morning in terms of loading speed, then you will lose web visitors and take a dip in the search results rankings. None of us yearn for a return to dial-up internet, but it can certainly feel like we’re back in the nineties with some of the slow loading websites we come across, I don’t know about you, but I give up waiting after a few seconds.

In fact, most people do give up waiting, and that’s the problem.

So, what causes a slow to load website?

  • Image files that are too large
  • Too much coding (some themes are packed full of unnecessary coding)
  • WordPress plugins that take up too many resources
  • Design elements
  • Poor web hosting

It’s difficult to know how to address these issues and it can be time-consuming. It’s much more cost-effective to hire a professional to get things right for you from the beginning.

Not addressing security issues

Security is important when it comes to sharing personal information, even when it seems small and inconsequential like filling in a contact form. With GDPR being firmly in place every business owner should do what they can to protect personal data and for your website that means being secure.

HTTPS is what we’re talking about here. It’s that closed/green padlock next to the web address in your browser that tells you the website is secure. I wouldn’t give my personal information to a website that isn’t secure, and I doubt you would either.

It’s not just your audience’s concerns about security you need to consider here but Google and antivirus software too. An unsecure website will often provoke a warning to the web visitor urging them not to continue. Over time, Google will remove unsecure websites from its search results pages so if you don’t make your website secure it’ll soon be pointless having it.

Save yourself the hassle and hire a professional to build your website

A good website doesn’t have to cost thousands but spending what you can afford on a professionally built website that prevents these problems and keeps you ahead of your competition is more than worth it.

To discover how I can help you make your website work well for your business, get in touch with me today to discuss the options available.