There are many DIY website builder packages available online which seem appealing due to their affordability and the feeling that you can design a site exactly how you want it. When you begin using one of these sites, you soon realise they are not all that they are made out to be, and you may really be hindering your business’s chances of having website visitors without knowing it.
Here are a number of reasons why you shouldn’t try and build your own website…
Professionalism
Quite simply, a website built by a website builder and designed by a website designer / marketeer will look professional and function properly. Your website is the digital shop-front of your business and so needs to make the best impression possible on those who visit it.
Bad User Experience
Building a website is a detailed process involving CTAs, user flows, prototyping, SEO etc., so designing and building it yourself means you are often not designing it with the best user experience in mind and will likely to not include vital components.
Efficiency and Speed
Speed is one of the most important parts of a website, increasing user engagement and SEO. If you are trying to use a DIY online website builder, chances are it will host your site on a shared server with thousands of other sites, impacting its speed significantly.
Website building is also an extremely technical process and if you are not a professional, you will likely spend hours and hours creating your site; time which could be better spent on other things such as growing your client base. Using a professional will save you valuable time and money as well as producing an all-round better website.
SEO
One of the biggest problems with DIY website builders are that they are not SEO friendly. SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) gets websites more visitors and means your site will be prioritised and ranked higher on search engine results pages. SEO involves both on-page and off-page optimisation and a lack of this will mean that your website will be very difficult for potential customers to find.
Customisation and Uniqueness
Although you may think that building your own website is the best way to completely customise it to your liking, you are wrong. Most DIY website building packages have limitations in design and layout choices and can also lack functionality and interactivity options. In terms of creating a unique website, sites such as Wix have over 90 million users and only 500 templates, meaning there will be a lot of other people out there with websites which look very similar to yours.
Things Going Wrong
Websites are not immune from having errors or things go wrong, sometimes which can be significant and can affect the functionality of your whole site such as browser updates or hosting issues. These errors can be a headache even for professional website builders, so having a professional ready to solve these problems without you needing to worry about fixing it yourself is a big help.
Flash Based
Most DIY websites are flash based, which is terrible technology for SEO as it does not product crawl-able content and is also slow loading.
Not Mobile Friendly
DIY website building packages are not ‘responsive’ by design, meaning they cannot detect the size of a browser screen and deliver the content in the most appropriate way. These kinds of websites are not ranked highly in search engine results pages and will result in fewer visitors to your website.
Not Google Friendly
Google can’t verify websites in Webmaster Tools if you have made them with a DIY builder. If your site is unverified, this means that it is drastically demoted in Google search rankings. Webmaster Tools and Google Analytics are very important and are used to monitor crawl rates, bounce rates, broken links, load times, search traffic, site downtime and more. Around 90% of total internet traffic searches are through Google, meaning you should ensure that your website is Google friendly and not a DIY site which often uses inaccurate site analytics which can be misleading.
Although building your own website may seem appealing and that it is more cost effective, you will inevitably end up with a website which may look okay, but does not function properly, rate highly, work on all devices or gain visitors. A professional website builder and designer is always advised and will end up saving you time and money whilst performing to the best standard.
If you need a website for your business or organisation or if you need to re-design a website that you currently have, contact us today for a website which is professionally built and designed with your business objectives and target audience in mind.
For more information about Pinch of Salts and the bespoke marketing services we offer including events, social media, PR, brand management, website design and much more, or to get in touch:
www.pinchofsalts.com, email info@pinchofsalts.com or call 0845 388 5305 to speak to a member of the team.
Follow us on twitter @pinchofsalts.
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