8 reasons why you should not DIY your website

A professionally built, effective website that can attract customers and convert them to bring you profit is the life force of your business. But the pandemic has forced everyone out into a state of financial difficulty and you may be in a dilemma as to whether to build your website (if you don’t have one) yourself or outsource to a professional website design company.  Going for a reputable website design agency is more expensive than doing it on your own.

A range of DIY website builders such as Wix, Squarespace, and Weebly offer the ability to create a website on your own. Even though you can get a site built using their platform for a fraction of the cost of a professionally built one, the reality is, leaning toward the DIY option is not a good idea for various reasons listed below.

Though it will cost you more for a professionally developed website, the investment is worth it which would bring results down the line. The reasons you should avoid DIY websites are:

1. DIY website may not be unique and resonate with your brand

DIY platforms use generic templates to build a website which means certain elements of the website such as layout, navigation, and styles will be the same for all the websites created using this template. Your ability to customise the website to make it unique and stand out is restricted resulting in your website looking the same as hundreds of other websites created using the DIY template.

Proper branding is one of the most important reasons of having a website. This can be done effectively only through a greater level of customisation. You need to make sure the colour schemes exactly match your brand colours, you need to make sure your logo is in the right place to attract the attention of your visitors, you want to make sure there are sufficient calls-to-action in the effective places and finally, you need to make sure the organisation of the website is in such a way that it tells your brand story. You cannot achieve these goals using a website built by a one-size-fits-all template, you need to hire a professional website designer to build your website.

2. Lack of proper Search Engine Optimisation (SEO)

You may have a website that is great in design and looks, but what is the point if it is not visible to your potential customers? That is where we need the magic of Search Engine Optimisation (SEO). It is the process of optimising the website according to SEO best practices recommended by the search engines like Google so that the site will be ranked higher in the search results by the search engines. But DIY website building platforms don’t come with strong SEO capabilities. They often generate messy code at the backend. This is bad for your SEO and can ruin your rankings on sites like Google.

The algorithm of search engines like Google keeps changing all the time. There is no guarantee that your builder will keep up to date with its ever-changing best practices. In many instances, these websites cannot also perform on-page optimisation for internal website pages.

Also, most DIY website builders won’t allow Google to verify your website in their Webmaster Tools, which will hurt your SEO rankings. In addition, with most of DIY platforms, it is generally hard to integrate with Google Analytics, thus you won’t have access to important data needed to evaluate the performance of your website.

SEO work involves various strategies such as:

• In-depth keyword research to discover what keywords your audience is using to search for your services.
• On-page optimisation such as title tags, meta descriptions, and alt tags for images.
• Technical SEO such as page loading speed, site redirects, etc.
• Back-end optimisation of the site.
• Internal link building.
• Embedding geo-targeting terms to help your site show up for relevant searches in your area.
• Off-site backlinks.

It is hard to implement SEO strategies and succeed unless you have an experienced SEO specialist working on your website given the fact that DIY website-building platforms have fewer SEO capabilities.

When you work with an experienced web design company or digital marketing agency, they will make sure to build your website according to SEO best practices. You will also get the option to receive ongoing SEO services from a specialist who can work on the SEO in the long term.

3. Low-quality content

Content is king and the life force of a website. Your content is responsible for

• Telling your brand story to your audience and building your brand.
• Establishing yourself as an authority in your field and win the trust of your audience.
• Improving your SEO ranking by helping Google understand what your site is all about through SEO optimisation.

When you use a DIY website builder, you end up in writing the content yourself.  It is a tedious process requiring a lot of time. You must be able to tell your brand story in a powerful way to connect your audience to your brand, which is less likely if you write the content yourself. But when you hand over your website design to a reputable firm, a professional content writer, who is knowledgeable in both SEO and marketing, will write engaging content targeted to both your audience and the search engines.

4. Not responsive or mobile friendly

As of August 2022, 62.06% of all website traffic comes from people using mobile devices. It is more crucial than ever before, to make your site mobile-friendly, and provide a fabulous user experience on all mobile devices. This can be achieved by building your website using responsive web design. Responsive design allows your website to fit the size of the screen of the mobile device used to view it. This not only enhances the user experience but also increases search engine rankings because Google favours mobile-friendly websites. DIY websites aren’t built using responsive design. This means you will be ignoring the mobile users, and your website will perform poorer on search engines.

5. Not concentrating on the user-experience

How the website made your user’s experience memorable is far more important than the message the website carried. Users often forget the content of your website but they won’t forget how your website made them feel.

What is important is to present your user with an experience with a combination of graphics, text and interactive elements, not just present them with information. This cannot be achieved using a DIY website builder which has very limited customisation features.

Making your page stand out from the large quantity of websites and information on the internet is essential. Modern websites contain more visual and interactive qualities to connect with your audience at an emotional level and stand out in the highly competitive world.

Users want clarity and simplicity. In a fraction of a second, they evaluate the design of a website, so you need to decide what you want users to do and make it apparent. Don’t make it difficult to find action buttons.

User interfaces (UIs) need to be simple to navigate, easy to use, and created with the proper colours and fonts for your audience and this is not possible with DIY self-build platforms.

The website, www.usability.gov  enlists the qualities of a good user experience as follows:

•  Useful – Content should be original and fulfil a need.
• Usable – Site must be easy to find.
• Desirable – Design elements bring about emotion and appreciation.
• Findable – Content needs to be locatable and navigable offsite and onsite.
• Accessible – Content needs to be accessible to people with disabilities.
• Credible – Users must believe and trust what you tell them.

To build a website with above qualities, you need a professional and experienced website design/digital marketing firm.

6. Unsatisfactory customer support

A website is made of various elements and as with any other technology, malfunctions may occur at any time. Some of the common website issues you might face are:

• Website crashes.
• HTTP Errors.
• Problems with the Server.
• Faulty CDN Server.
• Error 404 Page Not Found.
• Slow loading of web pages.
• Elements of your website stop functioning properly.

It takes the help of an experienced customer support expert to fix the above issues. Unfortunately, the customer support services provided by DIY website builders are usually very limited. So, in case of any issues, you won’t be able to fix them immediately.

7. ss functionality

DIY website builders use outdated code so that they can deliver their services affordably and novice website builders will find it easy to use their platform. This can result in many problems with website performance, including:

• Slow website speed – Your website will be hosted on a server that is shared by hundreds of other sites, which will cause your website to load slowly. A slow-loading website will drive a lot of traffic away.

• Lack of security – Using a shared server leaves your website vulnerable to data breaches. If any one of the websites on the server gets hacked, the chances of your site also getting infected are more.

• Poor navigation structure – A well-designed navigation structure will help your users access information on the website easily. But your DIY website builder uses a pre-set navigation structure resulting in a poor user experience and loss of precious traffic to your site as a result.

8. omeone else owns the website

When you use a DIY website builder, often you won’t own your files but the DIY builder owns them. If you fail to pay for the services, you may not be able to get back those files and hence use them in the future. Also, you won’t be able to migrate your website to another server when it is created by a DIY builder. You won’t be able to use another host in the future and, you are stuck with the DIY platform for the rest of your website’s lifetime.

If you are looking to build your custom website, we can help. At Faye Digital, we create custom websites that will help your business grow and thrive. Your custom website will be able to meet the evolving needs of your business as it grows. When you work with Faye Digital, you’ll have a dedicated partner committed to the long-term success of your company. Check out our web design and development services. Call us on 03 7046 4688, or contact us.