By Henry Brown

With loads of companies offering to help you to build a beautiful website in minutes, it can be tempting to think DIY is the way to go when it comes to website design for your small business. After all, it will be much less expensive than hiring a pro to do this work. However, many people will find it very hard to build a truly effective business website if they go it alone. But, of course, with the right work, it is possible to achieve something great.

This post will cover your options for this important decision: website DIY and professional design. Using this information, it should be easy to choose whether or not you want to go it alone. It’s important to consider your business while you’re working on this, as well as your budget and needs. Otherwise, you could end up with something unsuitable and ineffective.

­­Do it yourself

Self-service website building options come in a wide variety of shapes and sizes, offering different types of tool to help you. For example, Squarespace is perfect for those with little to no experience with programming or web design. But, for those with a little more confidence, something like WordPress could be better for you. During this process, you will have a lot to learn, including some basic HTML and CSS programming.

One of the biggest parts of this sort of job will be building the applications you need on your site. For example, if you want to sell products through the website, you’ll need a couple of different tools to help you. First, a product listing application will be needed, along with a cart and membership system. Then, you’ll need to think about setting up a payment gateway and security to make sure everything is nice and safe for your customers. Of course, this is a lot of work, but what are the pros and cons of this sort of effort.

Pros:

-DIY website tools are a lot cheaper than developers will be. Along with this, they often come with hosting rolled in and won’t ask you to cover things like admin work.

-You will have complete creative control over your website, giving you the chance to change things to match your specifications perfectly.

-You won’t have to spend time finding a developer to work with you, along with avoiding any scheduling conflicts that can arise when you’re working with other companies.

Cons:

-A lot of people struggle to use a DIY website builder effectively. This could make it hard to create something that matches your requirements and could waste a lot of time if you have to learn a lot.

-If you make mistakes during this process, parts of your site could be left unusable or failing to work correctly. This will look very unprofessional.

Use a professional

Using a professional to build your site is likely to give you a much better experience. Of course, you will have the pay the price for this, but most companies would agree that this is worth it once you’re up and running. You developer will be able to handle every aspect of your website for you, from basic design to complex security and applications. Along with this, they will also be able to support you into the future.

Depending on the size of your business, you might have a small budget for this sort of work. In this case, your best option could be a freelance worker from a website like Freelancer. This sort of worker will only work with you until the job is done, receiving payment that is agreed before the project begins. Alternatively, if you can afford to, you could use a company specializing in professional small business website web design and management. This will give you great results. But, with any of these options, you should always read plenty of reviews before you make your choice.

Pros:

-You will likely get much a better design out of this sort of effort than you would building the site yourself, as the person working on it will have a lot more experience. When you do it yourself, you run the risk of having a site that looks cookie cutter because you adopt motifs that have been used by many others.

-As time moves on, you will be able to have changes made to your site to reflect advancements in tech. This will be alongside regular updates and maintenance.

Cons:

-It will be much more expensive to use a company to make your website for you, and you won’t learn anything along the way.

-Choosing the wrong company can wreak havoc on your business for a long time, causing delays and possible loss of income if it takes too long to be built.

Hopefully, this post should help you in deciding which of these two options is best for you. For companies with a very small budget, learning some design and taking on this challenge yourself could be worth it. But, if you can afford professional help, you should always go for it.

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Henry Brown is an online marketing executive. When he isn’t talking shop he’s roaming the streets of London, uncovering the extra-ordinary in the ordinary.