With today's technology almost anybody can build a website for their small business, that's absolutely true!!
Nevertheless there are more than two questions you need to answer before you venture into building your own website:
- How tech-savvy are you?
- How competitive is your market area?
- Do your competition have professional designed websites?
- Do you think your customers care about what they see on your website? I am pretty sure there are many more questions that you should ask yourself, but for me this is the last one:
- Do you care enough about your clients to provide them an easy to read and easy to navigate website, with enough useful information to compel them to hire you?
Most small companies don't have a budget to "spend" on web development services, we all know that.
But, is it really a professional developed website a waste of money?
I used to think so! (And I am pretty sure that most small business owners think so too). If you can do it yourself, why to pay someone else, right?
Well that was true with me until I compared the real cost of printing my own business cards, just to give you and example.
To begin with, to get professional looking graphics you need professional software, and then the quality of printing if you do it on your own inject printer, versus a commercial digital printing press; well it simply there is no way to compare both. In one word, business cards are a lot cheaper when you send them to print to a commercial printing service provider.
That goes the same for almost everything you do: "you get what you pay for".
Now, why those five questions from above?
1) Because the less tech-savvy you are, the more time are you going to spend creating something that at the end is not going to look that great, and most times, you are just going to spend a lot of time and not going to get what you need: a professional web designed and good looking website! Even worst, Google guidelines are suggesting your website to be mobile friendly, and most free website builders don't provide the technology to build a responsive website.
2) The more competitive is the area of your business, the more difficult is going to be for your website to show in search results if you don't understand SEO good practices and Google guidelines.
And at the end, what is the value of a website if nobody can find it online using common keywords related to your service, not just the name of your business.
3) Now, if you research your competition, and most of them (and you should research them; at least the ones that show on first page of Google) have a professionally developed website; you should evaluate if it is worth trying to build yourself a website and if that website is going to be good enough to compete with your competitor's websites.
Because you should remember that when you compete with a product or service that someone else already provides, you should try to improve your service or product and of course improve your marketing strategies also.
4) First impressions count. It is understood that the first 17 ms are enough for your clients to form a first impression about your website and of course about your business.
5) And finally, do you care enough about your clients, and more importantly, do you care enough about your business to strive to provide the best possible service or product. We understand that the quality of your website don't determine the quality of your product or service, but we are absolutely sure that the way you present your product will also determine how your clients perceive the quality of your services or products.
Now, if you are a tech-savvy person and have enough time to invest into building your own online presence we recommend using WORDPRESS. An open source web development platform which does not require to know coding, but requires the knowledge of some HTML and CSS.
If you decide to hire a web developer to build your website, it is important that you look for a local freelance web designer / web developer, someone you can talk to in person.
Depending on the area your business is located, web development is also going to be more or less expensive.
If you live in Boston, MA or any other area of the USA, you can expect to get a professional website built with Wordpress (a customized Wordpress theme) for a fairly good price. Different story would be if you need a custom Wordpress site; then you can expect to spend from $5000.00 to $15,000.00 or more depending on the size of your project.
We hope this information be useful to you and help you decide if creating your own website or hiring a web designer or web developer should be your best option.
JA Armira
GDProwebdesigns.com
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