When you decided to start a website, you may have looked into what it took to put one together. It may have become intimidating and you did not know what to do. A lot of business owners face this. Not every person out there is naturally gifted with creativity, nor has the patience to learn HTML or any type of markup language.
Most business owners want to get on and have some control over their website, or be able to hire someone to do it at a fair cost without the fear of being screwed over from service or price. Some are so intimidated that they with design their own sites.
So, for those embarking on this method – Is designing your own site hurting it?
It depends.
Yes it does hurt to design your site on your own.
You know your content, but often the tools you might choose will not be the best ones out there. I know college students telling me they bought themes from their professors that when I took a look, it was just one hot mess I just about cried. It was shameful.
People are being screwed over even when they want to design their own website. They are not finding the correct tools, nor the best advice.
While things may seem so simple, ALWAYS research before stepping right into investing ANY time or money into building a website. Make sure before you build the site that you have a clear focus and a general outline of what you want for your website to begin with. As a web designer and developer, I often have clients who have no idea what they want. That is not a problem. I ask questions to hopefully give them an idea of what information they need to put together in order to help me give them the best product possible.
Doing it alone only makes you, the site owner have to question yourself:
- Who do you want to target with your website?
- Where do you want to promote your site at?
- What type of design (color, possible design elements, or the general framework) do you want for your website?
- What content do you want to put up (plan your pages)?
- How much do you want to invest in both time and money?
I keep meeting clients who want me to maintain their static websites because it takes too long for them to do it. And you know what – they could be managing it a lot faster with (content management systems) CMS like WordPress. Even with some of the premium themes out there for WordPress, it makes putting a site up that much faster and easier. Though I love being paid, I like to make sure my client has the means to have control over their website and this is a great way to do it.
No it does not hurt to design your site on your own.
Maybe you have done the research? Maybe you can dabble in code or wing it? However, you may be missing things like optimizing your site for local listings. Your competition may be ranking higher because they went that extra step.
It is fine if you want to be in control, but there is always room for improvement, especially if you are wanting to succeed. Why not invest a little and reap more rewards? If you have a static website, you should be aware that WordPress is a content management system, and no longer just a blog platform. You can have an entire website built on WordPress. You can even forgo having a blog on it. Editing and adding pages is really as easy as typing an email up in your Yahoo, Gmail, Hotmail, or even Outlook.
The point is, regardless of how you get your site up and running, make sure you are doing it the right way and always willing to improve. Business owners with open minds are always open to things that will eventually mean making money.
Did you design your website yourself? Do you have recommendations on good resources for business owners who want to design their own websites the DIY method?
This is so true!
Sometimes bloggers make their own designs but they don't look that nice or navigation able.
And something quite interesting is how quick people hit the quit button when they don't like a design.
My recent post Hey Blogosphere- I Am Here!
You are right, Nile. Business owners opting to design their own websites may or may not be in the danger of losing out depending on the CMS they are using.
However, if they really don't want to end up losing the initial investment they poured on their websites, they should make sure to start right in designing them. They should have a professional do the initial designing and have these designers use WordPress, so maintaining and updating their websites could be done with ease.
My recent post 3 Elements Every Personal Trainer Needs Online
Good point! But i think a website is consisted with so many fields like coding (Development), Layout (Designing), business (Promotion) and so on. Doing this all by one is somehow could be difficult. Eventually it depends on you through which you want to go. By self or hiring someone else.
So true, not every person is gifted with creativity nor all have the patience to learn about html. Designing a website is not an easy task, it needs lots of brains, patience and investment of course. Its better not to experiment at first, hiring someone is a safer solution.
I agree with Veronica. You may have the talent to write blogs and amaze people with your content but, are you willing to take a risk and design your own blog?