There are several reasons why you should not try building a business website yourself. At first it might sound easy to build it yourself. You see the advertisements for Wix, Weebly, or GoDaddy and it looks easy.
They give you templates to choose from and the drag-and-drop tools to build a website. Some companies say it is so easy, you can build your site in under an hour!
But, you soon find out that building one yourself may not be all that easy, especially if you want to make changes to the design template.
Here are 8 reasons why you should hire a professional to build your website.
1. Your Business May Not be A Good One
Some years ago, my son started a home surveillance installation business that went well for a few years. Then, surveillance systems got cheaper and easier to install. So, buyers could easily do the installation themselves. They didn’t need a company to do it.
If you don’t have a viable business to start with, the best web design in the world won’t help you if people are not looking for your product or service.
2. Limited Design Skills
You are probably an expert in your line of business, whether it’s an electrician, a CPA, or a lawyer. You went to a specialized school to learn how to do your job.
So, how can you expect to be an expert in web design with no training or experience? You can give someone with no training in electrical work all the tools needed to do the job, but without the specialized knowledge, you are very likely to fail at the job.
The do-it-yourself web design companies may give you all the tools needed to design a website, but without the proper knowledge, skills, and experience, you will probably fail.
We have had many clients come to us for help with their poorly designed website, only to find out it has to be completely re-done.
3. No SEO Skills
If you have been reading my newsletter articles for a while, you probably already know that SEO stands for search engine optimization. In the competitive online business world, a lack of SEO skills won’t get your site ranked high enough where searchers can find you.
SEO is an area that is ever changing. What worked five years ago may not work today. SEO professionals need to keep abreast of Google changes in their ranking algorithm.
The DIY website builders may tell you they have SEO tools built into their system, but this is not entirely true. You still have to know how to use the limited tools they have to implement some proper SEO.
If you don’t understand some basic terms, like backlinks, H1 tags, 301 redirects, 404 pages, meta descriptions, alt text, open graph markup, or canonical, you are going to be lost.
It would be like me, with no skills as a lawyer, defending a client from a lawsuit in court. I wouldn’t even know what the court procedures are and would utterly fail.
4. You Don’t Think Like a Customer
You may know your business very well, but can you convey that knowledge to a potential customer and persuade them to buy your product or service through the website, or at least get them interested to contact you?
The president of an IT (information technology) company came to us for help in fixing their website. It just wasn’t doing well. They had great knowledge in their field, but they couldn’t get that message through to visitors to their website.
Their content was too technical and hard to understand. It was basically a hero picture at the top and tons of rambling text without any section titles to break up the content.
We immediately saw what the problem was. Because of our knowledge and experience, we could see common mistakes in websites done by non-professionals.
5. You Won’t Have All the Tools to Do the Job
The DIY website builders may not have all the design tools you need for your particular type of business.
If you have a construction equipment rental business, you may need a way for customers to reserve a piece of equipment for a particular day and time.
WordPress is the contact management system (CMS) preferred by professional designers, and is the one we use at Blue Lacy SEO. It is highly scalable and uses a system of plugins to enhance a website.
Here are some of the tools needed to produce a competitive WordPress website. Some are free and some paid.
• Page builder (there are many to choose from)
• Website audit software
• Rank tracking software
• Competitor analysis software
• Backlink checker
• Yoast SEO
• Caching plugin
• Image optimization plugin
• CDN network
• FTP program
Just like any other business, you invest in software or hardware tools. Some of the tools web designers use require an investment to create high performing client websites.
6. No High Quality Content
Over the years, we’ve critiqued hundreds of websites, and most of them get their content wrong, especially on the most important page, the home page.
We recently had a client, who has a discount medical insurance company, contact us about improving their website. We immediately saw the problem because, as readers, we didn’t understand exactly what they were offering.
The first content people saw on the home page was about their business ethics and integrity, as well as strict observance and compliance with the medical insurance laws.
This is not the place where you talk about how great you are. This is where you talk about
the solutions you offer potential customers.
For years experts have been saying that “content is king” in relation to ranking in the search engines. This is still true today. Content is still the driving force for ranking in Google and the other search engines.
If you get everything else right on your website, but the content is poor, your site will not rank.
7. No Off-Site SEO
There are two types of SEO, on-site and off-site. On-site SEO deals with mostly the technical aspects of the website.
Off-site SEO is about backlinks (links from other websites to your website), citations, and a Google My Business listing for local businesses.
The quality and volume of your backlinks are a strong sign of how trustworthy and reliable your website is. Search engines take this into account when listing your site in search results.
Citations are any mention of your company’s name, address, and phone number (NAP) online. You probably already have some citations. These include Yelp, Yellow Pages, Foursquare, Advice Local, etc.
Google My Business is a must for a local business. You probably have one, but you want to make sure it is optimized properly to get into Google’s 3-pack, the top three maps listings above the organic results.
8. You Used a Free DIY Website Builder
Companies looking to save money often opt for one of those free DIY websites. After all, it is FREE, what could be better than that?
The problem is, the vast majority of these types of websites never get ranked very high.
The first problem is you don’t own your own domain name, it is shared with the DIY website builder. Let’s say you want your domain name to be myfreewebsite.com with WIX, the number one DIY website builder. It will end up being, username.wixsite.com/myfreewebsite.
Google doesn’t rank shared domains often, and for a business it doesn’t look very professional.
Second, you are going to receive a limited number of templates to choose from with limited tools to build the website you want.
Third, a free site will be cluttered with ads unrelated to what you do.
Summary
I have seen people build nice looking DIY websites, especially with WIX, which is probably the best of the bunch. WIX keeps adding features and tools that make it SEO friendly. But, like I said earlier in this article, you can have the best tools and equipment, but if you don’t know how to use them properly, you will fail.
There are billions of websites in the space we call the Internet, and it’s very competitive. Only the best of the best websites rank on the first page of Google.
If you need help with an existing website, or you need a new one, contact Blue Lacy SEO.
