By Matt Puddephat
There are two ways for businesses to build their own website, they can build it themselves or get someone to build it for them.
In recent years, there has been a significant growth in DIY website providers including Wix, WordPress, GoDaddy and Squarespace to name just a few. The templates and designs offered are often quite simply stunning and better still, your beautiful website will cost next to nothing. Happy days!!
However, whilst there has been a significant growth in the development of these DIY website services, are they as good as they sound?
Before trying to answer this, it is important to contextualise the challenges facing small businesses. As a founder of a small business, it is likely you made the incredibly brave decision to start your own business based on the skillset you have in relation to the product and service you are selling.
The biggest challenge facing a business isn't selling the product or service you know so well, it is in how you deal with the wider responsibilities that you might not be such an expert in but are nonetheless, critical to the successful running of your business.
As a business owner, whilst you need to familiarise yourself with disciplines like Accounting, HR, Recruitment, Marketing and Advertising, you are never likely to be an expert in them. Instead, you need a trusted partner.
Indeed, it is not surprising that more than 21% of small business owners say they don't have the confidence to build their own website. When developing our WebRelief web content management system for small businesses, we spoke to a number of small business owners and our favourite quote came from a wedding dress fitter who said "I know about as much about making websites as you know about making wedding dresses!!"
So against this context, is asking someone to build their own website the right way to go? In short, it can be but the service has to be absolutely right and as an individual you must have a flair for web design. If not, this isn't the approach you should take.
Here are 3 key facts that illustrate this point:
1. Simplicity of product
Most of the DIY service providers focus on offering websites for all types of businesses, each with different needs. They offer hundreds of beautiful templates with lots of different functionality but this diversity actually creates a high level of complexity with lots of different tools, instructions and commands to follow to navigate around the options presented. We have seen website specialists struggle to create a website that lives up to the look and feel of the sites advertised.
At WebRelief, we focus specifically on the needs of small businesses and we have unashamedly created a simple platform that doesn't compromise on beauty and design. It is simple for us to build a website for you and even simpler for you to maintain it.
2. Transparent Pricing
Much of the appeal of DIY sites is based around their pricing model. In short, they are incredibly cheap. However, the advertised price is often not a true reflection of the actual cost and whilst most products are promoted as being just £1 or even free, the actual cost is often hundreds of pounds more expensive.
The lack of web design expertise amongst small business owners is tested by some of the major providers who request payment before you start to build your website. Surely it would make sense to take payment when the customer is happy and ready to publish their website? Of course, the reason the money is taken up front is that a lot of customers ultimately aren't happy with the website they create or simply give up!!
At WebRelief, our pricing is highly competitive and realistic and we will provide a quote up front for your specific requirements.
3. A lack of human intervention
This is perhaps the biggest shortfall in the DIY service offering. DIY website service providers have tried to tackle this by providing online help and even offering to build the website for you. However, in our experience, the small business audience would prefer a service that puts human interaction at the heart of the relationship, not on the periphery of it.
Our WebRelief platform for small businesses is built around the principles of a DIY service except we build the website for you. What's more, it's incredibly simple to maintain which means that by the time we hand it over, you can look after it yourself. Of course, if you want us to help you maintain your website, we can, but it is on your terms.
