DIY vs Web Designer
What are the differences and what is right for you?
There are several questions an online service provider considers when starting a business and their website. Have you ever asked yourself (or Google!) some, or all of, the following questions?
What does a website cost?
How much will it cost to hire a website designer?
What does a website need?
How can I make my website stand out from the crowd?
How long does it take to create a website?
Once I publish my website, there’s nothing else I need to do, right?
Surely I don’t really need to worry about my website being mobile-friendly?
In this blog, I will endeavour to answer as many of your questions as possible so that you can decide if DIY or investing in that web designer is the best option for you.
Together in this post, we’ll cover:
Budget
Design Aesthetics
Design Strategy
Time Frames + Costs
Search Engine Optimisation
Responsive Design
1. BUDGET
DIY can be ideal for smaller budgets and start-ups, particularly when you don’t have a lot of income.
However, a poorly designed website is far more expensive as it will cost you potential clients and therefore income. More often than not, by the time you have lost x-amount of business, and then have to hire a web designer to build you a new website, it usually works out cheaper if you had invested in a professional to begin with.
A designer might be an investment up front, but if you look at the overall value and expertise of your designer, I’m sure it will be well worth it in the long-run!
For those still looking to DIY - that’s totally fine, we all start somewhere! One recommendation I suggest to help you make the most of your website, is researching design-best practices to help your website convert.
At the end of the day, if your website is done right the first time around, it will save you a lot of time, energy and money in the long run!
2. DESIGN AESTHETICS
The beauty of DIY is that there are a plethora of templates out there that you can customise to your own colour palette, fonts etc. which makes it reasonably quick and easy to set up (once you work out how to navigate your website host).
The downfall of using a template is that your website can end up looking like everyone else’s, making it a challenge to stand out from your competitors and truly engage your ideal clients.
Investing in a web designer can help you become irresistible as they create a customised website that captivates your audience, showcases your authentic voice and shares your unique story.
3. DESIGN STRATEGY
There is more to a website than simply making it look pretty (though that is a bonus!). A web designer is on top of design best-practices and is able to build your website strategically with your target audience in mind.
DIY can look great, but be sure to consider:
Have you used the right font sizes where they should be?
Have you checked your website is secure?
Are you aware of what legal information you need on your website?
Does your website attract + convert your ideal client?
Have you optimised your image files to the right size + format for your platform?
4. TIME FRAME + COST
DIY might be cheaper in terms of up-front fees, but when you consider the time it takes you to research website hosts, compare hosting fees, web design best-practices and then preparing your content for the website and learning to navigate your website platform, how many hours did that take you away from what you do best in your business?
If you were to “hire” yourself for the time spent on your website, at an average of $25-$30AUD/hour how much did it cost you?
Now consider how much you would have made in that same amount of time if you were only concentrating on the areas of your business that actually brings in money, without having to worry about creating a website?
Your web designer is already competent at what they do.
Since websites are (shockingly) their area of expertise, it takes them a lot less time to get everything set up and running, which can actually save you money in the long-run.
Instead of spends countless hours trying to figure out what goes where and how to do what, we can get you a website up and running within a couple of weeks.
5. SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMISATION
Search Engine Optimisation (SEO), simply put, is the ability to be found on search engines like Google.
This is a strategy that is often overlooked when it comes to DIY-ing websites. Far too often, I see comments in Facebook groups asking for help to get exposure on Google. They say they published their website but it’s not showing up on Google.
There can be a few different reasons why your website isn’t showing up on Google:
You haven’t submitted your site map to Google Search Console
You haven’t optimised your website with SEO keywords
There’s a lack of SEO strategy
Your website hasn’t been regularly updated with new information
Google Search Console helps index your website on Google and essentially notify the Google ‘bots that there’s new content online to show. Without submitting your site map it can take longer (up to a month) for the Google ‘bots to find you, index your website and help people find you.
Simply publishing your website doesn’t mean your website will be on Google straight away. And you won’t necessarily be on the first page!
You need keywords that people search on Google to help be discovered on Google. Those keywords need to be in your headings, paragraphs, image descriptions, URL slugs, settings, everywhere possible (but don’t keyword stuff, let’s stay human folks!)
This ties in with SEO strategy. Strategically research what keywords will place you in the best ranking to be discovered, and then using those keywords naturally on your website.
For example, if your keyword was “minimalist web design” a natural way to use that would be in a sentence or heading such as “5 ways minimalist web design converts clients”
You wouldn’t write, “Minimalist web design with a minimalist design aesthetic for the minimalist lover”. That just doesn’t even make sense!
Your web designer might not be an ‘expert’ when it comes to SEO, but they should at least have a basic understanding of SEO best-practices, like where to place keywords, optimising web pages and images etc.
6. RESPONSIVE DESIGN
When was the last time you looked at a website on your mobile? Perhaps you were doing some market research or online shopping while you’re on the couch. Maybe you were looking at a new recipe online. Maybe you were trying to book a table at that fancy restaurant. What was the mobile experience like for you?
Whatever the circumstance, have you ever been on a website on your mobile but the text or a button is cut off, making it impossible to read or navigate? I have! MANY times!
What do you usually do in that situation? Perhaps you’ll try to zoom out and fix the view, but sometimes it won’t let you, so what we (myself included) most commonly do is close the tab and keep looking elsewhere.
If you do that so easily on other peoples’ websites, how easy is it for someone else to do the same to yours?
If your website is great on desktop but a hot-mess on mobile, you can expect to lose a lot of potential clients.
Mobile compatibility can be a common issue on DIY websites (so don’t worry, you’re not alone!) but with more and more people viewing your website via mobile, it is an important issue to resolve to ensure that their user experience and the user interface is seamless and smooth to view, navigate and interact with.
So there you have it, our summary of DIY vs Web Designer. What have you decided to go with? We’d love to hear from you! Drop a comment if this has helped you or leave a question if there’s anything you’d like clarified further.