Building your own website isn’t easy, so before you embark on this journey through the digital jungle, it’s good to know what you’re getting yourself into. We’ve put together the main hurdles people come across when building their own site.
Time
There’s no escaping the fact that website builds take time. Especially when you have to teach yourself how to use a new website-building platform. Unfortunately business owners are busy beavers and time tends to be one of their most important resources.
Few people have the time to actually sit down and decide on the layout of their site, how users will experience it, and what messages to include, let alone how to actually build it. As a result, websites can appear rushed or clunky. That’s if the website even gets built in the first place. Many spend so long on hold that not only has the early bird already caught the worm but he’s flown off with all your customers too!
To ensure that your website makes it online, dedicate time to its design, creation and promotion.
Tech know-how
When it comes to building a website, it’s easy to feel like you’ve been sucked down the rabbit hole. The more you know about it, the more you realize how little you know! There’s coding, content management systems, frontend and backend, metadata, domains and SEO. Sure it’s possible to learn about it all, but who has the time for that? Even if you’re using a more user-friendly website builder like Wix or Squarespace, it still takes time to learn how to use them.
Without real website building know-how, sites can end up doing harm to a company’s brand instead of showcasing it. Imagine searching for a business and finding their website. The page loads slowly, the images are pixilated and it’s difficult to find what you’re looking for. Surely after this subpar experience, you’d decide that their products and services were probably below average too.
It takes time to develop technical skill in any walk of life, and if you want a professional website building quickly, it might be worth outsourcing the more technical elements.
Content
Images, graphics, text and videos can all make or break a website. They all need to be high quality, in the appropriate format and on-brand. This might sound simple in theory but having an eye for design, knowledge of how to embed them and the creativity to produce them is a tall order. Especially when trying to juggle it with other business demands.
Outsourcing the creation of these elements can be costly but worth it for the overall impact on your site.
Expertise
There are lots of demands put on business owners. Along with managing the actual running of their business, they’re expected to be experts in human resources, customer service, marketing, sales and finance. To add to the list, they’re now expected to be an expert in digital marketing. It’s no surprise if they’re left feeling like a fish out of water!
There’s a lot more to success online than just having a website. If you want to build a website that generates traffic and sales, digital marketing expertise is vital. If you’re lacking the expertise to develop a solid digital marketing strategy for your website, look at getting support from a pro.
Money
We can’t ignore the elephant in the room, building customized websites can get expensive! While budget packages can seem reasonably priced, necessary add-ons can drive up the cost. Factor in the cost of your time and budgets can really go out the window.
Work out how much time and money will go into creating a website yourself, and see if it would actually be quicker and cheaper to have someone build it for you.
For help overcoming any of these hurdles or navigating your way through the digital jungle, you can get in touch with our pros at webzoo.
