A common question asked is, “should I hire someone to build my website, or should I simply build it myself?”. There are many tools online that make building a website yourself easy. However, there are many factors to consider when trying to decide which path to take.
There is no shortage of online tools to create a modern website, and they make it easy. Companies such as Square Space, Wix, WordPress, etc create an interface that simplifies the process a lot. The downsides, and there are many, are what you need to consider. Do you want to essentially “lease” your website, or do you want to actually own it? If you go the route of an online service such as SquareSpace or Wix you will be leasing your website for F-O-R-E-V-E-R. If they go out of business, so does your website, and if you miss a payment, there goes your website.
“If you go the route of an online service such as Square Space or Wix you will be leasing your website F-O-R-E-V-E-R.”
Aside from the serious downside I just mentioned, there are a few more you should know about. Web hosting costs can change with the market, and the all-in-one web building services vary in cost with the changing market. What you started off with paying $25/mo can change to $30, $40, $50/mo. The initial promotional charge those websites will usually include are a free domain a year, and maybe an SSL Certificate if you’re lucky. However, what they don’t mention is that those two things have to be renewed yearly and it isn’t free to do so.
Website SEO
Let’s say you go with an online service such as Wix, they have a couple of little tools to help you with a a few SEO items. However, it simply scratches the surface of what you need to do in order to get your website on the first page of Google. SEO requires a lot of expertise, and regular maintenance. There are many aspects that the average do-it-yourselfer does not know about when it comes to advanced SEO such as keyword research, backlinks, competing websites, content gap, metadata, alt text, image captions, image optimization, blog entries, sitemaps and the list goes on. Maybe you have time to throw together a one-page website using a service, but do you have the hours per week to dedicate to keeping it updated so your website doesn’t land on page 250 on Google?
Hiring a Website Developer
A website is useless if you can't find it easily on Google.
