The good news is that building a website yourself has never been easier. While being proficient in coding may have been required a few years ago, dozens of simple tools now exist that will allow you to build your own website without learning how to code.
It depends. You may want to ask yourself a few of these questions.
Should I build my business website?
1. How complex does your website need to be? If all you need is a simple one-page website with an email address, phone number and maybe your business address, you can absolutely do that yourself. There are many website builders to get up and running quickly for as little as $15-55 a month. Now consider advanced functionality that you commonly see on businesses websites, like: E-commerce, appointment scheduling, complex forms, fancy design, etc… You may also consider hiring someone like Reach for $25-100 a month.
2. How much time do you have? Building your own for the first time can take anywhere from 5-50 hours depending on how tech savvy you are and your design desires. Having more time basically gives you two things. First, the ability to take it slow and build it yourself. The second factor is that even if you are going to pay someone like us, we can normally get it up and running in just a couple of days.
3. How much do you want to spend? There’s a misconception that building a website is expensive. The fact is, it has never been cheaper or easier to get online with a website. That said, even if you plan to have an agency like Reach build your website, we can use templates as a base to get started. There are thousands of WordPress templates available to keep the price low. You might even find that a quote from Reach is very inexpensive.
4. What is your appetite for learning? Do you like to learn new things or does the thought of computer code make you queasy? Truth is, learning to code, even a little bit, is a handy skill to have. If you’re at all curious, learning basic HTML and CSS is a fun side project, and creating a simple HTML website from scratch or messing around with smaller platforms like Ghost.
5. How critical is your website to your business? If your website is more for simple info and not going to generate leads, building it yourself is not as risky. If your website must be a finely-tuned conversion machine, you should hire someone. Amateurs often miss things like slow loading times, 404 errors, security issues, certificates and numerous other vulnerabilities that can impact the performance of your website.
6. How picky are you? If you are the kind of person who would be upset if things didn’t line up perfectly on the page; if the color was one shade off, images look off, or if the menu navigation isn’t as slick as you’d like, you should probably hire someone
So, what will it be then? Are you ready to build a website yourself? Or ready to give Reach a call for a quick chat? Please keep in mind, Reach is in the business to help you and will be more than honest helping you decide and moving your business forward.