Why Your Website Will Fail With A Cheap Website Builder

Let’s face it folks, the only way to get a business website that will work for you instead of against you is to work with a professional web designer right from the beginning. You need to look at this as an investment in your business success. I am sure most of you are just like me, when I am interested in a quality product or service to represent me or my business, I do not do it myself, even if it saves me a few bucks, because I cannot guarantee I will not be happy.

As a small business owner, having a quality representation of yourself or your business will give you a boost in the credibility department. A website should be the centerpiece of all of your marketing efforts and if not properly built, it will not generate leads for your small business and essentially will be useless.

Too many times we speak with small business owners that say they are happy with their current website and when we ask how many qualified leads is the site generating weekly/monthly, they (the happy website owners) always seems to reply with, “not many”.

See, most small business owners think the point of their website is to serve as an online business card instead of a lead generation tool. They fail to have lead generation systems like Free Quote Request, Free Newsletter Signups, Free Report By Email, ect. built into their site thus missing the boat on potential leads to follow up with.

Should I build my own website or hire a web designer? DIY Danger

You may be tempted to build your own DIY website for a lot of reasons. Maybe you’re a proud DIY’er with many successful projects under your belt and the thought of doing something all by yourself is just too irresistible. Maybe you just want the glory and recognition, or maybe you just want to cut costs. But whatever your reason for taking on the challenge of creating your own website, we commend you! You’re in for quite the ride.

If you believe that DIY business website design should be your priority, you should reconsider. I am sure that as a new business owner you have lots of other things to do that are more valuable for your time and more beneficial to your small business. Focus on those instead. By doing so you will have a much more positive impact on your business than failing at DIY business website design.

If you’re considering using a drag-and-drop style of website creator like Wix, Squarespace, or WordPress you are going to be a bit overwhelmed when you start building your site with the editor. There are many built in tutorials with these editors to assist you but unless you are really techie this is going to take some time,

You can select a theme/design foundation to speed up the process. You’ll quickly notice that the placeholder text/script looks a little funny. Every placeholder starts with the words “Lorem Ipsum dolor sit amet.” If that doesn’t make any sense to you, then you’re reading it right. You’re not supposed to understand what you’re looking at unless, of course, you’re familiar with the Roman philosopher Cicero, from whom that text derives. Because these words really do stick out like a sore thumb and because everyone knows that its traditional placeholder text, leaving it on the site by accident could (and should) lead to major embarrassment. If you don’t have the text to fill in all the spaces where you could put text, just remember to delete your Lorem Ipsums and leave a blank space instead.

Inconsistent content can mean a lot of things: wrong product information, misspelled words, different store hours or contact information on different pages, or filler content that you just threw on a page that has really nothing to do with your website. The most professional-looking websites have seamless web pages that provide consistent information no matter where you click. If you’re handling the website all on your own, it might be easier to write consistently. But if you’re delegating the pages, please make sure that everyone knows what they’re doing and that they have the correct info.

What’s more important than the frills are the meat and potatoes. We’re not saying that there’s anything wrong with the style of your website (and in fact, we’ll even go as far as to say that it can greatly enhance the user’s experience). However, if you’re building your own website from scratch, we think it’s best to prioritize. We have spoke to many people who have successfully completed their website through a drag and drop builder and frankly it looks great. They call us not because they are unhappy with the design, but because they get no traffic or clicks to their site. So the first thing we do is take them to the search engines and do some keyword searches to find out where they are coming up. We usually find them on pages 3-5 on average for the different keyword terms. This is due to the build it yourself websites do not have SEO techniques implemented into the coding of their site so most search engines have no idea when, why or how to bring the site up.

Also another important note, don’t neglect your mobile users! Not only will your website be really annoying to use for the majority of mobile users, but it will affect your search engine rankings. As of 2015, all websites that aren’t mobile-friendly won’t get any love from Google, in fact they’ll slowly drop out of the search results. So why would waste your time building a beautiful website that looks good for only the fraction of your users? There are several ways to make your website more mobile-friendly, and how you get there will depend on your developer. Most of the time, all it takes is a click of a button. Enabling Google AMPs or accelerated mobile pages will also help boost your load times.

Your potential customers are going to form an opinion about your brand based on your online presence. And your business website is a big part of that! If you don’t grab your customer’s attention in a few seconds (remember that goldfish have a longer attention span than we do!), or if your website has a confusing navigation menu, many typos, or lacks a functional contact form your customers will move on to your competition.

Only a well-designed small business website will attract and convert consumers. Simply put, by having a quality business website design you are showing your site visitors that you are a quality business. It shows that you care enough to invest in your online brand. For that reason alone, DIY business website design just doesn’t measure up! Also even after your site is build you will want to hire a company for ongoing website maintenance services to ensure your site is secure, backed up and SEO friendly.

To get your business website to rank well on search engines, you really need to know what you are doing. In addition to having SEO-friendly content and building SEO-friendly links you also need to pay attention to Google best practices and avoid common small business SEO mistakes.

You know what they say about being a Jack of all trades? That you become a master of none. Don’t let that be the case with your DIY website. People love using the term “throwing a website together,” but the reality is, it takes A LOT more work than that. If you think the work stops after building it, think again. Maintaining a website is just as important, so if you really want to build it yourself, you’re looking at a long-term commitment. That’s why we suggest doing your homework first. Don’t go in blind! There are so many resources available on the internet that can teach you everything you need to know. And don’t forget that Wix, GoDaddy, WordPress, Squarespace, and Shopify all have really useful resources.

If having a website that is properly optimized for search engines so you can actually be found and can generate qualified leads for you to follow up with is important to you, than it is probably not a good idea to build your own website. Focus on what you do best and run your business and let a pro handle the website and SEO.

Contact us today if you are interested in a free quote in a custom mobile enabled, lead generating, SEO optimized website for your small business.