Should you be building a website from scratch?

Wix. Weebly. Squarespace. There are a plethora of website builders available now, that supposedly make it really easy to build a website. Above all, they pride themselves on being cheap, simple, and quick. Sounds perfect, right?

Well… not quite. They might be affordable, and easy to use, there’s a pretty high chance they’re not right for your business.

So, why then, should you NOT use a website builder?

1. You Want To Stand Out

When you use website builders, you’re going to be provided with a list of templates that everyone else has access to. While you may be able to customise these templates and put your own content in them, you’re not really going to get the same experience as a bespoke website. Surely, you want that additional functionality and edge to help your business stand out from the competition?

2. Custom Functionality

As mentioned, with website builders you’re going to be stuck with template websites that are pretty basic. If you want to add additional functions or features, you simply cannot do this in web builders.

3. Customer Service

When you use a website builder, you rarely receive any additional support, besides the occasional newsletter or question posted to a support forum. What if your website goes down? What if something stops working? If you don’t know how to tackle these issues, you could potentially be missing out on customers and losing revenue when these problems arise. When you use professional web developers, you can actually talk to a person, to ensure they understand your issue – allowing them to easier solve it. It’s better having somebody beside you to help you through things, rather than dealing with any issues yourself (especially if you’re not ‘techy’).

4. Personal UX

With a professional web agency, you’re going to get a supportive, professional team that wants to help your business grow. They will create a tailored user experience to fit your product and brand, ensuring users have a smooth, and optimal, experience.

5. No SEO

If you have a website, you’re probably (unless for some reason you don’t want it to have traffic) going to want to optimise it for search engine result pages (SERPs). The main way to do this is by optimising your website for search engines, better known as SEO. When you use a website builder, your website is going to consist of a jumble of code that has no structure, which means you’re going to struggle to increase your SEO. With a bespoke build, the website can be structured in a particular way, or aided with plugins to ensure that you appear in Google rankings.

Overall, it’s probably a bad idea to create your business’ website using a DIY website builder. Instead, you should enlist the help of a professional agency who can design you a website adhering to the latest industry standards, and help grow your presence online.