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Recently I participated in a Marketing Seminar at the Business Gateway<\/a> in Aberdeen, facilitated by the excellent Liz Pirrie.\u00a0 Listening to the great bunch of people passionately describing their businesses \u2013 animal welfare, fitness trainers, payroll services, pollution control consultants, luxury soap manufacturer, the variety was huge \u2013 and their hectic days; it was obvious that as a small business owner you have many, often competing, priorities \u2026.<\/p>\n I was exhausted just listening to them!\u00a0 It got me thinking, \u2018why, when you have so much on your plate already, would you ever would ever consider making your own website<\/strong><\/em>\u2019?<\/p>\n It is true, if you require a website for your business, you are faced with a bewildering range of choices.\u00a0 \u2018Doing it yourself\u2019 using one of the apparently \u201ceasy to use\u201d template based services can be very appealing.<\/p>\n However, is it such a good idea?\u00a0 Are there any drawbacks to using a template driven site builder for your businesses website?\u00a0 Yes there are, and before opting for a DIY template website, here are seven you should be aware of before opting for DIY.<\/p>\n \u00a01. \u00a0Learning Curve<\/b> – The adverts for these services are full of people smiling happily whilst they create an amazing looking website in less time than it takes to rustle up a sandwich. It is largely a con. \u00a0As with any tool, working out how to use it, and use it effectively, takes time.\u00a0 Business owners can often take 40 \u2013 50 hours to learn how to use the web development tool and then craft the finished website for their firm. \u00a0Whilst the business owner has been beavering away creating a website, what else could (perhaps more importantly \u2013 should)<\/u> they have been doing?\u00a0 And, have they truly saved any money by doing it themselves?\u00a0 Take those 40 -50 hours and multiply by the hourly rate charged to a customer.\u00a0 They may well find that a professional web designer would have cost them less (and created the site far more quickly) than the business owner has managed to do themselves using a\u00a0template. 2. \u00a0No differentiation<\/strong> – Using a template means that everyone that adopts that tool starts out with the same basic framework. More than likely, the resulting website will resemble each other.\u00a0 Access to the same font packages, same image galleries and same basic colour schemes all but guarantee a site is going to be similar to other sites derived from the same source.\u00a0 We all want to stand out, we all want our business to look different; using a template significantly reduces our ability to reflect our businesses true identity in our website.<\/p>\n 3. \u00a0User Experience<\/strong> – Whilst a template does allow you to create a website, will it be a good<\/span> website and will it work for your customers? Most of us make a snap decisions about a product or service in the first few seconds of viewing its website.\u00a0 Without a good understanding of User Experience (UX) and thus User Interface (UI) design, the business owner employing\u00a0a template is stuck with the UI and UX that the template builder had in mind.\u00a0 Poorly placed navigation links, hard to read colour combinations, unresponsive designs will all drive\u00a0the site visitor\u00a0back to the search results and onto\u00a0another site \u2013 another potential customer lost.<\/p>\n \u00a04. \u00a0Transfer-ability<\/strong> \u2013 In many cases, you can\u2019t easily move a site or its contents when it is based on a template service. If the business happens to outgrow the service provided by the template hosts or gets fed up with their less than stellar support, they might discover they are stuck with the template hosts as they are\u00a0not be able to download their content to go elsewhere.\u00a0 They are not far short of being a \u201chostage\u201d! 5. \u00a0Backups<\/strong> – Most templates back up their systems in case of a crash but don\u2019t necessarily protect you from yourself. If you accidentally delete an entire page from your website it may be gone for good.\u00a0 As an aside, if a site is created in a template it is worth backing it up to your local machine so you have the text and images just in case you remove something important.\u00a0 Imagine how long it would take to restore an entire page of information, source the graphics you previously used and re-configure the links you had on the page.<\/p>\n 6. \u00a0Total cost<\/strong> – The template will<\/u> cost more in the long run. Most templates are based on a monthly fee.\u00a0 This can be upwards of $25 \/ \u00a318 per month.\u00a0 Add that up over a couple of years and compare to site hosting fees.\u00a0 Over the course of a few years the small business will have spent more than it would have taken to have their site built by a web designer and<\/u> have it hosted. 7. \u00a0Lastly, Value versus Cost<\/strong> – Yes, going down the template route might appear to be cheaper (though you might be questioning this now too) but will the website give the business the Value<\/strong><\/em> it needs and requires?\u00a0 A good website will help to draw customers to a business whilst a poor one might actively turn them away.\u00a0 Small businesses usually have a very specific goal in mind for their websites. \u00a0Attract, engage, retain and convert<\/strong> visitors to customers. \u00a0If a\u00a0site fails at any one of these stages then it clearly hasn\u2019t succeeded as a business tool.\u00a0 Knowing how to attract, engage, retain and convert visitors is what you are paying the web designer for.<\/p>\n Do your business a favour and don\u2019t trust to luck and a template.\u00a0 Engage a web design professional to make your business website a success.\u00a0 It will let you get on with successfully managing your business!<\/p>\n QD Design have been making outstanding websites<\/a> for smaller businesses and start-ups since 2004. \u00a0We know exactly the challenges small business face and can help and advise on the best options for any small business looking to get onto the web.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Recently I participated in a Marketing Seminar at the Business Gateway in Aberdeen, facilitated by the excellent Liz Pirrie.\u00a0 Listening to the great bunch of people passionately describing their businesses \u2013 animal welfare, fitness trainers, payroll services, pollution control consultants, luxury soap manufacturer, the variety was huge \u2013 and their hectic days; it was obvious … Continue reading Why DIY websites frequently fail to deliver<\/span> \n
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