Should I Build The Website Myself Or Hire An Agency?

Though some websites are quite complicated, the criteria for a good one is usually fairly simple.
A successful website should:

• be easy to use
• get your message across quickly
• contain great content
• sell your products
• be optimised for mobile users

However, achieving all of these requirements is not a simple task. WordPress may be a relatively simple platform for building sites, but getting your site to look professional enough to sell your products effectively takes time and skill. On the other hand it is possible for you to do all of this yourself with enough time and effort. So, should you?

Why Build Your Own?

The main reason that most people choose to build their own website is very simple: it might be cheaper. Building the site yourself means you’re not paying someone else and can invest the money elsewhere. Hiring a reputable agency is not often cheap and if you, like most business owners, are cost-conscious then cutting costs is an attractive prospect, especially if you are in the earliest stages of your business and working alone.

However, just because building your own site doesn’t have a financial outlay it doesn’t mean it isn’t costing you in some way. Building a site yourself will incur a large time outlay which could often be better spent expanding your business in other areas. This is especially true for small businesses in crowded markets who often need to expend all of their energy on gaining a foothold in it.

Often people build their own sites  in order to learn about the process of site building and gain enough skill to maintain or modify the site. WordPress has a lot of themes available which means that it is possible to build a very basic site yourself with much less training than with other options.

So What’s The Most Efficient Option?

So it’s true that you could teach yourself to build a site, but is it worth doing? Websites are much like cars – everyone needs to use them but not everyone needs to get under the hood. Unless you think you’re going to enjoy website building and would like to learn it as a hobby it may be wiser to outsource it to someone professional who can deal with it quickly and efficiently.

Typically, as a website hobbyist you are likely to miss some of the best practices employed by the industry. Say you manage to put aside some time to build the site but are you going to be able to put aside time regularly to service your site? Important issues like web security and site speed are time -consuming headaches for most newcomers who often don’t fully realise the depth of knowledge required to keep a website running well.

Delegating all site duties to an agency means you don’t have to give up your own time on a regular basis and you can simply focus on the jobs you do well…

Building the most basic of sites can be learnt in weeks. Building something that actually solves your problems can take years. Sites for businesses must look professional and nothing less is acceptable as it is the shop-front of your livelihood and if it is not good enough your business will lose customers.

So What’s The Verdict?

In the end, whether you should build your own website or not mostly comes down to time and money. If you have a lot of spare time then building yourself a very basic site could be fun. I remember completing my first site, and the feeling was great…! On the other hand, if you are in need of something professional then you’ll probably find very quickly that building and running a site for your business is generally a bigger task than most people have the time and desire to get involved in.

It’s never a bad idea to get to know how sites work and what to look out for. We recommend you check out some of the other articles on the blog to get some useful information on:

• hosting
• issues with Google in China
• site design trends
• responsive websites
• site safety

These should give you a good amount of basic knowledge to know what to look out for when considering a site for your business.

If you are looking for basic training to build a site, then  www.teamtreehouse.com is a good place to start for some useful tutorial videos.

If you want the job done quickly and to a high standard then simply contact a reputable digital agency to solve your problem. If there’s anything we didn’t cover in this article, then be sure to let us know and we’ll answer any questions you have via e-mail or on the blog. E-mail us now info@eggplantdigital.cn.