“…But the commercial said it was so easy to build a website!”
The nightmare sets in pretty quickly. You sign up for a DIY web service such as Wix, Squarespace, or GoDaddy, and you even get to choose a pretty sweet template. Then after a minute or so, the honeymoon period abruptly ends and you are faced with confusion, design restrictions, and a helpless inability to get your site looking the way you had hoped. Let’s face it…DIY web services can be overwhelming. Some entrepreneurs are lucky to have both the technical and design skills required to troubleshoot their way through such a situation. Then there’s the other 99% of us…
“It All Went Downhill So Fast!”
The concept of DIY makes sense on paper: Simply provide a platform where anybody can build a professional-looking website using pre-built templates with lots of neat features. What could possibly go wrong? For the average user, the issues arise the moment they make that first edit. Almost immediately, that fresh, unblemished template gets corrupted by the new content that is inserted—text that doesn’t fit quite right, images that look out of place, and a mobile experience that is riddled with misalignments and glitches.
As you struggle trying to solve these issues, your situation soon becomes clear: You are a business owner, not a professional designer. It should not be your responsibility to understand the fundamentals of website building nor effective design. Even if you are able to overcome some of these initial hurdles, your website most certainly will not look as professional as the original polished template with which you started—nor will you find any relief the moment you plan to add any new features.
So what are some of the most the common frustrations with DIY site builders?
As a design company that provides solutions for small to mid-size businesses, we very often receive the S.O.S. from clients to save their site from DIY purgatory. Interestingly, over the past fifteen years not too much has changed. One-size-fits-all solutions for website design have continuously fallen short on their promises. To a creative thinker, the reason is quite simple and two-fold: Humans are not designed as one-brain-fits-all, nor are any two websites the same. Also, it is unreasonable to assume that every DIY user will have an eye for effective visual design and technical know-how. That is equivalent to assuming every bachelor will make an outstanding interior decorator (I’ve been to enough man caves to know that is simply not the case), or that anyone who breaks down on the side of the highway will be skilled enough to fix their car on the spot. DIY web services are such a perpetual headache because they assume both.
And it gets worse! Not only are these sites difficult to build and make look professional, maintaining them presents a whole new slew of challenges for the amateur. Below are five of the most common issues reported by victims of the DIY website-building experience:
1. Limited Design Flexibility: Templates look nice and polished at first, but once you begin to drag and drop new content, they appear clunky, unprofessional, and present all sorts of mobile compatibility issues. To achieve that same professional look as the original template, you basically need to replicate the exact content you see with minimal variations.
2. Limited Scalability: While DIY services may be a fit for some small businesses or personal sites, their functional limitations fall short of the needs of a fast-growing and evolving company. As a forward-thinking creative design company, we encourage clients to never dismiss the potential growth for their business. Limiting your site’s ability to implement new features and functions is not worth saving a few bucks in the beginning.
3. Generic/Amateur Look: Overall it is difficult to escape that “template feel” when you are overly reliant on DIY services. There is simply no comparison to an original, completely customized site using a platform such as WordPress—built by a professional designer. As was the case with stock photography over two decades ago, over time it gets easier to sniff out an unoriginal, overused, pre-designed element rather than a fresh, inspiring new piece of art.
4. Weak Customer Support: Any extensive one-size-fits-all solution usually translates to poor, impersonal customer service. DIY web services are no exception. Customers constantly complain of long wait times, limited phone hours, and over-reliance on forums or chatbots to handle inquiries. When it comes to your website, you want it fixed immediately— and by a human!
5. Getting Locked into a Platform: Breaking up with a DIY web service is probably the largest issue encountered in the whole website building experience—and it’s rarely even considered at the start! When you ultimately decide to move on from a DIY services such as Wix, Squarespace, or GoDaddy and instead move on to a custom site builder solution such as WordPress, you basically need to start from scratch. In short, when you forfeit your subscription to a DIY web service, you forfeit your whole website as well!
Honorable Mention
Unfortunately, many other pitfalls are encountered throughout the DIY web building experience. While every site’s needs are different, the user should also be aware of the following when considering such a solution:
Performance & Speed Issues
Sites built on DIY platforms often load slower than custom, optimized WordPress sites, negatively impacting user experience. Site builders such as GoDaddy notoriously share your server space with countless other unknown sites, resulting in reduced performance, and worse, heightened security vulnerabilities. Also, the bloated coding found in the back end of pre-built templated websites is not only messy, but it may negatively impact your SEO.
SEO Limitations
In addition to bloated back end coding, SEO is negatively affected by DIY web builders because most do not allow for full control over countless technical SEO strategies. These may include as meta-tagging, data structuring, and customization of URLs for search engines. The last thing a new business wants is the inability to be found!
Hidden Costs
Base plans for DIY websites may initially present as inexpensive, but necessary add-ons such as security plugins, e-commerce functionality, proper server capacity, email setup, and analytics tools can quickly increase costs. It is not rare for the long-term cost of a DIY service to rival (or even exceed) the cost of a custom-built site. Also, do not forget the cost of starting over from scratch when you ultimately decide to move on from your DIY web service!
So, What’s The Solution?
We get it. Money is tight when you are first starting a business or self-funding a personal site. We also understand that entrepreneurs need to wear many hats in the early stages of building a business, including running operations, building and maintaining your website, and sweeping the floors! You may be surprised to know that we actually recommend DIY web builders to some of our clients. However, that does not excuse us from fully disclosing the limitations of such products, nor from providing an alternative solution…
Introducing AMVCreative’s Guided DIY Website Accelerator Workshop
As small business specialists, we see a limited budget simply as an opportunity to plan even smarter. We value a hands-on entrepreneur, but we know that nearly all DIY-seekers still need guidance from the experts. Welcome to AMVCreative’s 2-Day Website Accelerator Workshop — a unique, guided DIY experience for small businesses and non-profits. The 2-day workshop caters to those clients who have tighter budgets and are in a position where they need to build and manage their own website—with no previous experience required. In addition to getting your site launched quickly, the workshop addresses all of the frustrations mentioned above while still providing the necessary DIY training to maintain your website moving forward.
Our Accelerator websites are built on the same flexible WordPress platform we use to build nearly all of our other clients’ custom sites. Additionally, AMVCreative remains in your corner as an ongoing, accessible resource for hosting, maintenance, and technical support. We are also your design partner for any web, video or graphic design assistance you may need as your business, branding, and website continue to grow…with no strings attached!
Final Warning!
Before jumping head-first into any DIY service, first know your own limitations. Are you tech-savvy? Do you know how to create effective design? Do you get frustrated with restrictive services? Are you a good troubleshooter? DIY web services are predominantly outside-in solutions—meaning they are pre-built, non-transferable, and you will always need to play within their set of rules. Understanding these limitations is pivotal should you want to invest in such a solution for the long-term. Just be prepared that the moment your website (or your patience) has outgrown the capacity of a GoDaddy, Wix or Squarespace, you will need to start from square one!
NON-NEGOTIABLES
- WEIGH all smart options first before going with the cheapest service
- UNDERSTAND limitations of a DIY service before getting wooed by any of the attractive features
- KNOW yourself and the skills you personally need in order to handle a DIY website project
AMVCreative combines expertise in video, web and graphic design—all under one roof! Have an upcoming project that you need help planning?
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