3 frightening reasons not to design your own website

PENNInk Productions
PENNInk Productions
3 min readOct 26, 2017
Halloween

Halloween isn’t the only freak show in town. Just look around on the Internet at any number of small business websites that have been cobbled together and you’ll see plenty of ghouls. Don’t try your hand at a DIY website unless you’re determined to step into the web unassisted…

When you’re comparing website design companies in the UK, it can be easy to come to the conclusion that they’re all pretty much the same — and that in any case, wouldn’t it be better if you just designed your own website? After all, on paper at least, your own company is best placed to know what it needs from a website design.

Alas, there’s a perilously thin line between a website design done ‘right’ and a website design done ‘wrong’. While the most suitable website will continually create value for your company, an incorrectly designed site will frustrate your potential clients, and you as a business owner.

You really do ‘get what you pay for’ when it comes to web design. Below are just three factors that very much are ‘stopping you’ from designing your own website — and for good reason.

1. The need to adapt… to everything

Yes, there are ‘build-your-own-site’ templates out there that enable you to create a surprisingly slick and professional-looking business website.

  • It might even be brilliantly simple to navigate — but will it always be so impressive?
  • Will the original developer of the template update it regularly to ensure it continues to deliver the very best standards of usability and security?
  • Or will you find yourself hurriedly having to shift your site to a new template to keep it looking vaguely up-to-date?

A site created by one of the leading website design companies in the UK — such as PENNInk Productions — will incorporate the customisation capabilities that enable it to adapt and evolve over the coming years in line with your business’s changing needs.

2. The finer demands of usability

If you’ve long been accustomed to the idea of the ‘user experience’ aspect of your website simply being about whether your visitors only need a few seconds to find the link to your company’s ‘About Us’ page, it’s time to think again.

The truth is that there are certain things that even the best-designed template sites cannot do from a usability and experience perspective.

It might be a struggle for you to find a template that feels truly individual to your business’s values and character — because of course, it won’t be — and you certainly can’t expect a template site to tell a compelling story evocative of your brand, and only your brand.

Speed optimisation is just one important aspect of a site build that will affect its ability to appear in searches and that will in turn affect lead generation.

3. There are a lot of things you just don’t know

Your ability to provide the stellar quality products and services that you provide to your customers is founded on your own hard won experience and expertise, right? We’re sure that if someone suggested that just anyone could do what you do with minimal training or prior experience, you’d be a little offended.

So, why do some people have that attitude towards web designers? The truth is that even the most modest website design companies in the UK are thinking about and practising website design continually, and have resultantly gained all manner of insights that would never even enter the average business owner’s head.

Website design is a specialised task, calling for specialised expertise

Of course, you’ll pay more for the services of a web design agency than you would for a ‘build it yourself’ solution. But you’ll reap the value of that investment in spades when you have a website that actually loads, functions and looks like it should, and which therefore really helps you to fulfil your company’s ambitions online by obtaining and converting incoming leads, which, after all, is the entire purpose of having a business website, isn’t it?

Originally published at PENNInk Productions.

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PENNInk Productions
PENNInk Productions

We hold your hand, while building YOUR brand. Websites, Social Media, SEO - we're good at all of them and love what we do!