Why you should never build your own website

by Gideon van der Merwe, Julian Labuschagne

October 01, 2019

You’ve all heard those words. “You need a website, why not build it yourself ?”. Well, in this article we are going to tell you why it’s a bad idea to build your own website.

• You wouldn't build your own house.
• You wouldn't build your own car.

However, when it comes to a website, anyone can do it right ? I see kids on Facebook advertising websites for dirt cheap. How hard can it be. Why should I get someone else to build my website ? It's not like there's some kind of science or rules to follow, as long as it looks good right ? Wrong.

A website and online presence is made up of many different sections and parts. Each small part might seem insignificant, however if you put all of these parts together, they play a huge role in how successful your website will be.

Building a website with wix is no better than building a car without any knowledge of how to build a car. You might choose all the right parts like doors, windows and wheels and put them all together, but that does not mean you will have a functional car or even a good looking car.

However, on the other hand, when you have been building cars for years, you know how to put everything together so that it works. You also know out of years of experience what is the best way to build the car and what changes or additions should be made. Someone who has experience in the field can help the driver with a maintenance plan for their car and give them some good driving tips.

Here are 10 reasons why you should never build your own website

1. You should focus on your business. Stop trying to do everything yourself. Focus on what you do best and let a professional work on your website. There’s nothing worse for your business than losing its focus and trying to get away with cheap and easy solutions that will hurt you in the long run.


2. You might think your design looks good, however you are not a designer. Design is something that can take years and require talent to master. Something might look good to you, but it might be hurting your business at the same time. You probably don't understand the importance of design principles and what impact a good design will have, e.g. what action a user is drawn to, what feeling is invoked with a user, how frustrating or easy the user interface is to use. A solid and well planned design also establishes trust with your customers. There are reasons why certain colors are used, why elements are arranged and placed in specific places and why the right font can make all the difference in the world.


3. You don't have the technical expertise. Web design principles and rules changes by the day, especially things like SEO and web design patterns. Deciding which technology stack to use will depend greatly on the type of website you are building and take years of experience to know and understand why to choose one over the other. You also probably don't have the right tools to build the website. These decisions can easily be made and explained by a professional web developer and save you lots of time in the long run.


4. You won’t follow any web standards or heuristics. Your competition probably hired a professional to build their website according to the latest trends and standards that customers expect or that customers are already used to. By building something yourself, you might create something that will frustrate or confuse your customers, or build something that was popular 20 years ago.


5. You will need someone to help fix your website if something goes wrong. Using a website builder usually means that the code is proprietary or not completely customisable. If something breaks or needs to be changed at a later stage, it could be difficult and most web developers or designers would suggest to just build a new one rather than making changes to something that is not up to standard or easy to change.


6. It will take you a long time to build. Your time is important and should be spent on your business.


7. You will not maintain your own website. Besides content updates and website changes, there are also other maintenance that needs to be done. Depending on the platform or technology, you might need weekly security updates to ensure the website is not compromised. Sometimes an update might break something else on your website. If you have the knowledge and experience, this can easily be caught and fixed quickly.


8. What about security, transparency and technical support ? How do you know if your website is not hacked or contains malicious content. How do you know that your contact form is not sending out spam or is not hurting your website and reputation. And more importantly, since you chose to build it yourself, you will have to fix it yourself. These are all things that can be easily avoided by using a professional who knows about these problems.


9. Do you know what HTML, CSS or Javascript is ? What about the latest technology trends and best frameworks to use. You probably don’t and will probably just use a website builder. This is bad for many reasons. Some of these are that your website will not be your own, it does not have good search engine optimisation and it’s very difficult to move if you have your own website one day. These type of websites are also very limited and force you to use one of their templates. It’s also not very customisable, which is especially bad if your website grow with time. Furthermore, you have no idea what maintenance, if any, is being done behind the scenes and have no idea if your website is really secure and updated. You also have no control over your website optimisation like loading speeds and index ranking.


10. Time is critical in every business. It takes time to be great at something. Building your own website will take you much longer than it needs to. A professional web developer has already learnt the necessary skills and have the experience to know which decisions are best to make for the website you are building. Stop wasting time and get a professional.