Web Design Marquette, MI | Middle Ear Media

Why DIY Websites are a bad idea

January 4th, 2012

The sales pitch for a Do It Your­self web­site might seem attrac­tive when you see the ad on TV or in the side­bar of your favorite social net­work, but do you really have the time? Do you really have the moti­va­tion? For most peo­ple, the answer to these ques­tions is no. Let’s take a look at some of the rea­sons why DIY web­sites are a bad idea.

Oppor­tu­nity Costs are High

Com­pared to any other form of adver­tis­ing, hav­ing a web­site is by far the most eco­nom­i­cal. Some peo­ple cringe at the thought of spend­ing money to have a web­site designed, devel­oped and hosted on the inter­net 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, and 365 days a year. At the same time, they’re shelling out cash for short-term print ads left and right. Maybe they are afraid of the tech­nol­ogy, but more likely they sim­ply don’t under­stand how ben­e­fi­cial it could be to their business.

Let’s be hon­est. The main rea­son why some­one would con­sider a DIY solu­tion is that they’re try­ing to max­i­mize their gain for a min­i­mum cost. Unfor­tu­nately, it’s not that easy. While the ini­tial cost may be low, the oppor­tu­nity costs are high. Due to inflex­i­bil­i­ties and lim­i­ta­tions, your search rank­ing abil­ity could be dimin­ished. Also, con­sumers can spot cookie-cutter tem­plate web­sites instantly. This type of site rarely encour­ages con­fi­dence in the user. If the site is too generic look­ing, it may cause con­fu­sion because of incon­sis­tency with the organization’s iden­tity or brand. Addi­tion­ally, the turnover rate will be greatly reduced.

Another rea­son why peo­ple go for DIY solu­tions is they want con­trol of the site’s design and lay­out. Maybe because they’re con­trol freaks, but some­times from a gen­uine artis­tic desire. Even so, lack of expe­ri­ence in UI and UX often lead to poor design choices, which often lead to unsat­is­fac­tory user expe­ri­ences. These are the sort of things that cause users to leave a site promptly and never return. This is fine for the ama­teur, but it is unac­cept­able for a pro­fes­sional orga­ni­za­tion or business.

Web­sites are Com­plex Systems

Web­sites are just good look­ing graph­ics, some text, and links right?. Wrong. Web­sites are com­plex, dynamic, mul­ti­lay­ered sys­tems that exist and evolve over time. Cre­at­ing and main­tain­ing them requires fun­da­men­tal knowl­edge of numer­ous under­ly­ing tech­nolo­gies and concepts.

Con­sider the fol­low­ing: AJAX, Ana­lyt­ics, Ani­ma­tion, Apache, APIs, Audio For­mats, Blog­ging, Browser Dif­fer­ences, CGI, Con­tent Man­age­ment Sys­tems, Con­tent Man­age­ment Strate­gies, Copy Writ­ing, CSS, Data­bases, Data Feeds, Dig­i­tal Image Manip­u­la­tion, Domain Name Reg­is­tra­tion, E-Commerce, Forms, HTML, HTML emails, Image For­mats, Indus­try Best Prac­tices, JavaScript, JSON, Lay­out, Mail­ing Lists, Micro For­mats, Oper­at­ing Sys­tem Dif­fer­ences, Page Load­ing Speed, Pay­ment Gate­ways, Pho­tog­ra­phy, PHP, Screen Size and Res­o­lu­tion, SEO, Secu­rity, Shop­ping Cart Sys­tems, Social Net­work­ing Inte­gra­tion, SQL, Stan­dards, Sub­scrip­tions, Typog­ra­phy, UI, UX, Web Host­ing, Web­safe Col­ors, Web­fonts, WHOIS Pri­vacy, XHTML… and the list goes on.

In addi­tion to fun­da­men­tal knowl­edge, it is also impor­tant to stay abreast of all updates and watch out for emerg­ing tech­nolo­gies, con­cepts, and tech­niques. The world is chang­ing, and the world wide web is chang­ing even faster.

Hire a Professional

If you feel like you have the skills, moti­va­tion, time, and resources to main­tain knowl­edge of every­thing required, then more power to you. You’ll prob­a­bly be a great web designer and devel­oper one day. If not, do your­self a favor and hire a pro­fes­sional. Your busi­ness or orga­ni­za­tion will be bet­ter off for it.

Full Dis­claimer: I am a pro­fes­sional web designer and devel­oper who would love to help you with your web­site needs, what­ever they are.

Tags: DIY, Do It Yourself, Web Design

This entry was posted in the Web Design category.