Building your own website
Far too often, small businesses set aside a budget for marketing themselves online, only to spend the lot on a website, leaving no budget for promoting their business.
So how do you make your budget go further?
Building a site, yourself, can free up $3000 - $6000 of web developer fees. This can be done without any technical expertise using DIY Website Building Platforms that simply let you add text and pictures onto a page with the click of a button. Or, if you don’t have the time to build it, getting someone to create a site for you on one of these platforms will be a fraction of the cost of a bespoke build. See our Website Creation page for details.
Drag-and-Drop Website Builders
Whether you call them WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) or Drag-and-Drop, the principal is the same - no coding required. There are a few platform options and you may have heard of a couple, such as WIX and Squarespace.
Pros:
Free to build yourself
Free and easy to update
Looks modern and professional
Simple online store setup
Cons:
Limited designs
Hosting can cost more than other shared server products
Your time is required to build it
There’s a lot of information out there about how WYSIWYG sites are not the best for SEO. While this may have been true in the beginning, the later versions have resolved a number of the problems that initially impacted the ability to rank well in search results.
WordPress Websites
If you’re a bit more tech savvy, you can get more flexibility with a WordPress website. WordPress is open source and can be downloaded for free to your hosted server. There are heaps of free templates and plugins to get your site to look and function the way you want.
Pros:
Cheaper to host
Greater range of template designs
Access to a wide range of plugins
Cons:
Technical knowledge is needed to setup and edit
Past history of security issues with plugins being compromised
Frequently requires updating which can break old plugins and designs
Website Hosting
A website is hosted on a server. If you imagine this as real estate, a server is the land and a website is the property that’s built on top.
For WordPress, we would recommend using a GoDaddy server, which starts around $10 /month. Plus, installation assistance is provided.
The bonus of Squarespace and Wix is that the website builder and hosting are bundled together so you don’t need to worry about finding a provider but it does cost a little more. Business website plans start from around $20 /month.
Also, be sure to note that website hosting is separate from domain hosting.
Domain Hosting
A domain is the web address, eg spottedwebmarketing.com.au. To use the real estate example again, consider this your street address of your house …except you get to choose the name of the street.
DIY builders offer domain hosting services but often only with the standard .com suffix, not local .com.au or .co.nz options. For this reason, it’s often easier (and cheaper) to purchase through a separate domain host, like GoDaddy or Crazy Domains.
Once you’ve bought your domain, there are helpful guides on how to connect it to your website. For example, How to connect a GoDaddy domain to a Squarespace website
Website Domain Tips:
A local domain like .com.au will be more likely to appear in local searches (with good SEO) than a .com domain. Only consider .com if your business operates internationally.
It’s important to get a domain that identifies your business but is not too long (6-16 characters).
Avoid putting characters like ‘-’ in the domain and be sure to keep it as short as possible.
Note that there are many providers, we have just found GoDaddy to be easy to use and the 24/7 customer service is helpful if you find yourself in a jam.
If you want to bounce some ideas around, we’re happy to help.
Getting Started
From the information, above, you’ll have an idea which option suits you best. Or, if not, have a look at them in more detail here. Find links for how to get started on both options:
Short on time? Let us get your site up and running for you! Get in touch