Company or DIY?

[Tabbie]

Can building your own basic brochure style website be as goo as getting a company to do one?

I have put one togteher which really suits my needs but I am being quoted £500-700 for a similar thing form a company. Is there anything the company are doing that I wont be able to do?

thanks

 

[drounding]

Perhaps, but it depends on your design and coding ability. Without a brief of what they are offering and not knowing what you've done it's impossible to say.

 

[OldWelshGuy]

This is a piece of string question as we don't know you, we don't know what you have built (nor can we as site reviews are not allowed for free memebrs), and we don't know who the company are or what they are proposing.

If the company are really good, understand website sales methodology for calls to action, usability etc, and they understand and ensure the site is SEO friendly 9spiderable etc), then if you know none of this there is every chance they can do a better job than you.

if they are clowns however, then there is every possibility that they could do worse.

EDIT cross posted with the bloke above

 

[Faevilangel]

Can building your own basic brochure style website be as goo as getting a company to do one?

I have put one togteher which really suits my needs but I am being quoted £500-700 for a similar thing form a company. Is there anything the company are doing that I wont be able to do?

thanks

All down to experience, your paying for their expertise e.g. seo, browser testing, accessibility etc.
Building your own site can be as good as a developers, but it's down to what you want, what they can give you and the deadline for the site. How much time did you spend on it? times that by 25 and you will get a rough estimate of what it would have cost you in time for a pro. Do you have enough time to build yourself and making it perfect?

 

[estwig]

Can building your own basic brochure style website be as goo as getting a company to do one?

I have put one togteher which really suits my needs but I am being quoted £500-700 for a similar thing form a company. Is there anything the company are doing that I wont be able to do?

thanks

Yes it can and probably will be better than getting a pro to do it. You care more and you know your business better.

If you've built a basic website, carry on, add to it, learn more, become proficient. This is a skill that will always stand you in good stead, being able to promote your business and your ideas on the interweb, will pay dividends.

 

[ecenica]

No harm in DIY sites. Rise of open-source apps like WordPress make it very easy to put together a half-decent website.

£700 is now on the high-end for a small brochure site. For similar money you could be looking at a custom website, with CMS and blog.

If you're happy with your own attempt, and it pulls in the number of visitors/sales/interest you expect than save your cash.

 

[tim2010]

Had very poor service from a company called serviceteam ltd based in London. Ironic that they use the term service. Appalling service and so called customer service. Would NEVER recommend this company. Just see their terms and conditions and ask my neighbors what they did to me. I have now had the work redone by an excellent tradesman.

 

[wykthorr]

A web desing company could probably do a better and quicker job provided they are real professionals. You pay not only for their time, but for the numerous hours spent learning stuff and keeping themselves up to date with the latest out there. A professional web designer / developer should be able to deliver a more accessible and standards compliant site than you. Mind you it's not only how people see it, it's also how machines (like the google crawler) see it that's important.

Fair enough, I've not seen your site and I don't want suggest it's not good, but this is the general rule as I see it: a professional work is better than DIY. Web design is no different than your, or any other, field of activity. You're doing recruiting because you can do it better and it's probably more cost efficient for your clients. It's essentially the same with web design. If the price seems too high maybe you've not yet found the right company or maybe your're just happy with your current website and in that case all's fine. Your site is part of your company you're the one who knows best how you want that to be.

 

[Darkie]

If it's quite a simple site, not involving complex modules, e-commerce plugins etc., you might be quite happy with an online website builder. There are tons of them online, just select the one that suits you best. In most cases you'll save the trouble of coding by yourself, because most builders provide a MS Word lookalike editor.

 

There's no harm in doing a DIY website but at the end of a day a professional web designer is a pro for a reason... they have the skills, the experience and as well as making your website attractive to visitors, they should also be able to help with getting the site picked up by the search engines.

I have to admit that I have seen a couple of DIY sites which made me cringe as a designer. But on the other hand there has also been some which were okay. It depends on your own skill level.